If you are looking for a reliable and well-built garage door opener, Chamberlain, Genie, Wayne-Dalton, Sears, Univeral (Skylink), and Linear rank among the top.
If you're in the market for a garage door opener, here are some brief product reviews that you'll find useful.
Genie Garage Door Openers
Genie is one the best known and respected companies in the United States. This company has been around since 1923 and was originally known as the Alliance Manufacturing company. Genie not only manufactures consumer products, but industrial and military products as well.
Genie’s products are considered some of the best garage door openers because of their powerful remote controlled garage door opening systems. Genie manufactures a large variety of garage door openers among many different brand names, including Screw Drive, Chain Glide, and Excelerator.
Blue Max, Alliance, Crusader, Pro-Max, Python, OverHead Door, Norelco, Lift-a-Door, Intellicode, and Code-Dodger are other brands made by Genie.
All of Genie's garage door openers display cutting edge technology. The Intellicode remote access security system is considered one of the safest systems available anywhere. Each time the transmitter is used, it changes the security code to one of countless combinations.
The Safe-T-Beam system uses an infrared beam to detect objects in the door's path. This feature is very popular.
Genie garage door openers work with both single doors and double garage doors. The openers use 1/2 horsepower and are able to work with doors up to 8 feet high. Genie’s garage door openers close doors at normal speed but open them twice as quickly as other garage door openers. The powerful motor is designed to work in any weather condition. They feature bright, wide-angle lighting and run very quietly.
All of these technological advances make Genie one of the best garage door openers available today. They also feature some of the most competitive garage door prices.
Chamberlain Garage Door Openers
Chamberlain is based out of Germany. The company is limited to manufacturing residential garage door openers. They also make residential and commercial gate operators, and remote controls.
You can find Chamberlain products almost anywhere in the world. They have offices in England, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Slovak Republic.
Chamberlain makes garage door openers for both residential and commercial use. Power Drive and Whisper Drive are two of Chamberlain's most popular brands. But LiftMaster stands up above the rest.
The range of LiftMaster products include remotes, mini-transmitters, replacement parts, and keychain remotes. LiftMaster garage door openers are available in a number of horsepower modes and drives. A large combination of different options and accessories are also available.
Included in the LiftMaster series are the Contractor, Premium, and Estate. All three of these models can be purchased with belt, screw, or chain drive.
Whisper Drive and Power Drive are two of Chamberlain's brands that are do-it-yourself residential garage door openers.
The Elite series features both residential and commercial gate operators. Access control systems come standard.
The Sentex series is designed for secure commercial and residential garages.
Craftsman Garage Door Openers
Sears Holdings Corp. is the third largest retailer of the best garage door openers. Sears is the parent company of Kmart. Sears makes the Craftsman series of garage door openers.
Craftsman not only makes garage door openers and accessories, but also power tools, cabinets and storage chests, bench power tools, power tool accessories, mechanics tools, compressor tools, general hand tools, and home security.
Craftsman garage doors openers feature a basic 1/2 horsepower garage door opener. Chain drive model are 3/4 horsepower.
The Craftsman line also includes products that include:
- 10 foot chain drive extension kit
- Remote control conversion kit that includes one remote
- 8 or 10 feet garage door opener extension kit 8 feet rail extension kit
- Keyless entry pad
- Remote control
- 3-function security Plug-in light control
- Wireless monitor and extension kit for the screw drive garage door opener
Wayne Dalton makes both ceiling and wall mount garage door openers. Wayne Dalton is the exclusive maker of wall mount openers. They are mounted on the wall alongside the door. This eliminates the need for belts, chains, or screw drive that take up quite a bit of ceiling space.
Another benefit of these openers is that vibrations and noises are greatly minimized.
Linear Garage Door Openers
Linear is a major manufacturer of commercial, residential, and industrial garage door openers.
Linear makes a wide a range of garage door opener accessories, including:
- Linear DR3A Linear Moore-O-Matic gate or garage door opener receiver
- Linear Act 21 key chain transmitter
- Linear DT2A gate or garage door opener replacement transmitter
- Linear DTC Moore-O-Matic Delta 3 Remote (same as DTD or DT) gate or garage door opener replacement transmitter
- Linear DTKP wireless keypad
- Linear MDR Megacode System single channel receiver
- Linear MDT-1 and MDT-2 Megacode gate or garage door openers
- Linear MDTK wireless keypad model
- Linear MDR Megacode System single channel receiver
- Linear MT-2B channel visor block coded transmitter
