For the most part, residential garage door openers are designed to ‘guide’ the door up and down- not to push or pull it. Some of the top-end garage door openers are better at putting up with more stress, but models like Genie, Chamberlain, Craftsman, Wayne Dalton, Linear, and even Lift Master, will wear out quickly if…
rollers are bad! Yep that’s right- the little wheels that the garage door uses to run up and down the tracks can destroy an opener faster than anything! Even if your garage door is perfectly Garage Door Opener For Tilt Up Door balanced (meaning the springs are counterbalancing the door’s weight correctly), having bad, OR PLASTIC, rollers will cause the garage door opener to strain every time it runs.
Unfortunately, if you live in a large development, or if the contractor went with an inexpensive garage door- the hardware that was installed to help your door go up and down will be barely functional after 5 years! But the rollers that are usually included are the worst. These black, plastic, bearing-less rollers do not work brand-new! As they do not have any bearings to help them roll through resistance placed on them during normal operation, they just lock- and DRAG up and down. You can actually see the black marks in the tracks from them rubbing off!
A better roller will have bearings (sealed are best) that help the roller actually roll through parts of the track where they encounter resistance. This will take more of the strain off of the garage door opener, allowing it to run longer. Now, if you have rollers with bearings already, but they are 15 years old… you have the same problem!
FIX: I recommend using a nylon-covered steel roller with sealed bearings. The company I used to work for would sell them for $220.00 per set, but they can be found much cheaper. I would try calling a smaller company, who are usually a lot cheaper. You can try to replace them yourself, but you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO REPLACE THE BOTTOM What Is A California Style Garage ROLLERS! IF YOU REMOVE THE BOTTOM BRACKET, WHICH HOLDS THE BOTTOM ROLLER IT WILL RELEASE HUNDREDS OF POUNDS OF PRESSURE FROM THE SPRINGS IN A SPLIT-SECOND; AND THE CABLES ARE ATTACHED TO THE BOTTOM BRACKET WHICH COULD SERIOUSLY INJURE YOU. You can easily replace the other rollers, however, and 8 out of 10 is better than nothing…
Also, if you have the old-style steel rollers, replacing them with nylon covered rollers will drastically reduce the noise of steel rollers on steel track! Plus the opener will love it!
