Well, one of ours died about 6 months ago and we have spent 5 of those months sending the kids out to open it. It was actually not that bad until it got really cold. When the car door opened it got a bit chilly in the car and that was no good. We had the Wayne Dalton guy come out and give us a quote and Wow! $80 for the quote, $355 to fix it! Ouch! So I decided to take matters in my own hands...
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| Quality was a bit of a disappointment. The right side lens will not stay shut... |
I bought one of these beauties. This is a Chamberlin Whisperdrive. $180 at Lowes. Lowes has a more stripped down model than anyone else and is about $20 cheaper. And it is really quiet. We have an apartment above our garage, so as not to awaken the girls every morning, this was chosen. I didn't want to remove the iDrive because it is built in to the spring that counterbalances the door. The biggest problem is where to position the new top bar that holds the chain. As you can see below, it can be positioned right above the iDrive.
The only modification I had to make was removing the paddle thing (actually a security measure) from the bottom of the iDrive. It comes off easily with a screwdriver.
My dad and I put up the new opener in about 2 hours. It was very easy. I suggest not fixing the iDrive. They are nice, but a good replacement opener is way cheaper.
