Garage Door Opener


The garage door openers we installed at our Nelsonville new build are Wayne-Dalton I-Drive units. The I-Drive is an opener that mounts on the wall above the door and lifts the door by turning the torsion tubes.

In theory the I-Drive is great. It takes less space there's no unit hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the garage, it runs faster, quieter, and has less vibration. The manufacturer advertises a quick easy installation.

In practice the I-Drive is so finicky it's almost unusable. The door must be in perfect balance to operate, the door may work fine by hand and the opener still won't work properly. It has a built-in locking mechanism that is also problematic, one opener still won't lock at all. The one hour installation advertised turned into four or five. I have installed many other types off openers, screw, chain and belt drives, without any of the problems experienced here.

I hadn't used the I-Drive before, I tried them on the recommendation of a fellow contractor. I will never use them again, and strongly advise against them. I will admit that I made the mistake of not researching this product before we used it. Research since has shown mountains of bad experiences with the Wayne-Dalton product.

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