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Garage door battery backup

Saw an interruptable power supply for a garage opener once. Anyone seen or heard of this?

Reply to
Patrick
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You might be able to use a computer type UPS if it can handle the peak power requirements of the opener.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

would be tough due to the load did see a key lock device one time that basically pulled the handle if I remember

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Wayne

Reply to
wayne

Most computer UPS's are not designed for powerful motors even if they spec out right. You need to check with the manufacturer of the UPS.

Anyone

Reply to
Art Begun

According to Patrick :

It'd need a really beefy UPS. At _least_ 1500W peak. Probably more. On the order of $1000. Then you have to consider battery longevity. Spend $1000, and then the first time you need to use it 3 years later, the battery has expired...

Or you're stuck outside, and there's no alternate access - you'd have to break the door to get in again.

It's much more reliable to use one of the emergency access kits. Which consists of a knob (keyed on the outside, unkeyed on the inside) that pulls a pin out of the linkage, so you can manually lift the door.

Standard device, available just about anywhere that has garage door opener equipment. I think the one I bought for my dad was about $20.

Reply to
Chris Lewis

Wayne Dalton made an opener with a builtin battery backup but had problems with it. Only fit their brand doors with the special torque bar and has since been replaced with their IDrive that does not use the battery backup.

Reply to
Art Begun

Got to be one of the most decadent items imagined. If there is no power in the house, what are you going to do there? Plenty of time to figure out how to open and close it by muscle power, speaking as a person who has never had a garage door opener. No wonder we've got so many fat people. Next we'll hear of an interruptable power supply for a treadmill.

Reply to
George E. Cawthon

You are assuming his house has access to the garage. Some don't. So if he is locked outside the garage because the opener doesn't work, how is he supposed to get in? There are some locking devices that let you pull the opener release cord from outside a closed garaged door but probably not reachable with all openers.

Anyone

Reply to
Art Begun

I would hope that all codes [and all common sense] has allowed for ingress or egress from a garage when the garage door breaks a spring or jumps its tracks.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

Not when my father's house was built.

Reply to
Art Begun

Imagine this: It's raining and a hailstorm is on the way,you just pulled into the drive and here comes the hail. Garage door won't work and now you have to run (quite a long way) to get in the house and open up the door manually. Your relatively new car is now damaged. Is it so decadent now? This actually happened to me. I have had an opener for over twenty five years and it never ocurred to me to get something like this until this happened. If this were on a list of decadent items I'm sure it would be way down on the list. Guess I'll get rid of all my power tools and be fit and trim like yourself.

I probably woudn 't have posted this had I realized that garage doors in fact can be opened manually. I appreciate your feeble minded input. I'm sorry I had an idea.

Reply to
Patrick

According to Patrick :

Reminds me of the story about the teenage daughter who kept running the car into the back wall of the garage.

The father starts trying to figure out how to build something that would detect when the car got too close to the back wall, and sound an alarm.

The _other_ daughter says "daddy, why don't you just hang a tennis ball on a string at windshield level?"

From a cost effectiveness perspective, spending many hundreds of dollars on a garage door power backup, with inevitable battery replacement every couple of years, is going to cost more than the insurance deductable.

Worse, if you _do_ install the backup, and find out that the battery is dead, or the garage door opener itself got fried from a the lightning strike, or the door controller battery is dead, and therefore your equipment investment was a complete waste, and you still get pounded by hail.

Sometimes it's better to ask "how do I get the car into the garage if the power's dead" and see what options are available, rather than focussing on a particular solution from the get-go.

It's also good to consider emergency backup systems in the light of what the failure modes _are_, and ensure that you're covering all the bases with a solution that's as simple as possible. A UPS only helps if the power's gone. It doesn't help if the motor is fried. A cheap solution that works reliably no matter what's wrong is better than an expensive one that only covers one scenario.

Reply to
Chris Lewis

Actually Chamberlain is in the process of releasing one very soon if it is not already out. I've briefly seen a brochure on it recently, but don't know if it will work on any opener or if it will require a special model of opener.

Others should not knock your question without knowing someones intent of the purpose. Some people may not be able to open the door by hand for physical reasons & others let there older children use a keypad to get in the house thru the garage door instead of carrying around and/or losing house keys. I'm sure there is many more possibilities.

Doordoc

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I do not think a computer UPS would take the high draw of a garage door opener when it starts. Some of them wouldn't even run off of some generators without the generator being revved up first.

Reply to
Doordoc

Reply to
George E. Cawthon

My comment was meant to be humor, although the basic thought remains true. So much for feeble minded. Apparently I unintentionlly hit a nerve; you apparently already have concerns that your life style is decadent. The chance of a damaging hail storm starting at the exact moment you get home and your electricity is off at the same time is miniscule. The chance of it happening twice to you is so remote compared to you dying in an accident that.............. One more barb, no make that two. Did you ever check to find out that no one has such a device and think about why they don't have one? Or why people don't buy insurance to cover hail damamage... uhh, wait, cancel that, they do have insurance. Cheers. Take this as humor too, and have a drink on me.

Reply to
George E. Cawthon

You got me to thinking about how it could be done for all doors. I could picture it in my mind, decided it was to easy someone else had to make it already. A little surfing turned up this link.

For the benefit of the first poster and others with the same need one picture is worth 1000 words:

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Reply to
Colbyt

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