Manufacturers of Garage Door Openers:

Automatic Technology, an Australian company, produces Garage door openers for the folks "Down Under"

Chamberlain LiftMaster the worlds largest manufacturer of Garage Door Openers

Genie has been producing Garage Door openers since 1954

Hormann USA the American Division of Europe’s largest supplier of Door Systems

Linear LLC has been selling and installing Automatic Garage Door Openers since 1961

Marantec are German-engineered and American-built

OverHead Door invented the Overhead Garage Door in 1921. They produce a complete line of Garage Doors and Garage Door Openers for Residential and Commercial use

Siep produces Automatic Garage Door Openers for the European and Australian Markets

Wayne-Dalton, a world leader in Garage Door Products for over 50 years

The following information was obtained at How-it-works.net:

Garage Door Materials:

There are several types of garage doors available. The oldest, as we mentioned, is wood. Wood is a great insulator, but doesn’t stand up well to excessive weather. And wood is heavy, too. That’s why manufacturers knew they had to come up with something lighter, that could insulate as well as wood. The industry’s first answer to that was the steel door.

Steel garage doors are made from galvanized panels of steel, attached in the same way the wood panels are in wood doors – in hinged sections that fold as the door travels up a vertical track and onto a horizontal track. The systems are the same – only the material has been changed.

But steel isn’t a good insulator, so to compensate, they double up the panels and fill the space between them with polystyrene or polyurethane insulation. Polyurethane insulates better than polystyrene, but it tends to break down after a period of time, whereas polystyrene lasts forever. Of course, if you don’t need insulation, like for an outer shed or similar building, then a single-thickness steel door will do the job. Steel is very low maintenance, so the manufacturers can offer longer warranties – up to several decades longer than wood.

These days, we’re getting more and more synthetic materials – composites made of combinations of substances specifically designed to work together to create a desired effect. Garage door manufacturers make good use of this technology. You can now get a wood door that’s combined with resin for extra strength and durability. Or you can get a fiberglass door that’s also very durable. Vinyl is also a very useful material when used strategically in the manufacture of garage doors. Although it’s more expensive than other materials, vinyl is popular because it’s dent resistant. And if you have children that are constantly hitting the door with bikes or balls, then a dent-resistant door is very important.

Regarding Garage Door Openers and Installation:

The most complicated part of a garage door is the opener and its hardware – the drive mechanism, the springs, the tracks, the brackets – all the parts that combine to make it work smoothly over and over and over again. There are all kinds of garage door springs and parts. One of the most important parts are the actual springs themselves. These powerful springs are under very high tension – that’s what gives them the strength to lift the weight of the door. If you look at a garage door, you’ll see either a set of springs, one on each side, or a long spring running across the top above the door.

The springs mounted on either side of a door are called extension springs. They’re usually used on single-car garages, because their mechanisms aren’t strong enough to hold the weight of a double door. You can see these springs stretched along the horizontal part of the track when the door’s closed.

Since there are more double garages than singles these days, the more popular spring system is the tension spring. You’ll see this spring mounted to the header, just above the top of the door. Tension springs can be extremely dangerous if tampered with. It’s a wound spring, which means it winds up into a coil, as opposed to the extension spring that expands and contracts. And because it winds up as the door closes, it holds a tremendous amount of tension. Any manufacturer will tell you that garage door installation of a tension spring type is a job for a professional only – it’s not to be tackled by amateurs. They say that skydiving is safer.

And then there are the bottom brackets, the cable drums, the vertical and horizontal tracks with their track hangers, and all the screws, hinges and plates that hold them in place. All this hardware is designed to work together to create the smooth operation of your garage door. So make sure you keep it maintained. Oil the bearings and spray WD-40 on the springs regularly – it’ll work better and last longer.

Your actual motor drive can be one of three types – chain drive, screw drive or belt drive. Many people are going with the belt drive today, even though it’s the most expensive, because of it’s smooth and quiet operation. But the chain drive system is also very popular because it’s the most affordable. The screw drive mechanism is slow-moving, so it’s used the least. But whatever type of garage door opener you use, especially if you have an automatic garage door opener to go with it (and most people do), then you probably love the convenience of not having to get out of your car in that horrible weather to open the door.