Jiminy Christmas, what an ordeal.
When we bought our present house only one of the two garage doors had an opener. I added one to my side and it was about a one-hour job.
The other one worked fine, so we didn't think about replacing it. However, the remote control has always been a bit fruity. Whereas mine works from a block away, Mrs NoCo had to get right up in front of the door before it would work. New batteries, new remote, nothing helped. Over the past couple of weeks it's gotten so bad that it took her several minutes to open the door when she comes home, or close it when she leaves.
The opener is a "learning" opener, supposedly allowing you to reprogram a new opener but even that stopped working. The lights that were supposed to flash... didn't. Several "reboots" didn't help. The wall switch still worked fine to open & close the door, but the electronics behind the remote control function apparently had gone completely tits.
So I got fed up and ordered a new opener, belt-drive like mine. Quieter than the chain.
Figured since there was already a working opener on that side, installation might be a snap.
But... no.
The track (and traveler) were of course totally different going from chain-drive to belt, so I had to replace them. The track was substantially narrower, so I had to bend the bracket that holds it above the door.
The garage door opener itself was substantially w-i-d-e-r than the old one, so I had to move around the erector-set metal pieces that hold it up. The track is about 6" longer than the old one, so I had to jerry-rig an extension to the bracket to hold the opener farther away.
I assembled everything and put it up... only to find the new opener didn't recognize the electric eyes on the bottom of the door. Why? They're just an on-off circuit. Had to replace those with the new ones.
Once the electric eyes were recognized I had to adjust the travel (which turned out to be easy, once I read the directions!) The remote worked fine... but the wall switch didn't. Why? It's just a close-contacts switch. Replaced the wall switch.
Finally got everything working, after wrestling with the damn thing for the better part of a day.
New opener has an iPhone app (which the Mrs will never use) and a battery (so it works during power outages) and it's nice and quiet and actually slows down when it reaches the limits of its travel so it doesn't bang the door shut. Overall it's a nice unit.
But I didn't save any time.
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