Reply to "Pantera on a lift?"

I'm going 4-post and am receiving a similar run-around from door contractors. Extra track and a couple of dummy sections seems like a reasonable approach to me.

In my case, my ceiling is 11' and has a standard 8 foot high double wide insulated door with the typical trolley type opener, enclosed cylindrical spring and track hung slightly above the door opening.

As I understand it, the first problem that must be over come is addressing the fact that trolley openers pulls parallel to the ground, not up. This is why the door is sitting right at the radiussed transition, and have the pivoting arm to attach to the trolley. If you merely extend the track up to the ceiling, the pivoting mechanism can't transition the pull of the opener to the horizontal track. -The dummy section of door mentioned above would solve the problem. You might also just hack saw the 90 degree radius into two 45 degree (or so) and extend up at 45 degrees, thus giving a transition to horizontal. This all may require a little higher spring loading as well, depending upon your opener.

The door guys were telling me I needed a jack shaft driven opener, commercial track and.... etc. $1250 was the lowest quote and no guarentees. I guess that's another way of saying I don't want the job. Looks like I'll be doing it myself.