Chamberlain WD822KD Whisper Drive 1/2-HP Belt Drive Garage Door Opener
by Chamberlain
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List Price: Our Price: $198.00 You Save: $51.99 (21%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $178.20 (click here) Category: Tools See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Chamberlain WD822KD Whisper Drive 1/2-HP Belt Drive Garage Door Opener
Customer Review: Good quiet opener
Summary: 4 Stars
UPDATE 2011-01:
This opener has been in use for a year now. It still works great. No issues at all. Doesn't bind in the cold weather or anything.
Original Review:
This garage door opener works great for me. I replaced my old opener, a 17-year old Chamberlain ½ hp chain drive model that went belly up. Up until it died, I had no major problems, so I figure the brand was fine.
This new one is a belt drive. Since I live in the upper Midwest, I was concerned that a screw drive's grease would "gum up" and get hard to open in extremely cold weather. I've heard some people have had that problem.
Good:
-The belt drive is noticeably quieter than my old chain drive model.
-The unit was pretty easy to assemble.
-Once the opener is in and working, the door adjustments are easy to make.
-It can support two 100W lights, so it's much brighter than my old single 60W bulb model.
Bad:
-The rail arm seems pretty flexible or flimsy compared to my old opener. However, in fairness, the stiffness of this new rail is "good enough" to do the job. It just seems like it could be better.
-Once the rail is fitted together (push fit), it cannot easily be taken apart. So don't make a mistake positioning some critical holes on this step!
-(Minor issue) The wall pushbutton could have been made easier to mount. The screws are in hidden awkward spots. I mean, it's a GARAGE, does hiding the screw heads really matter?
Re-using items that are in good shape can make the opener install much faster, so below is a re-use/not re-use breakdown.
Notable items I COULD re-use from the old Chamberlain opener setup (to help locate these items, see the picture I posted above for customer images):
-Mounting bracket for the rail end near the door (Chamberlain calls it a header bracket). This was nice not to remount a new one.
-The motor-end hanging (or mounting) brackets.
-The door bracket and curved door arm (holds the door to the opener arm).
Notable items I COULD NOT re-use from the old Chamberlain opener setup:
-The old Chamberlain wires for the obstruction eye sensors. I suppose I could have spliced them, but you would think they could use a quick connector or screw terminals. This re-running and re-mounting of new wires was a pain that didn't seem necessary. I installed it in January, and the cold weather makes any added work aggravating.
-The old Chamberlain obstruction eye sensor brackets. They changed the sensor mounting, size and shape drastically, so you will have to re-mount the brackets. For my situation this added a lot of time with screws and 2x4's. The new ones come with the ability to clip them on the rail, but this wouldn't work for me.
-The old Chamberlain wall-mounted pushbutton.
In summary this opener is good, other than the installation annoyances detailed above.
Customer Review: Well thought-through do-it-yourself installation
Summary: 5 Stars
My old garage opener, Chamberlain 6200, died, and I decided that it was a good occasion to replace the old noisy opener with a quiter "whisper drive". I installed everything myself. The whole process, including diassembling the old one, installation of a new one, a trip to a hardware store to get some tools, and balancing the door by adjusting the springs, took about 8 hours. The installation process was very straightforward. The manual is very detailed, with clear written explanations and pictures of all parts that should be installed on each particular step. I found just one typo... The box includes every single part that one may need to replace the existing door opener, and even a few spare small parts which are easy to lose. However, for a new installation (in a garage which never had an electic opener) one needs a bracket which can be obtained from any hardware store for several dollars.
There is a fair amount of confusion about the 8-feet doors rail extension pack. This pack costs about $50 and is recommended for doors with the height of 8 feet. The "standard" door height, according to Chamberlain, is 7 feet. I bought it, and spent perhaps 20 minuts trying to figure out if I actually needed it or if I could return it back for a refund. It turned out that Chamberlain recommends the extension kit "to allow an 8 foot door to open fully". What it means, is that with the extension kit you can pull the door so far back that it would lie horizontally on its rails above your head. Without the extension kit, it will not be able to travel that far, and its bottom section would be slightly tilted downwards. Even though I have an 8 feet door (pretty much all newer houses have this size), my old garage opener was installed without an extension kit and worked just fine - I never thought that the door did not open enough. The extension kit adds just 5 or 6 inches to the rail and allows the gate to move a little bit further. I ended up installing the extension kit (just in case), but in retrospective I could just as fine skip it. The bottom line is that it is recommended by the manufacturer, but it is not absolutely necessary for a sectional door. However, it may be much more important to install such a kit for a one-piece door without a track.
The positive observation about this opener is that it is indeed noticeably quieter than the chain one (much less rattle), I like that it can be used with 100 W lamps, and I like the motion detector built in into the wall panel. Remotes work straight from the box, all batteries are included.
Installation requires certain tools and skills, but there is nothing particularly complicated. I did everything myself, with just a little help of my wife. Chamberlain is a brand name for garage openers, and I can recommend this particular product.
Customer Review: Works well, installation so-so
Summary: 4 Stars
Now that I have this opener installed, it works quite well. It's significantly quieter than the one it replaced (an old Stanley chain drive), and we've had no problems with it.
However, I found the installation to be a mixed bag. The instructions are clear and complete. The pieces were all there, and they all fit together properly. That's more than I can say for a lot of other products I've tried to assemble. But, at least for our installation, it seemed like there was too much stuff "not included." Aside from the pieces in the box, I had to supply: a bracket, bolts and nuts for mounting the opener to the ceiling (thankfully the hardware from the old opener worked with some slight modification); a reinforcement, bolts and nuts for attaching the opener arm to the wood garage door; extension brackets hardware to mount the electronic eyes to the floor by the garage door; additional cable staples to hold down the sensor wires.
None of these things are expensive or difficult to get. But it's a frustration to open the box and have to go to the store to buy a whole bunch more stuff to finish the project (if you were foolish enough to not read the instructions completely through ahead of time, you might have to stop work in the middle of installation). One of the pieces (the extension brackets for the electonic eyes) was a special order item, so I couldn't just run to the store and get it. In fact, I almost couldn't even order it online -- Chamberlain doesn't list it on their website catalog, so you may have to call them for it. I happened across another company selling it online, so I bought it from them.
I understand that Chamberlain can't include every possible optional piece that is necessary for every installation. However, some of these are very commonly needed, and would be very inexpensive for them to include. How many people have wood garage doors? A LOT, and the pieces needed for that install are not included. How many people need to mount their electric eyes somewhere other than clipped to the opener rails? I'd bet quite a few, but the small and inexpensive piece necessary to do so is a special order item. How many people need to mount the opener to the ceiling? Virtually everyone (though I can probably give them this one; mounting situations are so variable that it might be impractical to include all of the hardware for that).
I'm happy with this product, but the installation process would be a lot more pleasant if Chamberlain could spend the extra couple of bucks to include more of the commonly required hardware.
Customer Review: Just about perfect
Summary: 5 Stars
For the money I'd say this is the best garage door opener on the market. I had a screw drive Genie opener that lasted 16 years and a storm killed the board in it. They no longer stocked the part so I junked it. (get a surge protector folks)I bought this one for my Chamberlain:
http://www.amazon.com/LiftMaster-990LM-Surge-Protector/dp/B000JGI9SA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1284062499&sr=8-2
(This may take care of another problem mentioned here.....the circuit boards going bad)
Anyway, the Genie worked well for years but the remote was big and it wouldn't work from far away (my driveway is 115 feet long). Sometimes I was halfway down my driveway before it would open the door. I hated that because the door was sooooo slow, so I took a chance and went with this opener rather than another Genie. Also, I had to spray the screw with white lithium grease and sometimes it dripped on my garage floor so I wanted this belt drive unit.
Which brings me to the Chamberlain.....I read a few reviews here that said they had to drive up to the door to get it to open, and some said it worked from 300 feet away. Well I can assure you that mine works from at least 200 feet away and always opens with one quick press of the button. My guess is that the one's having a problem either cut off, or stuffed away the purple wire that hangs from the unit. That's the antenna folks! Mine works great, and this was the main reason I didn't get a Genie. Not sure how the new Genie's work, but mine sucked and I hated it. In fact I'm glad now it went down.
Another "problem" I've read about here is people complaining about the notion that the lights in the opener need to be manually shut off. Not so....this thing works just like any other garage door opener. The lights are on a timer and they go off automatically after about 8-10 minutes just like they should.
These two so-called problems are the main reason why I wrote the review. As everyone by now knows this thing is quiet, and it's a lot easier to change the bulbs than the Genie. And it's big enough for the florescent bulbs.
If the belt ever fails it will be easy to change IMO. As for the install, I had a lift to crank up the motor, but since few others do I would recommend having a friend to help install it. Buy this one, you won't be disappointed.
Customer Review: Easy installation: truly quiet!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought the Chamberlain whisper drive about a month prior to installing it and it just sat in my house while I dreaded the installation and procrastinated. Finally, my brother and I decided to complete the job on a Saturday. I was replacing a garage door opener that was built in 1987 and had an add-on reciever for remote controls (if it didn't, then I would have replaced it sooner). Anyway, the old opener was incredibly loud and had no safety features.
Installation of the Whisper drive took about 5 hours and the extra set of hands really helped (it would have been quicker if we didn't have to watch a 1.5 year old and 3 dogs at the same time). We were able to use the existing bracket on the garage door, the existing bracket on the ceiling (with some modification) and the existing wiring for the button. We found that the instructions were very well written and thorough (I should know; I'm a technical writer); however, it would have saved some time if I would have printed an extra copy because we were working on different steps at the same time and fighting over the instruction manual (you can find a .pdf of the instruction manual on the Chamberlain website).
Anyway, everything was very easy to install; you don't need to be technically inclined in order to do this job. The safety sensors clip right to the garage door rails and you string the wires over to quick-connect terminals on the opener. It is incredibly easy to calibrate the opener and the safety sensors (took me about 10 min.).
The opener comes with some nice extras including a large lighted wall button, two 100 watt light sockets (I can see my garage now), the opener comes pre-lubricated so no need to buy grease, it comes with a wireless keypad and three button remotes. The remotes can be programmed to turn-on the lights on the opener so you don't have to go back to the wall button when you are working in the garage. Also, you can buy an accessory 120v socket adapter that is programmed to the third button on the remote and you can use that to turn on/off exterior lights, interior lights, or anything that you want.
One word of advice: hit the hinges, spring, pulleys, and wheels on the garage door with WD-40 to further reduce noise.
Awesome opener, whisper quiet, anybody can install!