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This past spring I had a 4 post lift installed.
I used a GoPro to take over 3000 images to try to capture the install process.
Thanks to bobbyp (who did all of the hard work compiling the movie), you can watch 5.5hrs of installation in 2 minutes.
Cool vid. How many guys were doing the install?
Also would like to know your ceiling height, and also what kind of trick door & motor you have? That's the lowest ceiling clearance I've seen.
The hi-rise door track system is what makes a close to the ceiling mount. Notice his other door is at standard height, he set it up so one side was for the lift.
These hi-rise door tracks are available without purchasing a new door but do require a skill set to size and install correctly. It was time for new doors/openers in my homes garage, so just a couple of weeks ago we had two hi-rise systems, new insulated R19 doors, and the side mount openers installed. $2,680 for the whole package.
The estimator took lots of measurements and sent them off to the door company who then supplied the correct track/door for what I wanted to achieve. I had two options, a 30" radius which would make the door and track pretty much flush w/ the ceiling or a 21" radius which would leave the bottom of the track (horizontal) a 10" drop from the ceiling. I went with the 21" because we have surface mount florescent fixtures I did not want to move. We ended up needing to move them anyway as the door sits that high. I love it!
Sorry to distract from the OP but felt I could provide some good info here.
OP, nice set up!
Jim, ah, so that is why you did not need my offer of storage space! And all along I thought it was because you didn't want to leave me the keys
To answer the questions:
My garage has 10' 6" ceilings.
The first thing (after measuring multiple times to confirm that I would have room) I had done was to raise the single garage door to give sufficient room to open the door with a car in the upper spot.
A local garage door company simply replaced the angle portion of the existing track, adding an extension to raise the new portion to the ceiling. A replacement spring and bar that permits for greater tension/ strain was installed with the LiftMaster 8500 wall mounted direct drive opener. No other changes were needed to the door. It was $100 to add an electric plug in the ceiling in the area between the two doors, and $1000 for the changes to the track system and the addition of the wall mounted lift. The new opener is so far superior (quieter/ smoother/ faster/ better locking) to all other garage door openers I have ever used that I plan on only using this style opener in the future.
The lift is a BendPak HD-9 which I chose after a lot of on-line research on the various choices for 4-post lifts.
There are definitely drip pans in between the 2 levels!
A colleague and I decided to both buy lifts at the same time and were able to negotiate a good discount from a distributor for the simultaneous purchase.
We used an installer listed on the BendPak website, who also gave us a discount on installation and worked with our schedules, doing both jobs on one Saturday.
The installer picked both lifts up from freight drop-shipment and with 2 other workers first installed my colleague's HD-9 XT (extra tall) in his extra mega-oversized garage.
Then they came to my place and did the installation.
I did not have them bolt the lift to the floor, but my friend had the installers go back to his place after they finished with me to bolt his down. He noted a lot of flexing of the uprights when cars were raised and lowered which caused the whole rig to "walk" around in the garage.
Last edited by DocTock993; 11-25-2015 at 10:08 PM.
11-24-2015, 05:46 PM
Garage Lift Install
