swinging garage door openers

[sonett43]

has anyone had any success converting a standard garage door opener to work with swinging carriage house type doors?

I've got a 30x30 barn with 3 bays each with double doors and having remote door openers would be a big help.

Searching the web, I've found some kits outside the US to do this, but nothing available in the states.

-Lewis

 

[jamm]

Look into fence gate openers. A lot of the Farm and Ranch type stores have gate openers that may work. I believe the ones that open to the outside use some type of bell-crank mechanism so the controller stays inside the fence which may work in your instance.

 

[the555]

On one of the SPEED channel shows, My Classic Car I think, they went to Billy Joel's house and he had carriage style doors that opened out. The opener looked like a screw drive type unit with hinged rods attached to the part that rode on the screw and the other end attached to the top of the doors.

 

[sonett43]

that's kind of what I'm thinking, something like 2 helm joints attached to the trolley attached to some threaded rod, attached to each door with another helm joint.

I'm just afraid to drop the $$$ and fail at this engineering challenge, was thinking someone else had been thru it, and/or a kit exists to do just this.

Lewis

 

[rsanter]

you can do a quick fab up with some scrap material and hand power it to prove it out. if it works hand powered then you can go for the opener.

bob

 

[bahamasair]

Get a set of cheap double swing gate openers. I have a set on my doors that swing out and they work fine.