Electric Garage doors- do they use a lot of electricity?

Steveotwo

Recently moved into a property with an electric garage door, do they use a lot of energy? I have some gym equipment in there and some tools paints kids bikes etc. we probably open and close 4 times a day at the moment. 

Not sure what kind of hit this will have on my bill, Id be happy with a manual door to be honest, not tried to manually open it don't want to mess with the springs on it 

Mark_d

No they don't use a lot of electricity...but compared to a manual garage door they use more electricity, cost more initially, and have more technical issues/breakdowns.

casper_gutman

There's a blog post regarding the running costs of electric garage doors here: How much does an electric garage door cost to run? | Garolla Garage Doors

It's written by someone whose job is selling garage doors, so there's a bit of a caveat there I suppose, but it looks believable to me. If anything, it looks as if their estimate will be on the conservative side: they've assumed the door takes one minute to open and close, four times a day, and I think most people would start to feel pretty impatient if they were waiting a full minute for a door to open/close!

ThisIsWeird

You won't notice it on your monthly bills - ever.

They run for around 10 seconds each time, and probably draw a couple of hundred watts for that duration?

On standby, it'll be well under one watt - which troubles some folk, but not most, 'cos - again - they'll never actually notice the difference in their bills.

You could unplug every 'standby' device in your home, and I'd be utterly gobsmacked if you could detect even a fractional difference in your bills. And, if you could, it would be pennies.

Not a lot to pay for a hell of a lot of convenience - I don't just mean the garage door, but everything else that's on standby.

Rodders53

The rating plate label is illegible but probably has the Voltage and Current used on it?  If not a Wattage.  Volts x Amps = Watts.

Time the door opening and closing time taken.  Multiply that time by the number of uses per day.

( Watts x {Time in minutes/60} )/1000 = the number of kWh (kiloWatt-hours) of electricity consumed each day...  1 kWh is one unit of electricity.

Modern Horstman doors use circa 200 Watts when opening or closing...  lets assume a 1 minute to open and close 4 times every day for a year 365 days?  I make that a tad under 5 kWh per annum.

Of course its also sitting in standby to allow a remote control fob to open/close it - where it might be consuming 1 Watt continuously... 365 x 24 / 1000 = 8.76 kWh per annum. It might be less (or more if an older design).

Then almost every device you have sitting in standby will be consuming a similar amount, as well.

So the actual door opening operation is 'lost in the noise' of other devices.

Steveotwo

Rodders53 said:

The rating plate label is illegible but probably has the Voltage and Current used on it?  If not a Wattage.  Volts x Amps = Watts.

Time the door opening and closing time taken.  Multiply that time by the number of uses per day.

( Watts x {Time in minutes/60} )/1000 = the number of kWh (kiloWatt-hours) of electricity consumed each day...  1 kWh is one unit of electricity.

Modern Horstman doors use circa 200 Watts when opening or closing...  lets assume a 1 minute to open and close 4 times every day for a year 365 days?  I make that a tad under 5 kWh per annum.

Of course its also sitting in standby to allow a remote control fob to open/close it - where it might be consuming 1 Watt continuously... 365 x 24 / 1000 = 8.76 kWh per annum. It might be less (or more if an older design).

Then almost every device you have sitting in standby will be consuming a similar amount, as well.

So the actual door opening operation is 'lost in the noise' of other devices.

Dam picture qaulity, I will take another later

Thanks for feedback, so Im looking at around £4.13 a year for the combined KWH on your calculations so not bad at all really?

victor2

I've had an electric garage door for around 25 years. It uses 8W on standby and 100W when operating, then a 40W bulb which stays on for 3 minutes after it has operated. On current rates it's costing me about 4p a day with my use of about twice a day.
I love it, and still get a kick out of opening it as I approach the drive in my car. I am one of a seemingly less common breed today that actually keeps the car in the garage though!

Steveotwo

victor2 said:

I've had an electric garage door for around 25 years. It uses 8W on standby and 100W when operating, then a 40W bulb which stays on for 3 minutes after it has operated. On current rates it's costing me about 4p a day with my use of about twice a day.
I love it, and still get a kick out of opening it as I approach the drive in my car. I am one of a seemingly less common breed today that actually keeps the car in the garage though!

I took the bulb straight out of mine so I guess there's a saving, If mine is similar maybe like 3p a day? it does look awesome when it opens don't get me wrong  😅

Kiran

I'm pretty sure mine is similar power usage. It's money well spent in my opinion anyway as the kids can open the garage door using Alexa and there's no danger of them dropping an up and over on their heads or something

victor2

Steveotwo said:

victor2 said:

I've had an electric garage door for around 25 years. It uses 8W on standby and 100W when operating, then a 40W bulb which stays on for 3 minutes after it has operated. On current rates it's costing me about 4p a day with my use of about twice a day.
I love it, and still get a kick out of opening it as I approach the drive in my car. I am one of a seemingly less common breed today that actually keeps the car in the garage though!

I took the bulb straight out of mine so I guess there's a saving, If mine is similar maybe like 3p a day? it does look awesome when it opens don't get me wrong  😅

Reminds me of Thunderbirds when it operates - one of my favourite TV shows when I was a kid, which I suppose ages me a bit! 🤣

Steveotwo

The Tracey Island toy has made a few comebacks over the years, so you might not be to old 😅
Captain Scarlet was more my era