At one time,
people in the United States and around the world used horses for work and
travel and kept them in barns or stables, usually located a short distance from
their house (if in the country) or maybe in a central barn or stable in the
city. Then came the automobile and
things slowly changed. Instead of
keeping the car in the barn where all the birds, cats, bats, and other wild
life could get to it, people started building garages right next to or directly
connected to the house. After all, the
auto has long been usually the second most expensive purchase folks make over
their lives, just behind the cost of the home.
Now this is not
about the carports that are seen in a lot of warmer climates; this is about the
cold weather garage, with garage doors that need to be opened and closed. Some folks store things in their garages and
want to make sure those things don’t “grow legs” so they need to be able to
close the garage doors. Other folks just
want to be able to pull the car in off the street and protect it from the
elements.
Whatever reason
people have for using their garages, they need to be able to open and close the
garage doors. Many folks don’t like
having to get out of the car to open or close the garage doors, especially when
it is raining or windy or cold out or the middle of a hurricane like Hurricane
Alex. They want to use a garage door
opener.
There are one-car
garages and there are two car garages.
Some folks even have four, five, or six car garages (and not just
athletes from major league baseball, the NBA, NHL, or NFL either). Most folks max out with a two-car garage so
this article will just talk about garage door openers for the one or two car
garage.
A one-car garage
would generally only need one garage door opener. Sounds reasonable, right? One car, one garage door, one garage door
opener (so just ignore the folks with two cars and only a one car garage, forcing
one car to be parked out in the elements).
Now the two-car
garage may have just one big garage door or may have two doors, with a garage
door opener for each door. Maybe a
single garage door opener works both of the doors on the two door garage or
maybe each door requires a separate opener.
That could be fun if each door requires a specific garage door
opener. It would mean that each car
would need to carry each opener (or the car owner and family would have to
remember to use the specific door for the specific car).
Always decisions,
right?