Why Wall Mount Garage Openers Are Becoming More Popular

If you were to close your eyes and try to picture a garage door opener, you would probably imagine a bulky motor attached to the ceiling. And chances are that garage would be full of boxes, tubs, filing cabinets, and maybe even a refrigerator.

That’s because households are increasingly using their garages for storage and entertaining rather than parking. This trend has given rise to a different type of garage door opener that offers a few nice advantages.

Wall mount garage door openers, also called Jackshaft or side mount openers, were first introduced for residential use in 2006. They saw a surge in popularity when the Chamberlain Group introduced two new wall mount openers in 2018 as a way to help households gain extra storage room in their garages.

In fact, the history of wall-mounted openers can give us a glimpse into the future of garages and what changes we can expect to see.

So let’s dive in to this surprisingly interesting story!

Benefits Of Wall Mount Garage Door Openers

Before we get into the history of Jackshaft openers, there are three main differences that set apart a wall mount opener from an overhead opener:

1. It is mounted on the wall, which can offer some space-saving benefits if you wanted to mount storage on the ceiling, place a fan in the center of your garage, or add a light.
2. Wall mount units use a torsion bar that twists to open and close the garage door, making them much quieter than overhead openers since there is less vibration.
3. Most wall mount units come with automatic deadbolts that lock the garage door when its closed, making it difficult for anyone to break in while you’re away.

That said, wall mount openers tend to hover around the $500 mark, which is roughly 50% more expensive than traditional overhead openers. So, for the moment at least, these benefits come with a slight cost tradeoff.

Residential Debut

Jackshaft openers have been around for decades, but for most of that time, they were used only in commercial applications.

It wasn’t until LiftMaster introduced the Model 3800 Residential Jackshaft Opener in 2006 that this began to change.

At the time, the 3800 was being marketed as an ideal alternative to garages with low or obstructed ceilings, where traditional overhead openers might not work as well.

This niche application meant that adoption was slow; the fact was that not many households needed an alternative to the traditional overhead openers. As a result, the 3800 barely changed at all over the next ten years.

It turns out it was just waiting for its moment in the spotlight.

The Storage Squeeze

Everything changed when the US Department of Energy released the results of a study of households with garages, which included a startling finding:

This meant that over half of households in the U.S. with 2-car garages were struggling with storage, to the point where they couldn’t even park their cars.

This “Storage Squeeze” presented a big opportunity for LiftMaster.

Because they already had a residential alternative to overhead openers that was great at saving space in garages, they were able to quickly reposition wall mount openers as a convenient option for households that were feeling the squeeze.

LiftMaster had everything it needed to create a new hit.

And so, in 2018, they replaced the 3800 with a newer model, the LiftMaster 8500W. Marketing materials for the 8500W highlighted it as a way to help “solve the garage storage issue by freeing the ceiling to optimize space”.

The 8500W also boasted LiftMaster’s history of reliability and ease of troubleshooting, since it needed to be professionally installed and calibrated.

This new Jackshaft opener was quickly followed by the introduction of a wall mount opener for the Chamberlain Group’s brand meant for DIY installers, Chamberlain. The Chamberlain RJ070 was very similar to the LiftMaster but could be installed without needing to hire a professional.

Introducing Jackshaft Openers To Europe

In 2019, less than a year after releasing the 8500W in the US, LiftMaster announced a model for the European market called the LM3800W. This was the very first Jackshaft garage door opener in Europe to have modern conveniences like integrated Wi-Fi.

LiftMaster highlighted many of the same benefits in Europe as they did in the US:

By 2019, the Jackshaft-style opener was already firmly establishing itself as the go-to solution for households that wanted their garages to have a cleaner, more organized look that prioritized storage space.

The Future Of Garages

At the beginning of this article, I teased that the history of wall mount openers could give us a hint as to the future of garages.

As the average car size continues to increase, and fewer and fewer people are willing to sell their homes in the current real estate environment, storage is going to become an even larger issue for many households.

This is already showing up in the garage organization market, which is expected to grow at a rate of 7.4% per year through 2030. It seems clear that the trend of maximizing storage space in garages is not likely to go anywhere anytime soon.

So what will the future of garages look like?

Traditionally, garages have been thought of as a place to safely park cars that can also offer a little extra storage. But driving through my neighborhood the other day, I noticed that about 40% of houses had cars parked in their driveway, not their garage.

And many new houses are being built with three-car garages in order to offer even more space.

If current trends hold, this may become the default, rather than the exception. And we could see a shift towards garages acting as dedicated storage units and entertainment spots almost exclusively.

The days of using your garage primarily as a place to park your car may be in the rearview mirror soon.

This growing emphasis on storage will likely mean that wall-mount garage door openers are going to become even more popular in the next few years as people look for ways to squeeze more space out of their existing garages.