Standard garage door openers come in two types, a chain drive and a screw
drive.

If you can figure out how to mount the head of the unit sideways and some
way to couple the door to a drive screw or a bicycle chain the standard
opener should work, but it will not be an easy install.

The commercial sliding gate openers I have seen have a bicycle chain setup
where the chain is strung along the bottom of the gate and the opener drives
a sprocket.

The problems I see with a sliding garage door is that the doors slide past
each other, and there is not a lot of room to rig an opener.

--

Roger Shoaf

About the time I had mastered getting the toothpaste back in the tube, then
they come up with this striped stuff.
wrote in message
...
Hi. I'm rebuilding the doors on the back of my garage, and am likely
to put in a barn-style sliding door rather than an overhead door. I've
been looking for an opener that's designed for this kind of door, and
am drawing a blank. Any suggestions? Can I get away with creative use
of a 'standard' garage door opener?

Many thanks,