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Garage door height-adding to it?

dtortoise9

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May 2, 2019
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next to house
I would like to make my garage door tract higher and raise the door more towards the ceiling. Is this possible without causing too many issues?
 
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u2slow

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Nov 20, 2011
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BC
We don't know your setup.

My garage door came with 4' extensions (bulk track and a few brackets) to make the 14' door roll over closer to the 19' ceiling.
 

Old Moparz

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Jan 21, 2005
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1,171
Location
Newburgh, NY 12550
I would like to make my garage door tract higher and raise the door more towards the ceiling. Is this possible without causing too many issues?
A local garage door company should be able to get something for you. The radius & length of the tracks, the distance & angle of the tracks from the wall, the cables & maybe even the springs, will all be different.
 

mrbill55

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Jun 23, 2016
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Location
Greenville, SC
Thats why we need more info. Different solutions for different setups.
I was walking out the door when I made that post, hence my short response, not typical of me o_O, clearly, I did not see yours, so we crossed in the system.

To the OP, we always want the details of the current setup, ceiling height, garage door size, electric opener set up (if installed), along with lighting.......That, and a decent picture of two will get specifics as to what can, or needs to be done to get your garage door to opener higher in your space.

Now, with that said, I'm in the process of having higher, more sweeping tracks installed so that the garage doors open higher in the space I have. Below are the perfect pictures to show what what they currently look like.
november15thearly6.jpg
The door opening is new, the old opening was in the middle rear wall, opening into the middle of the kitchen cabinet layout and not efficient in our eyes.
november4th1.jpg

Bill S.
 
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P0234

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Aug 6, 2012
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3,241
Location
NoVA
A local garage door company should be able to get something for you. The radius & length of the tracks, the distance & angle of the tracks from the wall, the cables & maybe even the springs, will all be different.
Actually just any garage door company won't do. I called around to have this done a few years back when I got a lift. I got a lot of shrugs and/pitches for new doors. A few companies understood what needed to get done but wanted crazy money. Then GJ came to the rescue with a recommendation for a local guy that was the magic 3, good, cheap (more like reasonable) and fast!
 

u2slow

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Nov 20, 2011
Messages
3,611
Location
BC
Here's mine. Tape measure hanging the length the track extension (43").IMG_20240104_154416291_HDR-01.jpeg

I can't say if your cables are long enough (have extra spooled up?). I ordered my door for this arrangement so they were plenty long.
 

wssix99

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Joined
Mar 2, 2011
Messages
5,162
Location
Chicago, IL
Short answer - It's not as simple as extending the tracks. The drums are different and the springs will likely need to be a different size. (In addition to the simple things like extending the cables.) If you search for high-lift parts, you can see some of the differences in drums, etc.
 

firebirdparts

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Jun 8, 2016
Messages
10,669
Location
Kingsport, TN
I would like to make my garage door tract higher and raise the door more towards the ceiling. Is this possible without causing too many issues?
Lots of people here have done this, maybe 100 of us, and also lots of people have found pleasure in posting about how oh-so-complex garage doors are and how you're too dumb to fix one and don't understand its mystery. We get that in every door thread. You'll need to ignore it.

With a regular sectional garage door, fully open, it's flat, there is basically no weight on the springs. Closed, it's vertical, 100% of the door weight is on the springs. Half open, it's half weighted. Springs are linear in nature, so this just works.

If you vary the tracks, then the math around the springs begins to not work out. The more you modify them, the more it doesn't work out. Correcting the math with extension springs is not possible.

There are special set of drums made that will allow you to do the spring math correctly using torsion springs and some degree of vertical travel. People here tend to link to DDM garage doors but I don't know if they are the main source here. https://ddmgaragedoors.com/parts/cable_drums.html

There are no special drums made to allow you to compensate for a sloped garage door track following the angle of the roof (or angled for whatever reason). If you do this, using the regular springs, you could for instance set the door so that it's balanced half open. This is just an example. Then, the door becomes both hard to open and hard to close. Special cable drums would help here some. They wouldn't be "right" but they are designed to make it easier to close so that couldn't hurt. You vary the amount of non-linear effect by varying how much cable wrap you have on the big part.
 
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