Man door in a residential over-head door?

I surf these boards occasionally and have just been lurking. Have a question.

I have a machine shop and I work out of my garage. There is no man door on the front, only the back (this is annoying in the winter time, especially dealing with customers). Anyone ever put a man door in thier standard residental over-head door?

There is a company called Walk-Thru Doors out of Canada and they do sell them in the states, but I'm in NE Ohio and nobody around here sells them. Only one local garage door sales/service company was remotely farmiliar and claimed you have to have 60" of clearance between the rails and the ceiling? That puts me out. I have the regular 8' ceiling, and 18' X 7' door.

I'm ordering a new door this week sometime, just going over my options before I put up the cash. I would love to have a man door on the front of my garage, but there is only 2 feet to the left of the door and massive built in work benches lining the wall to the right.

Any info is appreciated. Thanks,
MC

MC-
I can't say that I've ever seen a resi door like you are talking about,but several of the accounts that I did work for at my previous job had steel overheads with man doors in them.These were doors not used for normal access,but for occasional use by the departments closest to them.They were ordered from the manufacturer to have the man doors-not modified by the dealer/installer and were industrial grade doors. In spite of all this,they were terrible from the very start.First,there was a 6" high piece of the door at the bottom of the door you had to step over to go through the door,if you got it open in the first place.Because of the nature of the door,there were 3 panels that were cut out for the man door-the bottom panel had the 6" step over,the second panel up was completely cut through,and the third panel up was cut opposite of the bottom panel,with about 6" of the continuous panel left at the top.The resulting man door was more like climbing through a ship's bulkhead door-a 5' tall opening 6" offthe floor.The door had to be on high lift tracks so that the bottom 3 panels never laid flat-if they had,they would have bowed so badly they would have fallen off the tracks.They were that flimsy.The same flimsyness made the man door a PITA to get open,or fully shut so that the overhead could be raised.You wouldn't believe how bad they rattled and shook in a brisk wind either. Given the choice,I'd stay far away from this type door.
Since you're putting in a new door anyway,how about framing in about 4' of your existing overhead,installing a mandoor in that piece of wall,and put in a new 14' overhead?If you still need 18' of open doorway,make the 4' wall removeable-put up the O/H,unbolt the track sections on the temp wall,unbolt the temp wall,and you still have your 18' openingA bit of ingenuity,and you have a door set up that will work much better for a lot less money.

That's actually what I was expecting to hear. Didn't have much hope, but wanted to find out now before I spent money and found out there were other options.

Hard to explain, but if I framed in 4' of the existing door, I wouldn't be able to get anything more than a motorcycle in. Right now, I COULD get a car in if I had to. Half of the garage is mills and a lathe, the other half is a tubing bender, sand blast cabinate, wash tanks and welding equiptment.

I'm temped to take out the work benches along the one wall and put a man door in there. But I don't want to give up work-bench space either, but then again....

I should probably just rent a shop down the street, but it's just so convienent to work out of my garage, and my customers don't care where I work out of...

I would put the man door where the work benches are. You can always do something to make that space more efficient. You could put workbenches on both sides and put a table on a hinge that swings up for when you absolutely need the counter space (something like you would see in a bar like the bartender uses to get in and out.

Brett K said:

I would put the man door where the work benches are. You can always do something to make that space more efficient. You could put workbenches on both sides and put a table on a hinge that swings up for when you absolutely need the counter space (something like you would see in a bar like the bartender uses to get in and out.

Click to expand...

I like that idea! My problem is the walls are lined. Mills on one wall and in the center of the garage, a lathe on the back wall, the back door, another 8' X 7' door on the back (a sand blast cabinate that's in the way but easily moved), bathroom, forced air furnace, welding bench and then the built in benches and cabinates. A man door in the 18' X 7' front fold up door would be ideal.

if your getting a new door, what about a bi-fold door or something that opens out/ slides across that you can put a regular door in? since it seems like you don't need all the opening, maybe a sliding door would work for you, and give you a place for a "man"-door?

Any chance you could bump out about a 4' extension on the front wall...just wider than the width of the door? That would allow you to keep the garage door, and have a man door on one of the 4' sides.

I guess the possibility of that depends on making it blend in with the architecture....

What about a full door that opens (not panel construction). Our house in europe had a flat door ~16x8 that opened overhead as a single panel. With a solid unit, the man door could be cut into it and avoid problems with folding at the panel. Not sure how the springs on the door worked (that was 1970-75).

How about some pics? It would make it easier to help on opinions.

I ran across this a little bit ago. The place is in England but there are standard size residential doors with a man door. Over there it's called a wicket door


Here is the website http://www.abigaragedoors.co.uk/hormann-wicket-doors-1049-0.html