Garage Door Prices and sizes

[myoung84]

First post, been reading for days! I'm trying to finish up my house plans and that includes an additional detached garage. Long story short, our plans to build on a 2 acre rural lot fell through and we're building on a 1 acre subdivision-ish lot now. Originally planned on a future metal shop but new place my only option is a detached garage with breezeway to the house so I'm going to build it with the house. Main garage is 3 car, double stall is 24' deep, single is 20' deep, overall 32' wide. It will be full with our two cars and kids toys.

What I'm thinking is a detached 26w x 28d with a single door, most likely. Waiting on pricing from the builder to how bad the damage is. Since this wasn't originally planned, I can't go overboard on the garage. If pricing comes back less than expected, I'll go bigger, 32x32 would be great. I don't want to rule out the possibility of a future 2 post lift but also need to be able to get my 25' flatbed trailer in there if needed.

So main question is the garage door size(s). This really pertains to both garages. Main garage would be nice to have 18x7 and 9x7 doors. Second garage I'm thinking 18x9 or maybe two 10x9 doors. 10' tall would be nice, but I don't think I'd need to go that tall. The house is farmhouse design and doors will all need to match on both garages. They will be a basic design maybe with windows on top section. What's the pricing difference for the larger doors? Want to make sure I'm not opening an expensive can of worms on oddball sized doors. Anything else might need to be thinking about?

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[matt_i]

I used 8ft tall doors as a nice compromise from the typical 7ft tall "residential door". I greatly appreciated that the previous owner and builder of my house did the same thing.

One thing you have to ask is if a 9' tall door is going to drive the builder into using 12' studs. Once you put a 18" tall LVL header over top of the 9' door the wall height is going to get to roughly 10'6" minus the 3 plies of horizontal plates, subtracts 4-1/2" to give you 10'-1-1/2" stud height....there could be concrete stem wall or other feature which helps out to give the extra dimension back, but hopefully you see where this is headed...there's no "board stretcher" and the builder is going to charge you for 12' studs for the entire garage. The details are important and its worth a conversation with the builder to avoid driving a ton of extra expense to get 12" more opening....

...so along those lines what drives you to a 9' tall door?

I would try to keep your "depth" flexible so that potentially someday you could add on to the building's end to get more space. If that sounds interesting, I would keep multiple copies of the truss design/truss spec sheet so you can easily duplicate the exact same thing in the future and there's no guesswork involved. Typically when a builder is involved that paperwork is lost in the wind.

 

[CraigStu]

A couple of thoughts. 1- Don't do two 10ft doors. Do one 16-18. The wide door allows so much more option for getting through especially w/ a trailer you need to back in. I know it's a little different but we moved out of a house w/ two 8ft doors into one w/ a 16 ft door.Backing my utility trailer into one of the double doors was a chore, but getting it into the 16ft was easy as could be. 2- Not sure how your house w/ garage and extra garage is going to be constructed but I really like the house the equivalent (your foundation may be poured) of 3 courses of block above grade w/ the garage the same. This makes it real easy to have 10-11 ft ceiling in the garage. When we did an add-on garage in a previous house the builder said it is way less expensive to get height w/ block than 2x10s.

 

[BarryWells]

One would have to be nuts to build a stick framed house in tornado alley.Block it up, fill the block, pour a beam with weld plates and have a shop make 2x4 x 1/8" trusses and weld them on.No gabled ends either. Hip everything

 

[myoung84]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll see how the builder is planning on framing the garage, if fully stick built or blocked lower portion. Depending on the adder, I wouldn't mind 12' ceilings so a couple layers of block would probably help. May end up with 10' ceilings but could do scissor raftors. Roof will be 10/12 pitch to match the house, gable on the door side. I may never get a lift, but if it happens one day I'd like to have the room.

I was thinking 9' tall door for a couple of reasons. First when I had my boat with wake board tower it was just under 9' tall so I could back it in without folding the tower. If I get another boat it will most likely be similar. Second, if I have anything on my flatbed trailer I could back it into the garage if needed. I have a 4 seat RZR that's 74" tall and my trailer deck height is 24". Just a hair short on an 8' door.

Most all homes build here in Oklahoma are stick built. Just a tornado, we'll take the chance. Lol



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[myoung84]

Also, with the way its laid out, I can easily push it to 40' or 50' deep in the future without interfering with lot lines. Original plans were for a 30x40 metal building so that would be perfect.

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[vrinner]

I have 2 12X14 doors. Quoted prices between $6K-$15K.
I'm going to go with the Clopay doors with 2" insulation. Will be about $8K installed.

If I could do it again, I'd probably just do 1 12X14 and maybe the other 12X10 to reduce cost.