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High lift garage door help needed

wifehatescar

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Feb 5, 2005
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23
Location
South Lyon, MI
I'm having a new house built with a 3 car garage (a 16x7 door and a 8x7 door). I want the garage door to be as close to the 10' tall ceiling as possible when the door is open. Using a conventional garage door opener, how far can I have the door from the ceiling when it's in the open position? I was thinking a foot away should work ok? I do not want to have a problem with the opener linkage or with the opener struggling to open the door, fighting against the door track
Any insight? Is there nothing to worry about?

A normal install would place the open door about 3' from the ceiling....
 
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Throttlejockey

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CT
Don't forget you're going to have a header over the door too. That dictates how far from the ceiling your door will be.
 

Double Venom

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Pentwater, Mi
You might think about a 'insulated' roll up door. Had one installed in the new shop and is pretty amazing. Even has an electric opener/closer option.
DV
 

Throttlejockey

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The header is the structural support over the door so the top of the door will only go this high.

The part that the spring is mounted to.

WDW2005004.jpg
 
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wifehatescar

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South Lyon, MI
Good picture. I guess my header would be installed a foot from the ceiling too. I don't see why that's a problem?

So the header and opener would be a foot from the ceiling, and the track would take the door up 2 feet more than "normal". Make sense?
 

Throttlejockey

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Any particular reason you're using a 7" door with 10' ceilings? I wouldn't go any lower than 8' especially if you have a truck. 7' will clear though.

The doors in the pic are 8' high and my ceiling height is around 10'6".
 
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wifehatescar

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South Lyon, MI
I do not have a truck or boat. The standard height is 7' tall (for most houses this is true). The 8' tall doors cost more money. I think I'm ok with the 7' door....but when it's up, the space will look bigger if the door is up closer to the ceiling.
 

428

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s.c.
If you have the space for an 8' door, I'd suggest you do it. It's not that much more and in the long run you'll be glad you did.
 

Satatic

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Bourbonnais, Illinois
Double Venom said:
You might think about a 'insulated' roll up door. Had one installed in the new shop and is pretty amazing. Even has an electric opener/closer option.
DV

I second that idea. My dad and I just put up a roll up door at a rental house and they are very practical. I really like how the lights above the door are not blcoked when the door is open.
 

ErVikingo

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Feb 23, 2005
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131
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Florida
you can also try a bifold door. Do a quick search on google or refer to my post under Pro Help required for garage dimensions
 
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Wile1Coyote

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Motown USA
Whoa whoa whoa, no problem here on the door height unless you specifically want a taller door. The spot where the opener connects to the wall above the door opening does not have to be ON the header. All you need to do is have the tracks configured in such a way so that they head up higher than the header. I have an 8 foot door with a 10 foot ceiling and my door gets to within 11" or so of my ceiling at the end of its run. The other advantage here is that the door when open due to the additional run of track will not be as far into the room, that is tough to explain but because you have 2 feet or so of additional track height AND an increase in the radius (arc?) of the curve in the track, if you stop the bottom of your door in the same place you would normally which is even with the top of the opening, the top of the door will be 2-3 feet closer to the front wall of the garage than it would be if the opener and track were at a 'normal' height. A roll up door certainly is an option but is not really neccesary and may look strange as they are designed more for commercial endeavors. Also an 8' foot roll up hardly seems worth the trouble. Since you are doing this as a new build I would suspect it will cost you less than $100 extra for the track and extra time to get it setup. I replaced my existing stuff and it cost me $285 materials and labor out the door. PM me or email if you have other questions.

One other thing you may not have considered it the new Wayne Dalton Idrive system where the opener actually mounts to the wall next to the door instead of hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room. You may want to check that out I would have gone that way if I didn't have a pre existing setup. Good Luck!
 

428

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s.c.
Unless the framing has been done I'd still go with a 8 footer with the extended track. Seven foot doors are a pain with high top vans, suv's with cargo carriers, a work van with ladder rack, etc. Yes they're cheaper and builders consider them standard. But in the long run you'll never miss the little extra $ but appreciate the door when the time comes.

I made the mistake of putting 2 sevens on the house garage, it has been aggravating at times. There will come a time when you need the extra clearence. My detached I went with 3 eight's. Haven't had the first problem there.
 
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wifehatescar

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Feb 5, 2005
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South Lyon, MI
PM sent to Wile1

Yeah, 8' doors are only $130 more for both doors. That sounds like what I want, a conventional insulated 8' door with the track about a 1' from the ceiling. Too many choices :)
 

sca037

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Jan 10, 2005
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250
Location
Metro Detroit Area- MI
I went with 16' x 8'9" insulated doors, and have a 10' ceiling.
I needed 15 inches from the top of the door openings to the ceiling (for the openers), so went for the largest door that would still leave the needed clearance.
Yeah, it was more money, but extremely well $pent and I expect you'll never regret going with an 8' door.......but you may well regret NOT doing it ;)

Brian
 

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Old Moparz

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Jan 21, 2005
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Newburgh, NY 12550
A "High Lift" track set up will not cost that much more than a standard track, whether it's for a 7' ht. door, or an 8' door ht. door. It's basically just longer sections of tracks, & longer cables. The springs & the rest of the hardware should be the same. This option for my doors was an addittional $57.00 each. It brought the doors a lot higher, but I forget the exact height, & may vary depending on what is available. They are not flush with the ceiling, but definitely worth the difference.

If it's not too late to change the header height of your door openings for an 8' door, do it. The cost difference of the 8' door compared to the 7' is almost nothing. It's not until you get into the ones above 8' ht. (which are commercial or special orders) that you will see a huge price jump, like 50% or more. When I built my garage in '97 I had room for a 10' high pair of overhead garage doors, but that put them into a commercial grade door. This also gives you a lot less options as far as appearance.

If saving money is a priorty, one thing to keep in mind is that you can always add the door openers later if you wanted to save a few bucks up front in the construction costs. I haven't added any openers yet, but I don't use the garage for daily drivers. The springs take the weight off of the doors when you lift so it won't be heavy. I can open my 16' x 8' wooden doors with glass panels, which are very heavy by themselves, with one hand & little effort.

I added a pic to show what the high lift track difference is.
 

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dodgecharger-fan

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Jan 10, 2005
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Niagara Region, ON Canada
Definitely go with the high lift tracks. If it wasn't an emergency when I had my new doors put in, I would have ripped out the shelving over the doors and gone that route. I will still do it and just have the company come back and add in the tracks and move everything up. I'd also like to get them to move the openers to one side of the doors, but that requires a "header bar" on the top of the door - not too sure about that..

I'll chime in and add to the "it's not expensive" to do crowd. It is only track and cable - everything else is the same.

As for 8 foot - if you need it and can afford it, go for it.
 

RedRacer74

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Feb 14, 2005
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92
Location
New York
Try Overhead Door Company. They did my garage doors and they are within 1ft. of my ceiling and will have a side mounted opener for maximum clearance. Its all about how you mount the tracks. They have distrubutors everywhere.
Good luck.
 

M-Funf

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Mar 21, 2005
Messages
26
Location
Petaluma, CA
If you want to keep the 7' door height, but wish the "horizontal" portion of the tracks to be higher, you'll need to invest in a high lift track:

High Lift by Clopay

This is a pdf for a commercial version, but places like Overhead Door have them, you just need to ask.

In addition, if you have a sloping roof (slopes up away from the door), you can install a "follow the roofline" track that will make the door go up at the angle of the roof.

Either way, you'll be happy you raised the door up to get more vertical clearance.

:D
 
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