Horizontal Folding Garage Door

[Jaja]

Hi All,

After years of reading I finally signed up and now it's time for my first post.

Long story short(er)...I got myself into a bind by buying a house and overlooking that the hip style roof on the garage will prevent me from using high lift track so that the 16x8 door will clear my 4 post lift.

I quickly realized my options were to covert the hip roof to a gable style or find a door that wouldn't roll on it's track into the garage. Another option I'm not fond of is to remove the 16' wide door and put in two smaller doors.

I want to avoid the construction route, so I've looked online and went to my local door company for solutions. If possible, I also want to use the perfectly nice door I already have and it matches the door on the adjacent bay. The house is a contemporary brick ranch that's 12 years old and carriage style swing out doors wouldn't match the aesthetics. I would consider using the existing 8 panel door to create a 2 piece solid, swing out door like the one shown here under construction:
http://pioneerdoorinc.com/garage_door_images/carriage_house/07L.JPG

Also, I've read here and other sites about bi-fold doors, but haven't found anything that looks compatible for my "petite" five section residential door.

Then I came up with a plan to remove the rollers from the middle panels so that the sections could accordion horizontally and even tried it on a 4 section door at the old house today. It looks promising.

Then I found this video:

doing the same thing but with a 4 section door rather than my five and they also use a hinge on the outside.

The problem I ran into today while testing this is that the sections of my cheap, un-insulated, 4 section steel door are flat at the seams. So the flat surfaces bind when you try to fold them accordion style at the seam/joint.

Perhaps the newer style door with the tongue and groove style seam will not bind like mine did?

If I can get the panel sections to fold the way I want, my plan is to lift one or two sections by cable attached to a drum on a jackshaft opener.

Anyone here have any ideas on the type of hinge that will work for this? Maybe the Green hinges with the built in spring so that the panels that I want to fold will be pushed out?

Thanks for reading, I hope there's some folks with overhead door experience that can weigh in.

Jaja

 

[kbs2244]

Schweiss is the 800 pound gorilla in the bifold door industry.
Check out their site

You can also go with a large single panel door.

Do a search on “hanger doors” for lots of PICs and videos

I looked at them all and ended up with a conventual door on tracks that followed the roof line.

 

[ConCretin]

I faced a very similar problem in two garages. I wanted to preserve the space an overhead door would typically occupy for my lift and a bridge crane. My solutions may not work for you but maybe they will spark an idea.

In one location, where I had the space to the side, I modified an overhead door to roll.



In the other, I used a hangar door. Maybe you could modify your existing door to work in similar fashion.



Good luck!

 

[fred d]

There is a house on my way to church that has a metal building that looks to have a 2 panel door that opens like the one in the pic above.
Looks like about 20’ wide

 

[Jaja]

Thanks for all the replies.

Hey LLWillysfan, I'm glad to see an example of a folding door on a "small" door.

Here's a somewhat similar house, as you can see if you planned to put a lift in either the single bay, or the right side of the double bay both having vaulted ceilings and you planned to use high lift track, that the hip roof "leans" in and detracts from the overhead space.

I need to drill some holes in the ceiling and take some final measurements. More tomorrow.

Thanks.

 

[86turbodsl]

I built one for my shop for space saving inside. If you're not willing to build, you pretty much have to pony up and buy one from Schweiss or one of the (few) competitors. They are not cheap by any means. Schweiss builds a very nice door though.

 

[n20junkie]

Your looking at 5k for the Schweiss frame plus the exterior clading. I wanted to use one real bad but that price was just too much.

 

[Jaja]

Good news...Over the weekend I took some careful measurements and it appears that once I convert to high lift & low profile track set-up I'll have the minimum clearance I need. The hip roof is definitely the constraining factor but think I'll be good.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[gb99]

In one location, where I had the space to the side, I modified an overhead door to roll.



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Good luck!

@LLWillysfan: how well does that sliding "barn" door seal out the exterior air? I'm interested in doing something similar but am hesitant due to the cold winters (that you get as well).

 

[gb99]

@LLWillysfan: how well does that sliding "barn" door seal out the exterior air? I'm interested in doing something similar but am hesitant due to the cold winters (that you get as well).

Bumping this for LLWillysfan as my garage build is about to begin How well does that sliding door seal out the cold? Would you recommend it here in New England? Thank you.

 

[ConCretin]

I apparently missed the question the first time. The sliding door seals out the wind and cold surprising well even in our long Maine winters.. I don’t notice any difference from the unmodified overhead door in the adjacent bay. I installed two rollers at the bottom to hold the door tight to the jambs where I installed regular weatherstripping. There is a typical rubber seal at the bottom.

I don’t open the door often but if I did I would adjust the track to lift the door as it slides and lower one side to bring it back to plumb. This would cut down on the wear on the bottom seal from sliding on the concrete.

 

[Lennyzx11]

While recently researching, I ran across some information on using a garage door that slid sideways around the corner inside the garage next to the side.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jhelrey]

My buddy has a garage door that has hydro cylinders on each side, hinges at top, and lifts up and out like an awning. Company that installed and built it installs hanger doors.