Increasing my garage door height

[CharlesRiddle]

First, I was pretty amazed to find a forum on this. Nice to see.

My question is this. I have a standard 2 car garage with, 9'w X 7' doors.
I bought a cap for my truck which needs just a tad more height. Two inches would do it but I thought I'd go about 6 or 7 inches. I have 2 feet of room between the door header and the ceiling joists (it's an open frame garage, on the lines of a barn).

So, are there doors that are slightly larger than what I have now? I haven't figured out how to find them if they are. The good news is I need to replace the door anyway, the bad news is I replaced the one beside it 2 years ago and the height won't match, but that is my problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Old Moparz]

You can get a residential garage door with an 8 foot height at a reasonable price. I believe that anything above 8 feet is considered a commercial door, & the price gets very expensive. I found that out & it's why I have two 8' high x 16' wide doors. I had considered a 10 foot high door when I built my garage because I have the ceiling height.

 

[lilredex]

Had a similar issue with my door, when it got raised by two concrete blocks (so I could get my vans in). I just visited a garage door showroom and selected the style, they sent out a guy to measure the opening and the same guy returned with a helper, a week or two later, and installed it. Don't remember the $$, but it was similar to stuff I saw at HD and other places.




Edit.. if you look at the door you'll see a small latch at the top. On another thread they were asking how to open your door, when you have no man door. It is a locked, removeable, plug that is attached to the release cable on the track.

 

[ThomasD.]

Garage Door panels are manufactured in 3" incremental heights. Therefore almost any height is obtainable (in 3" increments) by combining different size door panels. Most panel are 18", 21", 24" & 27" high. So your 84" door height can be increased to 87", 90", 93" etc. My installer doesn't view a door as 'commercial' until it gets wider than 16' and taller than 12'. The installers are pretty picky about how much 'headroom' is available above the track. They like to keep as much 'radius' for the track curve as possible for better operation.

 

[Friartuck]

A possible solution is to have a portion of the front wall above the door set up as a panel on hinges that swings inward and upward. This is assuming you don't want to spend $$ to replace doors and that the header is above this panel. If the plan includes a garage door opener, then as the door opens fully, it can pull open this panel to provide the required clearance. Just a low budget thought.

 

[CharlesRiddle]

Thank you all! I'll check with a local company then

 

[bczygan]

The first question to ask is what is the roof orientation above the doors? If they are on the gable end like lilredex's garage in the post above, then likely the load is lighter than if the doors are below the eave of the roof. This means that you don't need as strong or deep a header. You will have more room for a standard, but taller door. You might also have enough room for a header to span the entire distance of both doors, allowing you to replace them with one big taller door. Then sell the recently installed one on CL. If you keep the single doors, you will have to put a new header (Or move the existing one) up higher. If you are on an eave, you will need a temporary wall to support the roof while the hole is cut.

Bill

 

[Old Moparz]

A possible solution is to have a portion of the front wall above the door set up as a panel on hinges that swings inward and upward. This is assuming you don't want to spend $$ to replace doors and that the header is above this panel. If the plan includes a garage door opener, then as the door opens fully, it can pull open this panel to provide the required clearance. Just a low budget thought.

I did almost exactly that to mine so I could clear the A/C unit on my camping trailer. It opens outward though, manually. A few years after I finished my garage we bought a bigger trailer than the one we had. I would bring the trailer inside to apply a roofing sealer once every year & wanted to keep it out of the weather. It was also taller than the previous trailer & wouldn't fit, so instead of modifying & replacing a 3 year old door that wasn't cheap to begin with, I modified the opening.

It's a long, aluminum hinge, commercial grade for store fronts, & is mounted horizontally about a foot above the garage door. I prop it up with a steel bar at each end of the opening. I'll post a photo of it in the open position later. One thing though, I wouldn't consider opening mine on a daily basis because it's heavy, but knowing it's only once a year I am okay with it.

 

[jstroede]

As was stated before, doors are generally available in 3" increments with 18" and 21" increments. There with these section heights, there is not a 7'3" tall door, so your next available height is 7'6". If you are going to do that, just go with 8' if you can. Cost will basically be the same in most cases.

John