Interior Garage Door

[Newt95]

Greetings, I've been lurking on this board for a few months, but this is my first post.

My wife and I have a house in Michigan that will be our retirement home a couple of years down the road. We built the house in 1999. The house is a 1500 sq. ft. "apartment" sitting on top of a 28X40 "boat storage area" (the county frowned on having a house above a garage). I had originally planned it for in winter storing a 24' pontoon and my fishing boat, plus a car & truck, but now realize that I'll need the room for other things. The boats will be store elsewhere in the winter, so I'm planning to carve off a piece of the space for a heated workshop.

I'd like to have the entire space as open as possible during the warm months and only close off the workshop for winter. I've been thinking of installing a large, sliding garage door that would open up the wall between the workshop and the "garage" piece that remains.

So, the question is, have any of you built an area like this with a moving partition to limit the space that needs to be heated in the cold time of year?

Thanks, and thanks all the good info I've already gotten here!

Chris

 

[cc_rider]

I would look into a roll-up type door, maybe even just a plain old garage door. Why? Floor and wall space. A roll-up door won't take any much ceiling clearance. There are some roll-up doors that are actually just one sheet of metal, bent up to form the ridges. These are pretty inexpensive but won't be very nice in the winter; no insulation. A regular garage door is probably similar in price, and offers more options: windows, insulation, wood/metal/fiberglass, etc.

Frame in the door opening as if it was an outside door, with a header and a little wall on each side. Select which side you want the door to roll up on, remembering you're going to lose some headroom. You can make a regular garage door's tracks go right up to the ceiling though, if you're trying to maximize headroom.

In our old office we had a garage door that separated our conference room into two smaller ones. We had a suspended ceiling, and the door tracks went up past it, so the whole door was out of the way. Everyone thought it was the coolest thing. We considered adding an opener, but never got around to it; a rope worked just fine.

c.

 

[Wile1Coyote]

Have you considered a goff curtain?

 

[Newt95]

Have you considered a goff curtain?

No sure - what is a goff curtain?

 

[Newt95]

I would look into a roll-up type door, maybe even just a plain old garage door.

cc rider -

Thanks. I'm kind of leaning that way for simplicity. I've been thinking of a rolling door, as it wouldn't take any floor or ceiling space, but I'm afraid that the wall to support it would have to be massive, plus I don't know where they sell those. The overhead door is readily available and the only downside seems to be losing a bit of head room.

Thanks for the feedback.

Chris