Maximizing clearance at opening, with tight ceiling

[Il Gattopardo]

Greetings all.

Our garage (new build) has a low ceiling, about 7-9"+/-. The opening is 6-11". We had to use tight radius tracks and they appear to be as high as they can go. The roller is right up nearly against the ceiling. The opener is a side mount.

Problem: the door hangs down well below the opening, at about only 6-6". That's because the side opener can only pull the door up until the bottom of the door reaches the opener, and can't switch to pushing it further up the tracks. It seems like a center mount opener could pull it a little farther up, maybe getting me a couple more inches of clearance, since it pulls from farther in the garage rather than up from the wall.

I'm curious what others do to get the door up to the opening height. Getting the door all the way up the track so it's parallel to the floor would be awesome, but I think it would be pulling against the coil spring. I disconnected the opener and couldn't get the door up that high -- the cables get tight, preventing it.

Thanks for any ideas.

 

[firebirdparts]

In general, you can easily send the door beyond the opening. Within reason, most of the curve will be above the opening, and you can pull up until you run out of room for a pulley. The key is to get the cables to go along with you.

Extension spring conversion would be the easiest. The pulleys normally used for that are about 3" in diameter, so that should give you geometry to pull within about 2" of the ceiling. If you have drums, you might be able to take the cables up to a small pulley and then go to the drums from there. This would allow you to pull higher than the drums alone.

Then, if you want an opener, it should just work. if the ceiling is 7-9 and the door is hanging down at 6-6 it's not altogether clear in your post just why. I don't know what "the bottom of the door reaches the opener" really means. That never happens at my house. The door can't go that high at my house.

 

[Il Gattopardo]

Thanks for the reply.

We have torsion springs now, and the roller/drum is 4.5" diameter, and 0.5" from the ceiling.

I like the pulley idea. If I understand correctly, we'd put them say 12" farther into the garage along the ceiling. That way the cables would pull the door farther along the track. Mounting them solidly enough to the ceiling might be tough.

What I meant by "the bottom of the door reaches the opener"....the side mounted opener turns the drum/roller, rolling up the cable, and it can only do so until the bottom of the door (where the cable attaches) reaches the opener. For the door to continue along the tracks past that, the opener would have to push the door (which it can't). And the cables would become taut and be fighting the torsion spring. So your point that "the cables need to go along with you" is a good one.

 

[Il Gattopardo]

Pic of the drum/roller and clearance. It's pretty tight.

 

[wssix99]

We had to use tight radius tracks and they appear to be as high as they can go.

You may have a tight radius track, but what you want is a low headroom track. You still have room to move. This is what the different types look like:


The low headroom tracks have a separate tight track for the top roller and the other rollers follow a secondary track/path. The lower, low headroom tracks have the torsion spring on the end of the tracks. Some will have them in the same position that you have now with the 2 track configuration, which is something in the middle as far as headroom goes.

That's because the side opener can only pull the door up until the bottom of the door reaches the opener, and can't switch to pushing it further up the tracks.

A properly balanced door will go all the way up without any help from the garage door opener. The garage door opener should be able to go all the way up without "pushing." To test, disconnect the garage door opener and manually open the door. If it doesn't go all the way up, then you have a spring or spring winding problem.

 

[Il Gattopardo]

I like that low headroom illustration! That would be ideal.

We do have a separate track for the top panel's roller.

I've disconnected the opener, and the door goes up with about 6-8" of the lower panel still below the opening. That's just maybe an inch less than with the opener lifting it. I can then push it further than the opener can lift it, so about 3" still hang down. At that point, the cables are taught, and I'm essentially unwinding the roller/drum to get farther (which is obviously very difficult).

 

[wssix99]

It sounds like your springs are unwound at the 6-8" point and not tight enough. This video should be a good gauge for you:

The track you have will not lift the door all the way above the opening but physics should limit it where the cable starts to get 45 degrees from vertical off the roller. (You can see that at the end of the video.) If your cable looks like the video, then that's going to be it unless you go to a higher low headroom track, like the one where the drum is mounted to the end of the track. (I think this other type of track also requires a center, ceiling mount opener.)

 

[Il Gattopardo]

Got it. Yes, ours hangs just a bit lower when open, so maybe the springs need tightening to get it to that 6-8" point. I just remeasured, and it's at 6-5" open. I had been thinking that a center opener would "pull" the door up higher, and it might if the springs are not wound up enough. But if the springs are tight enough, maybe it doesn't matter what opener is used.

And yes, the cable at 45 degrees is what I meant about how if I disconnect and manually lift the door, I couldn't get it up much higher, because I'd be unwinding the spring.

The rear spring concept it interesting. I'll look into that, too.

 

[wssix99]

If the opener is actually lifting the door, it will burn out. The springs do the vast majority of the work.

 

[Il Gattopardo]

I get that. I just meant that a center opening could continue to pull the door farther than a side mount.

 

[wssix99]

They should both be the same and limited by the setting of the door.

 

[CraigStu]

Keep in mind that the only thing lowering to door is it's weight and gravity. If it goes too high, the bottom panel gets too close to horizontal, gravity doesn't work, and it won't close. Problem there is that, as the motor starts rotating the shaft/spools to lower the door, the door just sits there and the cables start unwinding off the spools. It becomes a huge mess because, if you hit the remote button, it automatically tries to open the door again, winding up the cables which now displaced off the spools.