Min height for 12' doors?

[Cuda416]

As I get closer to starting my building, it has been brought to my attention that 12' tall doors, in a 14' building won't work. Doing the math, I can see the problem when fill and concrete is added, taking truss bottom chord away, I'll end up with less than a foot of clearance between the top of the door and the bottom of the trusses. I thought I'd seen 12' doors in 14' buildings, but I might be mistaken. Is it just a fact of life that 12' door require at least a 15' eave height?

All this said and done, I don't "need" 12' doors, I'm thinking down the road for the eventual sale of the property years from now. A potential buyer might have an RV to store so 12' doors would be a good thing to have. The building size is going to be 36' wide and 48' long

Rool up doors might an option but I thought i'd make sure I am understanding things before I change my plans.

Thoughts?

 

[firebirdparts]

I think one issue might be what people consider a 14' building. Why were you not talking about the height above the floor? In a 14 foot building, the space between the floor and the trusses is 14 feet.

If you have a post building with 14' high posts above grade, and you put a slab on top of that, then it seems like you'd still have more than 13 feet. But anyway, you be the judge on that. You need to figure out how far it is from the top of the floor to the bottom of the trusses and then decide based on that.

In my opinion, taking the bottom chord of the trusses away was totally in error. But again, it's your trusses. You know what they look like. I own some trusses that drop between the walls, but I bought them, so I know that they drop and how far. I hope that makes sense. Roof trusses are pretty much always above the top plate on top of the wall.

 

[Toomanytools?]

I went through the same thing wanted 12' but garage door guy said 2' clearance was best. So went with a 16' pole building which ends up 15'6" inside, 12' door is fine.
So you can get low clearance track that works with 1', you should check with the door guy. Also some door models can mix panels, you might have five 2 foot panels and one 18" for 11'6". Don't worry too much about what some buyer down the road needs, it does help for the one out of 100??
Also what type of building pole or stick? With stick you can have 14' studs plus 4.5" of double top plate and single bottom plate plus your stem wall can be 6" or taller.

 

[Cuda416]

firebirdparts, I totally agree with you and that's how I was first introduced to pole barn dimmensioning.

As I've been talking to Hansen about a kit and the way they do it is measure from the bottom of the skirt to the top of the bottom chord of the truss which is eave height. I guess they are measuring the outside of the wall, which results in less height inside. That's the only reason I was going with those measurements.

The DIYpolebarn folks must do it differently. I'm still waiting on them to get back to me on how they look at it so I am comparing apples and apples.

Thanks!

 

[Cuda416]

I went through the same thing wanted 12' but garage door guy said 2' clearance was best. So went with a 16' pole building which ends up 15'6" inside, 12' door is fine.
So you can get low clearance track that works with 1', you should check with the door guy. Also some door models can mix panels, you might have five 2 foot panels and one 18" for 11'6". Don't worry too much about what some buyer down the road needs, it does help for the one out of 100??
Also what type of building pole or stick? With stick you can have 14' studs plus 4.5" of double top plate and single bottom plate plus your stem wall can be 6" or taller.

My wife is telling me to not think about people down the road too and I'm getting to that point. I don't normally spend this kind of cash so i'm getting wrapped around the axle trying to be as practical about it as possible. it's going to be a pole building, not stick.

Thanks!

 

[LB-1911]

As I get closer to starting my building, it has been brought to my attention that 12' tall doors, in a 14' building won't work. Doing the math, I can see the problem when fill and concrete is added, taking truss bottom chord away, I'll end up with less than a foot of clearance between the top of the door and the bottom of the trusses.

I thought I'd seen 12' doors in 14' buildings, but I might be mistaken. Is it just a fact of life that 12' door require at least a 15' eave height?

All this said and done, I don't "need" 12' doors, I'm thinking down the road for the eventual sale of the property years from now. A potential buyer might have an RV to store so 12' doors would be a good thing to have. The building size is going to be 36' wide and 48' long

Rool up doors might an option but I thought i'd make sure I am understanding things before I change my plans.

Thoughts?

You want 14 feet from the top of the floor to the bottom of the truss chord.

I went 14'.

12 may have been just enough a truck on a lift but I didn't want to be "just enough".

I also did 12 foot high door because one day down the road maybe the cars and lifts are gone and we snow bird with a Prevost.

 

[XRlifer]

My pole building has 14' eave height and a 12' door. Plenty of clearance. Some RV's can be taller, so 16' eave and 14' door would cover just about everything you'd ever need to store.

 

[MAINEGUY]

As I get closer to starting my building, it has been brought to my attention that 12' tall doors, in a 14' building won't work. Doing the math, I can see the problem when fill and concrete is added, taking truss bottom chord away, I'll end up with less than a foot of clearance between the top of the door and the bottom of the trusses. I thought I'd seen 12' doors in 14' buildings, but I might be mistaken. Is it just a fact of life that 12' door require at least a 15' eave height?

All this said and done, I don't "need" 12' doors, I'm thinking down the road for the eventual sale of the property years from now. A potential buyer might have an RV to store so 12' doors would be a good thing to have. The building size is going to be 36' wide and 48' long

Rool up doors might an option but I thought i'd make sure I am understanding things before I change my plans.

Thoughts?

I have a stick framed with a conventional foundation but my center door is 12' high. I have around 13'6" above my finish floor to the bottom of the truss.

 

[Cuda416]

My pole building has 14' eave height and a 12' door. Plenty of clearance. Some RV's can be taller, so 16' eave and 14' door would cover just about everything you'd ever need to store.

Thanks, how wide is the skirt board and is any of it above the concrete?

 

[Cuda416]

My pole building has 14' eave height and a 12' door. Plenty of clearance. Some RV's can be taller, so 16' eave and 14' door would cover just about everything you'd ever need to store.

I guess what I should have asked is, do you have 14' between the trusses and top of the concrete? If not, how much space do you have and where is the slab in relation to the height of the skirt board?

Also, it seems part of the problem for me is not understanding where the eave height starts. Hansen says bottom of the skirt, is it somewhere else? Is it variable? What things might change it between one building and another? Is it purely up to the designer?

 

[NUTTSGT]

I'd tell them that you don't care how they measure it, from where, as long as you have the 12' interior from finished floor to bottom of the truss chord that you want.

Pouring the floor prior to the walls going up makes it easier to find the correct height that you want. Put in longer poles and them cut them after the floor is finished.

 

[Cuda416]

I'd tell them that you don't care how they measure it, from where, as long as you have the 12' interior from finished floor to bottom of the truss chord that you want.

Pouring the floor prior to the walls going up makes it easier to find the correct height that you want. Put in longer poles and them cut them after the floor is finished.

Good advice, I might just go that route wrt pouring the concrete before raising the trusses.

 

[Cuda416]

Got an answer back from diypolebarns and they confirm there design ensures that from the bottom of the trusses, to the top of the concrete will in fact be 14'.

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[BillK]

Cuda,
Just measured the one here at my shop. Bottom of the truss to the floor is 15' 9" That looks like about as low as it could be.

That is for a 14ft door. So looks like you need almost 2 feet higher than the door.

 

[forAK]

Here is a pic of mine. The center door is 12' wide x 12'6" tall. My interior wall height to the bottom of the sheetrock is 13' 11 1/2". The walls were built exactly to 14' tall. This is the tallest door that I could fit in the hole.

 

[XRlifer]

The skirt board is 8" PT. The concrete is poured up 2" from the top of the board. Made for an interesting finish job. The finishers had no problem with it though.

 

[XRlifer]

I guess what I should have asked is, do you have 14' between the trusses and top of the concrete? If not, how much space do you have and where is the slab in relation to the height of the skirt board?

Also, it seems part of the problem for me is not understanding where the eave height starts. Hansen says bottom of the skirt, is it somewhere else? Is it variable? What things might change it between one building and another? Is it purely up to the designer?

My building is 36x38. Trusses are spaced at 12ft. The eave height is measured from the bottom of the skirt board to where the top cord touches the roof metal on the side wall.

 

[kbs2244]

They are measuring the outside because they have to worry about siding.
You are measuring the inside because that is where you will be working.

I would talk to them about taller poles..

 

[blacksporty]

As I get closer to starting my building, it has been brought to my attention that 12' tall doors, in a 14' building won't work. Doing the math, I can see the problem when fill and concrete is added, taking truss bottom chord away, I'll end up with less than a foot of clearance between the top of the door and the bottom of the trusses. I thought I'd seen 12' doors in 14' buildings, but I might be mistaken. Is it just a fact of life that 12' door require at least a 15' eave height?

All this said and done, I don't "need" 12' doors, I'm thinking down the road for the eventual sale of the property years from now. A potential buyer might have an RV to store so 12' doors would be a good thing to have. The building size is going to be 36' wide and 48' long

Rool up doors might an option but I thought i'd make sure I am understanding things before I change my plans.

Thoughts?

For RV you need 14' doors, so it that is your thinking you need to go taller.

 

[Pluribus]

Most installers have the ability to do low-headroom installations using a double track. My girlfriend has one with 9 or 10" of headroom. Here's one example with some graphics.

http://www.garaga.com/information/faq/headroom-required/

Note how the top pair of rollers go directly back in the 2nd track while the rest of the rollers use the radiused track. Unless you're using some special door with extra tall panels, I can't imagine not being able to make this work, unless you're going to add a huge amount of fill and an extra-thick slab for the floor.

 

[DieselNut88]

Most doors need a minimum of 12" from the finished opening at the top to the bottom of the truss.

 

[n20junkie]

If you want to use a jackshaft opener, a low headroom door probably won't work.

 

[Hot Rod Grampa]

Talk to your local door company. They can verify your concerns. No opener extension spring doors can get down to 4 1/2" headroom. Rear torsion low headroom 6". Front torsion low headroom 9 1/2" headroom. Standard headroom torsion has 3 different radius track. 10", 12", 15" each have different clearance requirements. Most commercial tracks are LHR or 15" Radius. Residential opener adds 2" to clearance, commercial almost 3". Hope this helps.