Overhead Door track questions - new install

[Herb67SS]

Folks,
I need some advice.

I'm having a 28x36 garage built. It's under construction now. It will have (from the left end) an 8 x 10ft wide door, an 8 x 16ft wide door, ~2ft of wall and a man door.

The first 14ft of ceiling above the 10ft door bay will be vaulted to a 4-12 pitch to accomodate a lift. The remainder of the ceiling will be 10 ft high. I wanted the 10ft door track to follow the vaulted ceiling and the 16ft door to hug the 10ft high ceiling. I will be installing 2es LM3800 openers later.

When I asked if this could be done, I was quoted $950 for "high lift kits" the track location change.

1. What am I missing? Seems to me that the only change is the radius bends of the tracks for both doors. The staight tracks don't change. This price seems excessive doesn't it?

2. Can I make the track changes myself later before I finish the ceiling without having to buy all new track, just the radius tracks and mounts?

3. How much of the jackshaft needs to extend beyond the track to accomodate the LM3800 openers? I though I may as well ask the installers to at least position shaft correctly upon installation to accomodate the openers later.

4. What door mfg do you guys recommend? I may be able to define the source/brand.

Any input appreciated.
tx,
Herb

 

[upndown]

Anytime your looking at Highlift and vaulted ceilings, you'll need different tracks,cables,springs..etc. Call a few different door companies, have them come out and measure..They will bring literature on doors and estimates are free

 

[kbs2244]

With regular horizontal tracks the weight of the door comes completely off the springs when open.
With angled tracks some of the door weight remains on the springs.
How much depends on the weight of the door and the steepness of the angle.

$950 additional seems high.
The door companies should have all the engineering done for the different weight/angle combinations.
It should be just a matter of pulling the right parts off the shelf.

Call around.
You may be getting a high quote because you are taking a guy out of his comfort zone because he hasn’t done it before.

 

[AndyL]

500/door sounds close to me, but each company is different... If you think that's high - you don't wanna ask me for a price

Now do realize - when you're going to highlift / pitched - you're suddenly into something that's not standard... Instead of pulling a trackset off the shelf, they're fabricating - there's always a premium for 'non standard'. With pitch, there's always onsite fabrication and usually some 'fudge' room allowed in case extra parts or there's a variance required between 'planned' angle and what's actually achieved; necessitating replacement springs...

 

[RollUpDoor]

Now do realize - when you're going to highlift / pitched - you're suddenly into something that's not standard... Instead of pulling a trackset off the shelf, they're fabricating - there's always a premium for 'non standard'. With pitch, there's always onsite fabrication and usually some 'fudge' room allowed in case extra parts or there's a variance required between 'planned' angle and what's actually achieved; necessitating replacement springs...

This... 100%. This is not off the shelf. It will be made just for your opening. Also expect a about 3 week wait for it to arrive from the factory to the installer.

 

[pattenp]

$950 additional sounds high to me too. If they were coming in to just covert existing doors then the $950 may be okay.

 

[nova65ss]

Vaulted is a little different than standard high lift and takes the obvious different hardware but is also a lot more difficult to install and get right. It never goes in the way factory sends it. It makes a two hour one man door install turn into an all day two man door install thus the likely added cost for both material and labor.

 

[Angelfire]

My door is being installed later today. I got the high lift option and the additional cost was about $300. My ceiling is not vaulted so possibly that reduced the cost a bit

 

[AndyL]

It also never hurts to outright ask - are you quoting me high because you don't want the work. Its also worth asking if comparable quotes are off in $ - if they're providing something different than their competitor...

Like I said, I'd be quoting you higher, but I use radically different parts than the others in my vicinity, different quality - not the standard fare...

 

[Herb67SS]

Thanks to all! Sorry I haven't responded soon. Burried at work.

So I had a chat with my builder. Here's what happened. He said he Under quoted the doors in total. My response was, Ok, we all make mistakes. Let's find a reasonable resolution. While I appreciate the problem, I have an issue with the total cost for the basic, lowest grade, single steel, no windows doosr you quoted me, without the high lift options. (Turns out the $950 plus-up didn't include the lift kits). I can get Premium grade, 2in thick, double steel insulate Cloplay doors with windows, installed for $300 cheaper than you are asking me to pay you - and that quote is from Home Despot. So I think your price for the doors is out of line. I'm willing to see you don't lose money on this but you need to try to meet me part of the way. You give me your costs for the doors and install and I will see what I can get them for. If you can't beat my prices, give me credit for the door allowance you bid and I will handle the doors. (he did give me allowance number earlier).

He agreed. Now I will get other quotes.

Then I will get prices for the high lift install and we'll see where this goes.

 

[Herb67SS]

This... 100%. This is not off the shelf. It will be made just for your opening. Also expect a about 3 week wait for it to arrive from the factory to the installer.

I understand and can appreciate some of what you say when talking about getting a door to follow a vaulted ceiling vs the standard horizontal position when opened. I find it hard to believe that somewhere in the world of garage door track manufacturing, someone hasn't created a table that has headings like: opening height, width, ceiling height or ceiling pitch, door weight, desired position in inches below ceiling when opened, = use curved&straight track X, use spring number y, use cable length z.
Maybe not.

I would like to understand why with an 8X16ft door and a 10ft flat ceiling, it's not just a matter of adding say 12 to 18 inches of straight track to the bottom of each side to get the door to rest within 6 to 12 inches of the ceiling when open? Instead, I was told it would take a special 20 inch radius track vs whatever the standard radius was to get the door closer to the flat ceiling when opened. Why does it now take a special radius track instead of just some longer standard straight track.?

If the standard radius track works with the horizontal track suspended say 20 inches from the ceiling, why wouldn't it work with the horizontal track suspended 6 to 8 inches from the ceiling? Seems like all that would be needed is to mount the shaft and spring assy higher and use longer cables.

Perhaps I'm missing other factors that come into play. But I'd like to understand it better. Can you or someone explain this to me.
/h

PS - use small words please

 

[Herb67SS]

Bump

 

[AndyL]

The charts don't exist, because there are too many possible combinations. And in reality its more than just more track and cable, its drums, track cable and springs...

Working out the track is simple, the spring, well - when I do it by hand - its a full 8x11 sheet and 45min of cursing and pulling down 4 big binders and paging through tables... luckily we have software for that so its rare to do it by hand...

Reality for you, your asking for something custom... some companies have no problem doing it, some can pull it off the shelf (at extra cost) most can't. Home depot - and the box stores won't even talk about it because it doesn't work for their business model.

 

[nova65ss]

Yeah good luck with home depot I doubt they would even price it. I have done dozens of follow the pitch installs and they never go in from the manufacturer as ordered. There is always on site fab work which eats up time and labor.

Now you are talking follow the pitch and high lift and it gets even more difficult. We have even been at the point where the door comes in from the manufacturer as ordered with all measurements correct and it just doesn't balance, so there goes another trip back to the supplier for springs and that costs more time and labor. Got to add enough labor in there for the unknown when dealing with custom installs.

950 more is a tad on the high side but like I said this is now a two man job all day. For decent installers is about 350 dollars in labor at 175 per guy plus the added material costs couple of hundred, that 350 in labor with taxes costs the business more like 400 so 3oo ish bucks profit isn't ridiculous in my opinion...not too mention the builder tacks on a little as well.

My advice would be to call a couple of door companies on your own and have them price it and go from there with your builder.

 

[pattenp]

I think this is being made to sound harder than it really is. And BTW this is not my garage.

 

[pattenp]

You don't need larger radius turn track, I used the standard radius that came with the door. You need larger drums, longer cable, stronger springs and a special section of vertical track for the door to travel outwards as it lifts. Here's mine....

View media item 16314

I understand and can appreciate some of what you say when talking about getting a door to follow a vaulted ceiling vs the standard horizontal position when opened. I find it hard to believe that somewhere in the world of garage door track manufacturing, someone hasn't created a table that has headings like: opening height, width, ceiling height or ceiling pitch, door weight, desired position in inches below ceiling when opened, = use curved&straight track X, use spring number y, use cable length z.
Maybe not.

I would like to understand why with an 8X16ft door and a 10ft flat ceiling, it's not just a matter of adding say 12 to 18 inches of straight track to the bottom of each side to get the door to rest within 6 to 12 inches of the ceiling when open? Instead, I was told it would take a special 20 inch radius track vs whatever the standard radius was to get the door closer to the flat ceiling when opened. Why does it now take a special radius track instead of just some longer standard straight track.?

If the standard radius track works with the horizontal track suspended say 20 inches from the ceiling, why wouldn't it work with the horizontal track suspended 6 to 8 inches from the ceiling? Seems like all that would be needed is to mount the shaft and spring assy higher and use longer cables.

Perhaps I'm missing other factors that come into play. But I'd like to understand it better. Can you or someone explain this to me.
/h

PS - use small words please

 

[fredybender]

this is mine, and all stated reasons for a premium were stated above,
it cost me $1000 for both my doors (track, springs, and hardware only)
at $950 your good.

 

[AndyL]

You don't need larger radius turn track, I used the standard radius that came with the door

There's no doubt, that works, but for the 10' ceiling without pitch, the 32" radius works better, It's 1000x smoother than running 18" of highlift into a 12" radius. It just plain works gooder And it's usually cheaper than the highlift option (even though it's most of the same components - still highlift drums and different springs/cables)

We've got a bunch of door guys here getting technical, and trying to explain the costs. And why you're not going to get it at the big boxes... Not to complicate things, on the end user it should be transparent - "I want this" - we give you that... We get the fun of figuring out the hows/what.

 

[Herb67SS]

You guys are great! I'm actually getting it.

Here's what happened, I pushed back a little, got pricing on a standard install and doors from lowes and home despot. Armed with those door prices which included std installs, the builder and I went back to the door contractor.

He figured out that the 16ft door while only 8 ft high, could be installed with a 9ft standard lift kit, putting the door within 12 in of the 10 ft ceiling. That was acceptable to me and, made it a more "standard" type install, keeping the cost way down. The 10 ft wide door I still wanted to follow the 4/12 pitch of the lift bay. He reconsidered his quote and reduced his price to an acceptable number which included both doors being upgraded to premium models. The door contractor is fine with his quote, and so am I.

I couldn't have worked thru this without you guys helping me understand the issues. I really appreciate the help!

BTW - Clopay has a free ($275) window offer going on thru 9/5 at HD.