Garage door Header framing, Crazy idea????

[OKnewguy]

I am wanting to convert my 3 car single garage into a 3 car that has a one single and 1 double door. My question is about the required header to span the new double door (16'), The current headers are 8x2 with a sandwich of plywood. The green lines on the existing header represent where there is a joint. The joints are offset btw. My first thought is to add diagonal bracing in between the stud bays (the red lines, and then glue and screw plywood onto the framing for additional strength (instead of sheetrock). I changed colors on the picture that would show the plywood, so you can picture how I was planing to lay out the sheets.

I know that a proper beam should be used, but by doing this I am making a beam, sort of.
Am I off base here?
Thanks for the input!
Dave

 

[OKnewguy]

One quick foot note.
The roof is truss framed and they are run parallel to the doors.
Thanks, Dave

 

[moored4]

I am assuming that for some reasons you do not want to put a standard header in there. So instead of ply wood could you use steel plate welded into one piece and then lag bolt it to the existing 2 headers, if you can get to the front side make a steel plate sandwich bolting thru the existing header.

 

[Rustyiron]

There should be really no need for much a header above the doors because the roof bears on the side walls with either trusses or rafters. You should be fine with what you've suggested. If it concerns you you could use a "Microlam" lagged into the existing headers to span both openings. A paralam is a brand name for the new engineered lumber that is making larger openings much easier to deal with, replacing steel beams or flitch plates. It is really just a super piece of plywood, usually 13/4" thick X varing heights and available up to 40' long. It looks like you could fit 18" or so in there. One consideration might be to (no matter what you end up with for a beam) is put a "stiff back up in the attic, that is a 2x4-6 attached flat to the trusses. To provide stiffining of the end truss. Double check your final opening dim. to be sure it will work with a std size door. Good luck,

 

[OKnewguy]

The main reason for trying to do this is time. If I go this route, I can work at my leisure, and not disable the existing doors. I should be able to have it all framed and then tear out the center support the same day that I install the door. Unfortunately, I can not get to other side of the header, it is where the eaves are and I am trying not to tear out the outside.
Thanks for the replies! Keep them coming!
Dave

 

[PILOON]

Since the truss loads are on the side walls, I think you'd be just fine with 3/4 ply to box everything in.
Be sure your first 3/4 is centered over the gap between the doors, both inside and out and then simply complete the 'box' til the whole area over the doors are covered.
Use lots of nails to stitch it all together. (you do have a nail gun?)
This assumes you have trusses and not rafters as trusses place all the load on the side walls.Rafters tend to push the side walls outwards, but then even so tyeing the door headers as I suggest would hold the sides in.
Good luck!
(usual disclamers apply)

 

[JCByrd24]

There should be really no need for much a header above the doors because the roof bears on the side walls with either trusses or rafters. You should be fine with what you've suggested.

Rustyiron is correct, and you are lucky. If your trusses ran perpendicular to doors this would be a much larger undertaking. In this case, the header simply needs to hold it's weight, and the interior and exterior sheathing. You are also lucky that there is a continuous header already there with staggered joints. Most likely you could knock out that divider right now, but I like your idea of sheathing the inside with plywood vice sheetrock.

 

[Jay4200]

I am wanting to convert my 3 car single garage into a 3 car that has a one single and 1 double door. My question is about the required header to span the new double door (16'), The current headers are 8x2 with a sandwich of plywood. The green lines on the existing header represent where there is a joint. The joints are offset btw. My first thought is to add diagonal bracing in between the stud bays (the red lines, and then glue and screw plywood onto the framing for additional strength (instead of sheetrock). I changed colors on the picture that would show the plywood, so you can picture how I was planing to lay out the sheets.

I know that a proper beam should be used, but by doing this I am making a beam, sort of.
Am I off base here?
Thanks for the input!
Dave

Doesn't really matter - your doors are on the gable end, so that wall isn't load bearing. You're just holding up the little bit of wall above the doors. If you want to do it "right", rip out the existing header and replace it with a 16' header constructed the same way.

Edit: as the others said...

JayC

 

[backdoor]

Gable trusses are usualy built to be placed on a weight bearing wall, and are not designed to hold any weight without being supported from underneath. Look in your attic to see if the gable truss looks exactly like the rest of your trusses. If not, you need to support that truss along with the gable. I build custom homes up to about 7500 sq. ft. I doubt if you will be able to frame any kind of header to span 16 feet that won't sag a little bit. Call a local truss supplier, they usually supply LVL material, glulam, paralam type beams, too. They will tell you what size beam to use, and they can supply it. Hope this helps.

 

[beeforty]

Out of curiosity have you checked to see if a single door will span the distance of your 2 singles plus the middle portion. What size do you have now? 7'ers with 1' in between? Or a pair of 8's plus the middle?:confused2:

 

[OKnewguy]

Yes, the existing doors are 7, this garage was built in the early 80's, I do not know why they went with the smaller doors. The new door opening will be 16' on the money. I have heard from a friend, that some of the double garage doors are now 15' 11.5" if this is the case, then I will add some trip to make up the difference.
Thanks, Dave

 

[valley]

post withdrawn.

 

[CurlyDave]

Gable trusses are usualy built to be placed on a weight bearing wall, and are not designed to hold any weight without being supported from underneath. Look in your attic to see if the gable truss looks exactly like the rest of your trusses. If not, you need to support that truss along with the gable. I build custom homes up to about 7500 sq. ft. I doubt if you will be able to frame any kind of header to span 16 feet that won't sag a little bit. Call a local truss supplier, they usually supply LVL material, glulam, paralam type beams, too. They will tell you what size beam to use, and they can supply it. Hope this helps.

I have to agree with this. I am currently building a new garage and the end trusses are designed to go on a weight bearing wall.

My header is 4x14" for a 16' door.

You have plenty of room to take out the cripples above the current header and put in a bigger header. The cost of the correct header is peanuts compared to the cost of a good garage door.

My (very current) experience is that there is a break point at 16' for garage doors, go even one inch over and the cost is maybe 20% higher.

 

[ray66v]

I hate saggy headers, and even though there is no load on this span, there is still a possibility of it sagging from it's own weight. For that reason I never put anything above a garage door, except a steel reinforced header.

From here, it looks to me like you could remove the old headers and put in a new one from the inside, without too much of a fight.

It may be more work in the end, to try and short cut it.

 

[slowzuki]

Waste of money to put a steel header above the door, and you then have the problem of attaching wood to the steel header to mount your garage door hardware.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Attached photo of header on my shop that is for a 16 foot door. I have an 18 foot door on my home garage that is built similar. This photo shows an 8 foot tall door with 9'8" ceiling height to give you an idea of the size of the header. Plywood is attached on each side also and a roof truss is above this. I dont know if they are all tied together but this should give you a good idea of how to build.

 

[ray66v]

Waste of money to put a steel header above the door, and you then have the problem of attaching wood to the steel header to mount your garage door hardware.

a. It's not a waste of money, if you don't want it to sag.

b. If you sandwich a steel flitch plate between (2) 2x10's, you have wood on both sides, to attach anything you desire.

 

[lostcause]

a. It's not a waste of money, if you don't want it to sag.

b. If you sandwich a steel flitch plate between (2) 2x10's, you have wood on both sides, to attach anything you desire.

you truly don't need steel in order to not have it sag. maybe 30-40 years ago things would have been different, but today we've got lots of engineered lumber products that will do nearly anything that steel will do. as was mentioned earlier, an lvl (laminated veneer lumber) solution would be the easiest to do. you could probably get by with just sandwiching your current headers as you suggested, but replacing with lvls would be ideal. a couple of years ago i remodeled a 2 car garage into a workshop. here's a few pictures relating to the changing of the doors:

Here's the garage as it was built, probably 10+ years prior. All in good shape, but not really suited for my needs.

as you can see, the gable end has virtually no load on it. i did not have a continuous header, but in stead two separate headers supported by the studs between the doors. you can see that the whole front of the building is just hanging even without the center post supporting it. the plywood sheathing is what does the work here. it braces and supports the front wall. the 2x6 nailed across the front is just to keep things loosely tied together so that a freak wind storm wouldn't rip the unsupported doors apart. to dispel any questions of sagging and load on the gable end: after jacking the building, i ran a string across the front of the building. there was only 1/4" of sag at the center of the wall BEFORE i tied them together with the continuous 2x6, and that's with everything just hanging, and absolutely no header.

here i've removed the doors and replaced the header. i believe i used a pair of 1 3/4x 11 3/4 lvls glued and nailed together, but it's been a while, so they might be deeper, but i really don't think so.

here it's all together and mostly finished off. it's been like this for two years now, and still just as level as the day i put it in. incidentally, i'm not a contractor - just a motivated homeowner. i have a wide array of tools, but i didn't do anything here that required more than a hammer, circular saw, and sawzall. i did tear the gearbox out of a sawzall cutting the building off the sills, but there's always some casualties in a project this size.

for reference, the door is an 8x18, and i wish i could remember the price of the headers. i bought 20 footers to give me room to plan everything out, and i think it was around $80 each, so $160 total, give or take. a piece of 1/4x12 steel flat bar would have cost about exactly the same per foot as the lvls i used, but then you'd still need the dimensional lumber to sandwich it with, plus a lot of carriage bolts, and a lot of hole drilling. if you are considering steel for a center beam, then i can see it being viable, since it can also do double duty as a crane hoist beam. as far as i'm concerned, it's excess weight that serves no purpose in a header.

 

[ray66v]

Sure, you can use a LVL beam, which are not cheap. And if you do it right, that can work fine.

I don't know how the cost would come out, I'm not sure there would be a big difference. You could use the a 1/4 inch flitch plate here, (not a pricey one).

For now, I will stick with what I know works.

 

[chucko]

There is "some" load on that header. Notice the pic of the outside the roof slopes up to that gable that rest on the header. The gable holds all of this and even two foot of roof load behind it. The weight of all of that and the self weight of that gable must be accounted for.

Does that gable sit right above the header or is it back from it a few feet?