Garage Door Distances

[PitbullMidwest]

I'm getting ready to build a simple garage, straight forward construction. My question is: how much room should be allowed between the sidewall and the overhead door frame so that when the car is parked there is adequate room to get in and out of the car?

The garage will be a 2-car, 28' wide with a 16' door offset to the left side

 

[LBrown59]

*The garage will be a 2-car, 28' wide with a 16' door off set to the left side

*I would much prefer a 10 foot door centered in each 14 foot bay.

 

[Bird]

I think the usual answer to your question is two feet.

 

[davkir]

Are you going to use the wall on the short side for storage. Shelves, cabinets, hooks...etc, that will take up space?
I would be thinking about more like 4 ft. (But I'm a little older and sometimes have trouble getting in and out anyway!)
You might set a saw horse next to your car and see what feels comfortable. The garage will probably outlast you current vehicle, if there is a truck in your future with towing mirrors you might add a little space.

 

[Tig]

Bird is probably correct but I left four on either sie of my door. Leaves room for a work bench or bicycle or stuff hanging on the wall.

 

[bigtiller]

A family member had one that was 12 inches but that gets a little tight if you are over 40 or over 200. I went the other way with my current garage at 6 feet. I had one years ago that was 2 feet and I had allways wished I had made it 3 feet.

 

[sperry]

10' wide doors with 32" side wall clearance is a great combo! May not work with your offset door or 28'w dia.

 

[mjncad]

My preference would be 10' door with 3' minimum and 4' preferred distance on each side of the garage door frame. Going this route would make your garage 29' - 32' nominal width.

I echo other comments about 2' being inadequate, especially as one gets older. We have a 16' door for two Honda's, and my 2-door car has 2'+/- distance on the driver's side to the wall. I hate it. Also, the majority of the door dings in my car's right side are from my dear wife opening her 4-door CRV's doors too quickly in the tight space.

As an architect friend of mine says about garages, "Space is cheap." Make it big enough to suit your needs if at all possible.

 

[CurlyDave]

The garage will be a 2-car, 28' wide with a 16' door offset to the left side

I made mine an 18' door, and there is 3' of clearance on either side. This is just parking area. There is an offset for a ramp and storage also.

It feels just about right, so I would recommend 24' of parking width for two cars and an 18' door. These are inside dimensions. Don't forget the width of your walls.

You are starting with a blank piece of paper. You might as well decide to hit a home run instead of building something you will come to regret.

 

[psvines]

Make it much larger than you could ever possibly imagine you will need, and I promise that someday it will barely be enough. It's easy now to enlarge it on paper; afterwards when it is too small it will be difficult to rearrange stuff and move around inside the crowded space. If this sounds like a tip from experience... it is.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I am like Curly Dave, I prefer one single wide door rather than 2 little narrow doors if you are on a 28 wide plan. I am currently awaiting the contractor to start on my new shop/garage that is 30x30 with 2 each 12 foot wide doors. That allows me plenty of room to park my crewcab pickup in without having to remove the trailer hitch to close the garage door and plenty of width to allow some shelves on the sides and still open all the doors without dinging each other.
Dont forget the added depth also. Most "standard" 2 car garages arent deep enough or wide enough to park more than 1 medium sized car and a lawnmower in. Since me and my wife have larger vehicles, we need the extra width doors to get thru without folding in the mirrors on the vehicles. My current house garage only has 8 foot wide double doors and I hate them. My wife can get her SUV in with about and inch of clearance on each side, but my P/U wont fit without folding the mirrors and removing the trailer hitch insert and then the front bumper has to touch the wall in order for the door to close and that is with a short 6 foot box on the truck.

 

[LBrown59]

I am like Curly Dave, I prefer one single wide door rather than 2 little narrow doors if you are on a 28 wide plan. I am currently awaiting the contractor to start on my new shop/garage that is 30x30 with 2 each 12 foot wide doors. That allows me plenty of room to park my crewcab pickup in without having to remove the trailer hitch to close the garage door and plenty of width to allow some shelves on the sides and still open all the doors without dinging each other.
Dont forget the added depth also. Most "standard" 2 car garages arent deep enough or wide enough to park more than 1 medium sized car and a lawnmower in. Since me and my wife have larger vehicles, we need the extra width doors to get thru without folding in the mirrors on the vehicles. My current house garage only has 8 foot wide double doors and I hate them. My wife can get her SUV in with about and inch of clearance on each side, but my P/U wont fit without folding the mirrors and removing the trailer hitch insert and then the front bumper has to touch the wall in order for the door to close and that is with a short 6 foot box on the truck.

My garage is 52 feet wide by 30 feet deep.
This gives me 4 stalls 13 wide by 30 deep.
Each stall has a 10 foot wide door centered in the 13 foot width.
this gives me plenty of room to open my truck doors on both sides of the stall.
I've found the 10 foot opening gives me plenty of room to clear the mirros on the pickups.
The 10 foot wide doors make a huge difference over 9 foot wide doors.
I've had 4 pick up trucks and 6 tractors in it all at the same time.
The only thing I would change if i was to build it agan is i would go 56 feet wide by maybe 32 feet deep.

 

[jimmer2880]

I have a 32x32 with 2 - 10' doors. If I were to do it over again, I would go with a single 18'. 10' is JUST barely enough room. Some of my trailers only have 2" on either side when I back them in to work on them.

 

[frank_f15]

i did what curly dave did, went with a 18' door and a 3rd bay with its own door on the left side, with 2 ' between side wall and doors, it is ok and i really don't seem to have any problems. 3 ' would be better but not a mjor problem with 2 ' (at least for us) i did have the header for the 18' door reinforced tho to make sure it never sagged

 

[bdeboer]

Curly Dave's 18' door with 3' of clearance sounds about right. I currently have 2 9' doors and it is tight getting a full size truck without hitting the mirrors in. I have about 18" on the drivers side to the drywall, and have hit the crew cab door on the wall getting my daughter into her car-seat.

 

[Lumberjack_jeff]

In my area, building codes dictate that the front wall of a garage must be capable of handling shear (sideways) loads.

That means that they want to see 48" between the corner of the building and a window or door (including a garage door)

It can be as small as 2' 8" if you install special straps in the foundation. It can be 18" (iirc) if using special prestressed panels.

The Narrow Shear Panel |

 

[joe48]

I built a 28w by 26 deep garage a number of years ago. Had a 16x8 door offset by 2' to the left side and 10' on the other for storage etc. Normally we had 2' on each side for doors. but depending on vehicles in garage sometimes had to pull one closest to storage area in on a diagonal to have more room to open doors.
If I was doing it over would definetly give 4 ft on each side of vehicle, much easier and fewer door dings etc.

 

[mjncad]

Curly Dave's 18' door with 3' of clearance sounds about right. I currently have 2 9' doors and it is tight getting a full size truck without hitting the mirrors in. I have about 18" on the drivers side to the drywall, and have hit the crew cab door on the wall getting my daughter into her car-seat.

I squeeze my F-250 Super Duty 4x4 into an 8' wide door. It's a tight squeeze with the mirrors folded in. I have a piece of electrical tape on the inside of the windshield to line up with a spot on the garage door. Then I line it up with a spot on the rear wall before I proceed to park it. The door was 7' tall (cheap *** builder), which the truck cleared by about an inch. The door is now 8.5' tall after my Brother-in-law and I raised the header and had another door panel installed. I am planning on 10' wide doors for our new place. As one gets older, opening a 10' door manually if the door opener fails is a lot easier than a 16', 18' or even 20' door.

 

[ray66v]

Faced with the same dilemma, I drew the building to scale, on graph paper. Then, I drew the various items I needed to store along the wall in place, noting the clearance. I found 8' was what I needed for my configuration.

2' was the minimum for many years around here. But, downsizing has brought it down to 18". At 18" you can pull a car in and open the door, but, you can not have anything, even a broom, along the wall.

The least I would go is 2'

 

[EddieWalker]

Are you going to have a regular access door too? Figure three feet for that, plust the framing.

If you go with an 18ft door, they jump in price some because of the additional bracing. Squeezing two cars through a 16ft opening is tight. If they are both compacts, it's alright, but if one of them is full sized, you will really wish you had the two extra feet.

For the best look overall from the outside, centering the door is the only way to go. Even with a man door to one side, the garage door needs to be in the middle of the wall.

Eddie