Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill
I don't mean to contradict your carpenter, because I am not one. But I still think there is a possibility of narrowing the center area between the garage doors. As Rickst said, and your carpenter apparently confirmed, the center area contains a load-bearing structure, and the header beams over the garage door openings rest on that structure. My thought would be to put in a narrower load-bearing structure, such as a lally column, either fixed or screw-adjustable length. Now that you have narrowed the support structure, the header beams won't reach the center of the lally column, of course, so you need to put a strong thick steel plate on top of the column, extending in both directions from the column. The plate extends out far enough for the header beams to rest on. The reach on each side is not long - maybe 4-6 inches? - so a properly-chosen plate won't bend over that short distance. Bolts in appropriate places will hold the whole thing together so nothing moves.
Now you can strip out the original support structure, which is probably wooden, rebuild the trim and fascia, and install new doors..
Just my uneducated thought.
Bill
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Thanks for the suggestion.
We did talk of adding a structural beam across both doors, which would allow a large single door. However, there's not enough clearance between the top of the doors and the attic joists. This would also make it a 17' door, which would have to be special ordered and pricey (and 10 weeks delivery time). Instead, we would've went with a standard 16' door and added 6" of trim to both outsides. Don't know how that would've looked, or if it would've got approved by the HOA.
Either way, the repair's complete and she's in the garage, so I'm planning on going camping instead of working on that garage any more. If pulling it in and out becomes a nuisance, or if I scrape the trailer (did I just jinx myself?!?) then I may revisit adding wider doors.