Expanding Garage Door
 

My garage is stretched by at least 4’ on one side, but only have a regular 16’ garage door. The space good easily accommodate an 18’ (or even 20’) garage door. Of course I’d want/need to expand driveway as well. This would make getting vehicles in and out infinitely better.

My question: has anyone in a similar situation widened their garage door opening? Has it had the benefit you were hoping for?

We are on a corner lot and I have considered widening garage to add golf cart garage area, but utilities are on that side so it would become a quite costly process. Just having better access to my already ‘oversized’ garage could be the ticket.

Picture would help? I suspect you have a 4’ bump out wall that would need removed to do the expansion?

OP, the first thing you need to do is get your house plans and see how the lintel beam is installed. I suspect it goes ONLY from support to support, so this will be a much bigger project as you would need to replace the lintel beam for the wider width. I am sure this will require an engineering firm to design the new beam, as well as all of the permits. If you are in Sumter County and your house is less than 10 years old you should be able to get your plans from the building department.
IMHO, this will be expensive, and I am not sure if you will find hurricane rated garage door for this width.
As an option I would suggest 2 9 foot (9.5 foot) door with a center support for the new lentil beams, this would allow more conventional garage doors, openers, etc.

As you say, he really should see the construction plans, but I'd be surprised if the Lintel didn't extend beyond the existing garage door opening. Doing it any other way, would be a very odd way to frame a home. Of course, if there's an easier/cheaper way to do things, the TV construction team has figure it out.

Thanks both. It’s just an idea I’m kicking around. Of course I would be looking to get all info before pulling the trigger on actually doing something. I was just curious if any one had done something similar and was happy they went through it on the backend.

I build automobile dealerships and used to build custom homes. Every INCH you add to your garage, is almost always a huge plus. Adding 2' would be huge.

You might want get some estimates. With cost involved that might make up your mind. :highfive:

We had a corner lot in Duval, with a 2 car 16’ door and golf cart garage. House was built 12/09. In 2019, We wanted to expand the cart garage to 3+ car garage, also bump out the laundry room/office adding pantry/storage. Addition was 6’x20’ for garage the bump to office sharing a wall with garage 6’x12.

With moving the electrical panel, AC, water line, sprinklers, cable boxes, new garage door, extension of driveway, plans, permits. The 3 quotes was $41,490 to $45,250. Since the roof going on 11 years new addition shingles wouldn’t have matched, so we probably would have re shingled entire house at additional cost.

Didn’t love the house that much, sold it, went with a new construction.

Lintel Supports are only 8 inches wide
 

I will try to attach a construction picture from 2012 for a house in Gilcrest. The lintel is supported on one half block (8 inches) on either side of the garage door opening. There is one block support for the area that has two garage door openings butting together (provides 8 inch support to both lintels). There is no way to widen the door opening without fully removing the current lentil and replacing it with a wider lentil. This would require a complete redo of any load bearing elements such as roof trusses, truss ties down straps etc.

I can not get the picture to attach on the preview. If you send me pm I can send you an email with the picture.

If I looked at this route, I don't think we'd stretch it that much, but I'm sure cost would be similar since it still involves moving utilities, etc. This is why i was thinking just having a bigger door would be a net positive. Sounds like that would open an engineering can of worms that really wouldn't be all that cost effective either. But I may stretch the driveway regardless. Just a bit too narrow for two cars side by side (for visitors and such).

Thanks for the feedback; it was an interesting experiment.

Odd way to frame in my opinion, but TV often does things differently.

We are on a corner lot and the setback rules for corner lots are not in your favor. Even though we have a ton of space on the side about 36’ we can not add a golf cart garage. Lucky we have an 18’ garage door.

And of course you will need to submit plans the the architectural board for approval.

Lintels In Concrete Block Walls Are poured Concrete in Metal Forms Onsite
 

My comments were based on block construction and not wood framed.
The Villages system for creating lintels in situ is very smart IMHO for block construction. They use standard length metal forms placed on top of the block walls, insert reinforcing, place concrete into the forms. Then they complete the next block course and add the truss straps into the wet concrete, or mortar in the block cells. All of this work is done by the masons without the use of cranes to lift prepared concrete lintels. They are now ready for placing the roof trusses the next day. The metal forms are a permanent part of the wall. They are used above windows also. This is why drilling into the block wall for shades etc. is tricky since you need to drill through both metal and into reinforced concrete.
The concrete is placed when the masons have a concrete pumper onsite and are filling the block cavities' which have the reinforcing all the way to the footings. The ends of the lintel bearing column has reinforcing and is concrete filled to the lintel. If you look at the block wall before stucco is applied you can see the plywood covers at the bottom which serves as inspection points for the building inspector to verify the cavity filling is complete.
I have never seen the lintel to block wall details in person. A quick look at the construction drawings did not show any special connectors.

The certainly have their construction means & methods down to an efficient work flow.

You are correct on the construction, this is exactly what my house plans (2013 const.) so. I did not go into this level of detail on my original reply, buy you are correct that there will be a lot of work required to have the new lintel (or lintels) installed to the current building specifications. I still think going with 2 garage doors will be less costly.

Garage door expansion
 

I have a similar question. I have a block house with a two car and golf cart garage. The golf cart garage is large enough for a car, in fact it is large enough for a car and the golf cart back to back with getting the car in through the two car door. But the cart garage door is not quite wide enough to get the car through that way. I don't need to or want to expand the garage. And I dont have a tree or anything in the way of getting a car in through that door. All I want to do is install a regular one car garage door, or at least a slightly wider door in place of the golf cart door which would require cutting a little block on each side. Has anyone done this and are there any problems encountered that are beyond how simple it would seem this job should be?

[QUOTE=Snakster66;2395716]
But I may stretch the driveway regardless. Just a bit too narrow for two cars side by side (for visitors and such).


Before you decide to add any stretch / concrete to your driveway, you need to contact ARC for approval. You do not want to be forced to take out the extra concrete.

Metal Lintels
 

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...re-install.jpg

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...after-install/

Metal Lintels
 

Well said, Village Tinker.
In the photo below, found online, note how the big beam over the garage door has to extend over several feet of load-bearing wall on each side. I think the original poster can see how putting in a wider door would mean removing the entire front of the garage, jacking up all the trusses as necessary, to keep the roof from collapsing during construction, rebuilding the supports on each side of the door, and sliding in a longer (and bigger) beam.

Building codes require what is called a Shear Wall on each side of the door to resist sideways forces that you make your garage roof collapse. The slimmer the shear wall, the stronger it has to be. Remember, we have hurricanes here! This is important. (“Shear wall is a structural member used to resist lateral forces, that is, parallel to the plane of the wall. For slender walls where the flexural deformation is more, shear wall resists the loads due to cantilever action. In other words, shear walls are vertical elements of the horizontal force resisting system.”) A narrower shear wall MUST be designed by a structural engineer and approved by the building inspection department. The engineer might require, say, virtually solid 2x6s nailed together in a specified way, covered on both sides by 3/4” plywood nailed in a specified ways, and extra deep concrete reinforcing beams into the ground. Or a big steel beam on top of a stronger foundation, all with specified bolting patterns and attached to the side walls in a certain way. Or a reinforced concrete vertical beam properly attached to horizontal beam and the roof and the ground.

Village Tinker’s suggestion of two 9’ doors is a good one. This would allow, say, an 18” post in the middle to help support the new beam. Garage doors here have heavy supports in them to keep them from blowing out in a hurricane. They weigh probably twice as much as most regular garage doors.

If you're going to quote other's work, perhaps give them credit?

That photo you posted, shows a frame constructed by an amateur and your characterization of what it's likely to take to enlarge a garage door, is grossly exaggerated.

The vast majority of garage doors in The Villages are cheapie, lightweight aluminum doors.

"extra deep concrete reinforcing beams into the ground."? Do you mean columns? Not likely.

& please quote the section of the IBC (or FL Building Code) that "requires a shear wall on both sides of a garage door".

Some people got in trouble for widening their driveway without ARC approval. Best to check with them first!

I know for a fact that our garage door are STEEL (a magnet sticks to them) and these are heavy and reinforced (vintage 2013). I will need to review the actual house plans but as I recall there were callouts for the design and construction for all of the openings. I believe the concrete block in these opening is filled with rebar and concrete for extra strength.