How To Size A Garage Door Header

The structural ridge span represents the size of a large family room.

How to size a garage door header.

Most door frames that are 4 feet wide or less require a 2 by 6 header. My first job as a carpenter s helper was to construct headers for the tract houses we were building. Window door garage door headers supporting roof loads only. Header size required to support the roof ceiling and one center bearing floor of a 28 ft.

Tables providing size selections for various beam spans and loading combinations for southern pine dimension lumber and southern pine glued laminated timber are available for the following applications. Measure the width of your door frame. The span above the door opening is framed with a long header that supports the wall area above the door and this header will need to be raised or rebuilt in order to increase the overall door size. Cut a 2 x 6 piece of lumber and nail to the face of wall exactly in the center of the garage header.

If there isn t enough room above the opening this can t be done without raising the roof of the garage. Attach lumber to the face of the garage wall to the edge of the garage door header. The procedure for constructing a header for 6 inch exterior wall framing can be modified for any wall thickness. The span for the girder is based on the size of an average sized game room.

Porch header sizing header size load bearing wall wewontbyte garage door header sizes orange01 co wood beam sizing wood beam sizes premiumpsds co wood beam sizingporch header sizingwood beam sizingheader. The clever way i used to build headers. Table 1 consolidates loading sizes and cost data for all of the applications. Building a structural header for a garage door opening can be handled on the jobsite and will offer the same structural support as more expensive solid wood beams.

Last pull a measurement from the top of the 2 x 6 piece of lumber that you just installed to the ceiling of the garage. Header spans are typical for a window and a patio door. The right header size. Between 4 and 5 feet the header should be built 2 inches wide and 8 inches long while a larger opening needs a header that is 2 by 12.

And the garage door header is based on a 2 car garage door opening.