I have a customer who has an odd questions. They just put on a huge addition to their existing house. The garage was framed with approx. 15′ walls. They are wondering if their is any way they can run the doors completely vertical up the wall and not allow it to run horizontal. That way it saves room so they can play basketball.
I can see their problem now that it is all done. I didn’t do any of the work and the designer really screwed up in my opinion. If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated. And roll up doors are not an option.
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I have seen them installed that way in a warehouse before. Not sure what you need for springs to mak it work right though. Seems like some sort of counterbalance weight could be made to work fairly easily.
Edited 8/30/2009 11:12 pm ET by TomW
Should be easy. Run tracks to the ceiling less room for a pulley. Add weight to a cable to balance the door weight. I'm thinking of weights inside a tube with a close fit to slow the speed of the door moving.
The counter weights would be a necessity. As it is, normally, the spring onmly handles the full load of the doors weight wehn it starts going up. At that point the tension on the wound spring is the highest so it has the force to balance the weight.but in the new configuration, the spring.cable would hold the total weight all the time, this the need for a counter balancing weight.I would be concerned about liability myself, and would want to design in some sort of fail safe safety too.Going at the idea from scratch, I would build a solid panel door, hinge at top, and employ an electric winch system to raise and lower it. Have seen similar in a hanger once on a door that folded in the middle. and didn't go all the way up.
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Should not be too hard.
You need to the track to angle anyway as the door actually wedges against the stop as it closes and alway as it open. Might need a slight bend to get it to clear the torsion bar.
Or mount 2 vertical springs on the sides. They will need to be boxed in to keep fingers out of the way.
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Check out these JACKSHAFT openers.......
they safely attach to the torsion bar which gets raised to the highest position in the garage......
http://www.liftmaster.com/consumerweb/products/pflJackshaft.htm
You might have to look at commercial doors. Check with a door company like Overhead Door or do a google search
You are looking for a "full vertical" track. see them in commercial buildings quite a bit. Like this one:
http://www.overheaddoor.com/ProductCommercial.aspx?pid=107
Actually a quite common track system.
Some outfits call it a "hightop" track.
When the doors are ordered, just give them the ceiling height and the track will be made to fit. Around here it is usually less then $75 upcharge.
It will be a torsion spring set up if that is any issue to you.
Openers for it are another issue. The only dependable opener will need to be a commercial version - likely to attach to the end of the torsion shaft. They will be pricey.
For an opener, I would absolutely avoid the i-drive TorqueMaster (sold by Wayne Dalton)(typically represented as a DIY install).
I have installed 5 of them. Only one of them operated from the git-go as it should. Two of them required multiple calls to the manufacturer with replacement parts and advice flying back and forth before they would realiably function. The other two would function for awhile, then I would get a call that they weren't working again. Finally gave up and replaced them with conventional chain drives. That change required me to change the tracks to a low overhead set up - just what I was trying to avoid with the i-drive.
Terry
This is done frequently on commercial doors. Usually the tracks run with the "normal" vertical slope to the top of the door and then angle out another 10 degrees or so above that. The ones I've seen, IIRC, generally had a more or less standard (but heavy-duty) torsion spring setup, and I vaguely recall that the openers were commercial units rigged to the torsion rods.
Any garage door outfit that does light commercial work should be able to spec the stuff necessary.
A local garage door company should be able to modify the sytem to operate vertically if there is enough headroom, or hi-lift, in which the track runs up the wall as high as necessary and then turns to horizontal.
A torsion spring system (typical) with a new spring, and cable drums designed for the application will be necessary.
Liftmaster has a new residential jackshaft operator that will work great for this application. And it is not as pricey as the commercial units.