Shop door

We're nearing completion of my shop project, its long and complicated story, we did a remodel on an older dairy barn, put in my new service pit and are getting things moved in, now for the shop door, which shouldn't be hard to do, but like everything else with this project, it turns out its tougher than I thought. I don't want to hang any door on my building, we want a free standing door and use flashing to connect it to the building, I'm wanting a hydraulic door, one piece open up and be done with it, the measurments are roughly 32 feet wide by 20 feet high, every door maker wants to hang it off my building, I say no, we've had enough problems already and I don't want any more complications, my opening is roughly 30x20 but in order to do the remodel we had to hang rafters 20 feet up and use knee braces back to the walls for support, so the acuall full opening width is 30x14 high with staight sidewalls and then it tapers in some and the free span width in the middle is 23 feet wide at the 20 feet of height, no big deal till we come to the door, a regular garage door style won't work due to the end wall configuation and I want the full height in the center of the building, I'm not wanting a door height of 14 feet then the inside building height of 20, if that makes sense.

We've been going around looking at buildings with different doors on them, and to say the least I'm not impressed with most out there, they all put a lot of stress on the builidng as they open and close, even bifold doors I'd need a complete free standing header mechanism to make it work without putting stress on the building.

Anyone have any experince with a free standing header and door assembly, the door makers are not helpfull at all, they all insist I hang it off the building, I'm not an engineer at all, but I found one that designed a barn simular to mine and I talked to him and he told me to "not" hang any kind of door off the building at all, either support the door some other way or shorten the height and put posts to hold up a conventional garage door style door and then go full height once your in the builiding.

As they say we're looking for options and ideas, I'm thinking of a free standing header, with braces coming forward in front of the door to the ground and angled back up to the top of the door header for support, put some x bracing in and make it out of h beams and do it that way, then hang the door off of that, others tell me to cement the supporting h beams into the ground and thats good enough, others still say to brace it off the back side and anchor it into the ground for angled support.

It's hard for me to get a mental picture of what you're working with, are you saying you want a 30 (wide) x 20 (high) door, not a 30 x 14? In either case, this is going to be expensive.

What about sideways sliding doors? I know they can be supported by the ground rollers. If clearance is an issue you could use multiple sections like aircraft hangers.

My daughter has been helping me post photos, this is the photo of the end of the barn before we were done with concrete and finished cutting the odd boards out of the end of the doorway, I was thinking we'd put a large sqare door over the end of the barn, hydraulic one piece door, with a stand alone header and door supports, I've got plenty more pictures, but until my daughter gets home from college next weekend, I can't get them sized so they upload onto the site with my computer.

To answer willie59's qestion, yes I want a 30 feet wide by 20 foot tall door. Outside of cement block wall to outside of cement block wall measures 34 feet, there are wall supports running vertical up the inside of the cement block wall and the inside measurements of the acutal opening you can drive in is 30 feet wide. Yes I know its going to be expensive, unless someone can come up with another idea for a door I've overlooked.

dsmitht343, we've looked into those and I still need a full supporting header to hold them up, we've looked at a big double door swinging syle door, and still need almost as much support as a hydraulic door or bifold door. I live in an area where we get a lot of snow and ice, all the rest of my sheds have sliding doors on them and am tired of chopping the door tracks out on the bottom to get them open in the winter. They make a balanced one piece door that wouldn't take as much header support, but those swing into the building as they raise up and my end isn't square and they won't work.

Nice conversion of the barn Randy. How about setting H beams in concrete at the front of the barn yet still in line with the 8" block wall ,then tie the top of the beams in with the loft for the door frame. Could also weld in an H beam on top between the two vertical beams for a header.Found some door examples at www.bifold.com

I would come out six feet and build a frame out of H beam, to secure the door to along with some angle support braces. A door that size will have also alot of wind load when opened. I would not want a single door that size do to winter weather in your area, rather a split door and a dutch door on one of the halfs that would allow say a 16 x 14 to be opened and not lose all the heat and air at one time. Connecting back to the barn from the support structure should not be a hard issue using metal building materials. That is going to be a nice place to work in, the door will be as custom as your barn/shop when you are finished!.

Yair . . . Randy88. Have you considered making a complete portal frame out of (say) 4x4x1/4 box section and then having two wheel supported doors fabricated to fit against or inside it?

On largish doors like that I always like the wheel support system as it takes all the weight off the portal (or the building) when you swing the doors open.

Solid forklift tyres work good and I have even seen a setup where they had rigged up an adjustable suspension.

On the couple I have done (wayback) we hung the door frames, braced everything plumb and then temporarily tacked a piece of three by three box three box to the bottom of the frames . . . we used this as the the screed to level off the arc of the door when we poured the outside apron.

It gave a perfect place for the wheel to run and it was only necessary to furnish the wheel mounting plate with slotted holes.

That is going to be a lovely workshop.

Cheers.

Why are you against building a steel header and frame for the opening and putting an insulated door with track, windows and an opener that is wall mounted on each end of the door? I have a 25x14' that we have had no problems with at all. It was expensive $8000.00 but well worth it in my opinion. Good luck

jbgash, I'm not against anything per say, we're just trying to figure out how heavy to make a header in the first place without bolting it to the building, if I'm understanding, you have a door that slides sideways and has openers on each end of the door, one to open it one to close it, or did I misunderstand you, does your door go one way or half each way and how does the automatic openers work, all I've even seen are the hydraulic openers on hanger doors that the door runs in a groove in the cement, and all those stye the people who use them in the winter do nothing but cuss them constantly from what I've been told, also what did you build the header out of, h beams or I beam or did you use planks and nail or bolt the header to the building like everything I've seen around me.

Randy the door header is steel that puts all the door weight load backon the concrete floor. It is a track system but basically an overhead door. The opener is just a jumbo size garage door opener. That is the only thing I would do different, I would use the opener that lifts the door on each end and attaches to the wall on each side, they also have a chain gear backup in case of motor problems. After reading your post again, I understand you are trying to keep as much headroom as possible. I will take some pic's so you can see a clearer picture of what I am saying. One thing for sure, once your shop is finished and in use, you will wonder how you ever made it before without it.

Jbgash, do you have a garage door style door or a sliding door track sytle door?, and yes after 25 years of a knipco heater in a tin shed with either no cement floor or a broken up and cracked concrete floor, I'm looking forward to an actual shop, we've been using the service pit this last week even though we don't have a door on the building, we put belly pans back on one of the dozers in less than 10 minutes and didn't have to put the dozer on blocks to get under it at all. We've also worked on wiring on one of my trailers and we actually enjoyed being under the trailer, the last time we had to work on it, we spent hours blocking it up so we could crawl under the trailer at all. We replaced a hose on one of the dozers that's been leaking, a job that takes two people to do and normally laying under the dozer there's room for one, over the service pit two of us did the job in a couple minutes verses a few hours of cussing.

My daughter is teaching me to post pictures, some more of the barn/shop

well i found a site the deals in Aircraft hanger doors, maybe this might give you an idea or other options for your barn.
http://www.aircrafthangardoors.com/

look up "moment frames" we build the hell out of them here in earthquake country. you could build an I beam or tube steel frame with a header and attach any type of door you want. you will need to pour a grade beam and some footers for support but it wouldn't be that hard at all. In your situation i would think a bi folding airplane hanger door could be the ticket.

We're about done with the door frame, we went with Dualie's advice and built a h beam frame and are building a one piece hydraulic door for it, in the next week or so we should be putting up the door. We bought a used hydraulic power unit to run the door and are finishing up the last few details on the door, windows and a walk door, if it ever warms up, we'll take some pictures once its done, if we ever get it done, at the rate we're going, the last week its been 20 below zero here and really cold working without a door on the shop.

Thanks Randy, this is an interesting thread.

glad i could help.

Dualie, while on the subject, I'll explain what I did and whats happening with my "frame", we built it out of 8 inch H beam, its 20 feet high, sitting on cemented in pillars and bolted to the top of the pillars, then another 8 inch H beam 40 feet long on top running north and south, the uprights sit in slightly from the ends of the 40 foot beam, or about 4 feet from each end, we then put angle braces in going west along the outside of the barn at a 45 degree angle and bolted to cemented in pillars back along the barn on both sides, the angle brace is welded on top of the 40 top H beam at the outer ends, one angle brace on each end of the 40 foot beam. Then we put another set of angle braces from the uprights at a 45 degree angle five feet from the top of the uprights inward to the underside of the 40 foot H beam on both uprights, so its braced east and west with long angle braces going to the ground, then also north and south with shorter angle braces towards the top of the beam. All angle braces are made out of 6 inch H beams and the problem we are having is that when its windy, its stable east and west, nothing moves that direction, but north and south it moves, slightly, my family calls it a vibration, I call it moving about a half an inch back and fourth, on the lower end of the uprights you can feel it moving or vibrating, don't get me wrong, it was windy, over 50 mph winds, we don't have the door on yet and the discussions been how to stop the vibration or if it'll be a problem at all, we don't know. We're talking boxing in the upright H beams with steel along both sides of each upright to see if that stops the vibration and we're also talking about just mounting the door and see what happens, we could put one angle brace out to the north to try to stabilize it that way, maybe it won't even be a big deal, I just figured with the angle bracing on it, it would never sway either direction, it came as a surprise to me and without any door on it, I'm not sure what to expect with the door installed and open. Any suggestions I'm open to, in the next few days we should be putting the door on the frame and installing the hinges, but its depending on the weather, we're supposed to have rain/snow/ice/sleet and wind for the first of the week and this weekend, we just might install it anyway, cause its cold in the shop without the door. Any experience with a vibration in the "frame" or movement of any sort, shy of an earthquake? We're thinking it starts low on the upright H beams and keeps multiplying as it goes higher, our thoughts are with a boxed in H beam for uprights, it might just stop the vibration at all, but its just a guess, in little wind, nothing moves or vibrates, it takes over a 40 mph wind to get it to do it, with 50-60 mph or greater winds, you can literally hear the vibration in the upright beams, none of the angle braces do it, or move at all.