Garage Clearance Needed For New Garage Door Tracks
High lift equals distance from top of door to bottom of horizontal track.
Garage clearance needed for new garage door tracks. 121 mm to 12 in. It is possible to mount torsion springs in a garage with only 5 inches of headroom. In the configuration only a vertical track is needed and the door moves up and bumps out from the wall only enough to accommodate the opener. Garage doors operating with torsion springs require a minimum of 9 1 2 inches of headroom while doors using extension springs require a minimum of 4 1 2 inches of headroom.
This option helps provide more vertical space in the garage. Maximum high lift equals headroom available minus 14. 3 track headroom door height 12 required sideroom 5 5 required backroom 23 required. The torsion spring is what does the heavy lifting pun intended.
For either the case of extension or torsion spring systems if you want the door to retract up and into the garage you need at least 4 inches 121 mm above the door. 304 mm available it is best to use a dual track system designed for low headroom. 51 mm to standard lift movements. Your system will not only work better but it will also look better.
In order to install torsion spring hardware we recommend a clearance of 12 in. Used when there is at least the door height plus 12 of headroom clearance. There is no horizontal track. The same goes for your garage door.
This will be enough space if you want to add an electric garage door opener where only 2 inches 51 mm is required to install one. Tall an additional 8 9 of vertical headroom would be needed. If the door is 8 ft. As a general rule if you re adding more than 12 15 inches of extra vertical track you re going to need a new garage door opener.
However this requires mounting the torsion spring on the rear of the horizontal tracks. When equipping a garage door with an electric door opener add 2 in. A new garage door track is very inexpensive in proportion to the amount of time you ll be using it. Dirty rusty old tracks detract from the beautiful new investment you ve made so remove the distractions and replace everything at once.