I have a fairly normal garage door. Inside the garage, the ceiling height is about 12 feet (maybe more?). But the garage door is a fairly typical 2 car door with standard height (7 feet? 8 feet? whatever is normal).

In any case, the LX570 fits without anything on top. But I'd like to install a roof rack for kayaks. And would like to some sort of garage ceiling mount / pulley system so that I can load/unload directly onto the vehicle.

Once the car rack is installed and kayak's are loaded, the LX won't fit through the garage door.

Is it fairly straight forward to remodel the garage door to make it taller? It's wood stud frame and stucco.

1) Easy / quick job? Or moderately involved (supporting / load bearing wall)?

2) Ballpark costs? Man-hours of labor? Materials?

Thanks!

Messing with a header will require a permit and inspection.

Labor will involve taking siding down and cutting the sheathing to size and reinstalling siding. Inside will be removal of drywall if finished. When putting it back together, new 2x6's at the proper length, no sistering or butting together. You will need brick molding, J channel, caps, and weather strips to length.

It's not that bad of a job to do yourself, with help, you should get it done in a weekend.

One thing to keep in mind is that garage doors basically come in set sizes. First find out what standard size door you can get to replace the old one. Then figure out if there is enough space to increase the opening size and fit a new header. You may want to enlist the help of a licensed engineer to ďetermine the appropriate header size and possibly the use of a parralam beam instead of stacked dimensional lumber if you are limited on space. A permit and inspection are likely to be required so it probably won't be just a weekend job.

Note that as soon as you start messing with structure, you will probably have to come up to current code and, depending on when the house was built, it could very likely increase the size of the header. So it is not necessarily as simple as just moving the existing header up. The folks at the county code office can be helpful (sometimes).

Ken

I was going to hire a contractor since I don’t have the skills many of you do. But this sounds more complicated than I thought. Permits and new code compliance.

I wonder how much this would cost. I’m only going to be in this house for maybe 10 years. Maybe it’s cheaper / more cost effective to just get a shed. Maybe even one tall enough to drive into.

If this is, say, 16-32 man hours @ $100 / hour, plus materials and new door panels and new opener, project may be ballpark around $3500 - $5000? Too low?

Locate your header. typical framing is to have the header right above the door, but on occasion the header will be under the top plate with cripples going down to gd hth. It's not common, but possible.

If you do have to move the header, and it's gable framing, the bearing of a the roof in on a he outside walls so no problem. If it's hip, or framing carrying the roof structure, yo will need to build a temp wall to carry the trusses/rafters.

It's not that bad, just keep a temp bearing wall under the roof system BEFORE you move the header.

Your contractor will take care of aquiring all permits and having the inspector come check it out. At least they better. The fees should be included in the estimates. Call your township and ask what permits are required so if a shady contractor tells you you do not need a permit, you do not hire them.

I bought this house in 2016 and got a bid to remove the dual 7'w x 7'h garage doors and replace with a single 18' x 8'. The brick work was bid at $3300 and then the door, opener, labor etc would have been about $1200. I decided to put the money into a pole barn, paving and 2400 sq ft concrete.

Your original post doesn't indicate that you know for sure what size door you now have. It is probably a 7 foot but measure it to be sure. Also, raise the door and measure the actual opening size you really have. It is probably less than the door size. Is there any way you can get a measurement of the height you need with the Lexus, rack and kayak? It would be a shame if you did all the work and were still 2" short.

I love the barn and would like to do that if possible. I have the room but not sure if it would be approved by the community board (HOA type of thing). But it's probably out of my budget range as well -- how much would something like that cost (per sq foot)? I wonder if they have a shed at <local big box store> that is large enough to drive in (just fits the LX) and room for storage (kayaks, bikes).

I will measure the door. It's probably pretty standard, whatever that is. 7' high sounds about right. Still undecided on the kayaks and roof rack but I can estimate based on products I'm considering and figure out worst case. I'll probably want to build in some headroom; basically, just make the door as tall as possible within the limits of the existing structure / roofline.

Sounds like this job may range somewhere between $1200 and $4500 then (just rough ballpark). I can probably squeeze that out. If it were $10,000+, that would give me pause.

I have 8' garage doors. I haven't measured, but I don't think I would have room on top of my 200 series LandCruiser to back out of the garage with a kayak on top. I can't lower the car like you can, but it's pretty tight. If you can get in and out with a roof rack on the car, I would just load them outside.

check out www.ih8mud.com

I like doublesharp's answer.

I also like to spend other people's money...but I digress...

One of the nice parts about living out in the sticks is that you don't have to get permission to put up a shed. You might price two car garages and small buildings. Around here we can have a 24' x 40' pole building erected for about $8000. Any concrete and electrical is extra. This includes a 16' x 8' door and a pedestrian door.

Thanks guys. More options. I'll look into the pole building / garage / shed thing, including permissions.

I bought my pole barn package from Menards. 24' x 40' w/ 10 ft ceiling. Door is 16' x 9'. I went for a few extras with an insulated ceiling, upgraded paint, trusses on 4 1/2' centers instead of usual 9' and 2' eve and soffit overhangs. Building materials package was just under $10k delivered & tax. I had an Amish crew build it and labor was $3500. Slab was $3300, garage door installation and side mount opener was $1100 for both doors so total cost was 17,900. Got a store credit rebate of about $1000 because I bought during one of the 11% rebate sales. I'm satisfied and would do it again.

quote:

I bought my pole barn package from Menards. 24' x 40' w/ 10 ft ceiling. Door is 16' x 9'. I went for a few extras with an insulated ceiling, upgraded paint, trusses on 4 1/2' centers instead of usual 9' and 2' eve and soffit overhangs. Building materials package was just under $10k delivered & tax. I had an Amish crew build it and labor was $3500. Slab was $3300, garage door installation and side mount opener was $1100 for both doors so total cost was 17,900. Got a store credit rebate of about $1000 because I bought during one of the 11% rebate sales. I'm satisfied and would do it again.

Great info. Thanks!