Question
I've been hired to convert a garage door opening 9' wide and 8' high to the look of a carriage house using traditional doors. Initially the client would like three doors at 3' X 8' hung with one outer door being the everyday door and the other two hung as a bi-fold only to be used when moving large objects. Producing the doors is no problem, however hanging the two bi-fold doors and ensuring they function properly for the next 100 years or more concerns me. Has anyone out there done this before? What issues did you have to consider and overcome?
Forum Responses
(Architectural Woodworking Forum)
From contributor M:
The first thing that comes to mind is that the header over almost any garage door I've ever seen sags a lot.
I hung the 8 and 10' tall fir custom French doors from heavy-duty Hagar T-shaped track. There are three doors: Door 1, which hangs on the hinge jamb on regular butt hinges; Door 2, the center door, which is butt-hinged to door one; and Door 3, which is butt hinged to door 2 and swings into the lock jamb.
The center door gets a roller in the leading edge. Door 2 and 3 are also wider than door 1 - that additional width is determined by the distance from the jamb to the center of the hinge barrel multiplied by two. That's how you get the roller on Door 2 to line up beneath the T-track - a very critical layout point. I built a mock up to test the thing out before ordering the doors. You can see the mock-up in The Doorhangers Handbook (Installing And Hanging Doors, Taunton Press). I used extension flush bolts to secure Door 2 so that Door 3 could swing like a normal door and yet all three doors could be opened easily. I also installed auto-bottoms in all the doors, to seal the threshold.
