Step 1 measure the old door if you are replacing an existing door with one of the same size or the new door of choice if you are building a new garage.
Ruff opening for a 10 ft garage door.
This guide is intended primarily for our builder customers to explain in detail the measurements and condition we need the work site to be in to properly co.
Standard garage doors in our area are 8 9 16 and 18 wide.
Measure the distance from the bottom plate of the wall to a point that is 1 1 2 inches higher that the garage door height.
Frame the rough opening for the garage door to 3 inches wider than the garage door you have selected.
Width of rough opening the width of the rough opening should be 3 inches greater than the width of the garage door you are purchasing.
If it s 9ft the opening must be 9ft 3 inches and so on.
For instance if the width of the garage door is 8ft the rough opening should be 8ft 3 inches wide.
The height of the rough opening would be the height of the garage door plus the thickness of whatever you are putting underneath the header in addition to the thickness of the mortar etc.
99 of the residential garage doors that we run across are different than these widths.
Next you will need to know your door height.
1 2 or 1 in one direction of the other will won t typically cause you to have to shop for a non standard garage door size.
Cut four 2 x 4 trimmers to this length and nail two each to either side of the rough opening.
Frame the rough opening to 3 inches wider than the garage door size you have selected.
If you are installing a 9 wide door the opening will be 9 3 wide.
It should be obvious that you don t use twice the thickness for the height since you will not be putting anything on the floor but you have been reminded just in case this thought escaped you at the moment.
Frame the rough opening to a height that is 1 5 taller than the door that you have selected.