Garage Door Header Installation

Around the sides of your door add enough lumber to support the weight of the garage door header.

Garage door header installation.

You need at least 2 rows of wood to hold up the header on each side making up 4 studs on each half of the header. Last pull a measurement from the top of the 2 x 6 piece of lumber that you just installed to the ceiling of the garage. Header requirement 2 at minimum the header should be 12 wide with doubled 2 4 at opening and ceiling running the width of the door with a 2 4 in the center of the opening for the center bracket to attach to. Cut a 2 x 6 piece of lumber and nail to the face of wall exactly in the center of the garage header.

Start by clamping adjustable locking pliers onto the torsion spring shaft and wedging the pliers against the header wall above the door. Set it securely on top of a stepladder so it s conveniently close to the ceiling. Headers should be a minimum of 12 wide. Torsion see above which mounts on the header above the door and extension photo 1 which floats above the upper roller track.

The garage door opener mounting bracket also called the header bracket secures the carriage tube to the wall above the door. In the past extension springs were safer to install but didn t have containment cables running through the center of the spring. Together the headers king studs and trimmers act as a system that transfers weight from above down and around the window and door openings to the floor and foundation below. The lowest point is at the middle and it sags down about 1 2.

This piece of lumber will be used to attach the center bracket of your garage door spring assembly. This header spans a 6 opening and supports 4 floor joists with 2 stories and a roof above it. Doubled 2 4 s at minimum should be at each edge of the garage door to allow for the mounting of the tracks and jamb brackets. Local and national building codes have specific structural requirements pertaining to beam sizes to span specific wall openings relative to the wall loads so consult your local building department before beginning this.

The procedure for constructing a header for 6 inch exterior wall framing can be modified for any wall thickness. Building a structural header for a garage door opening can be handled on the jobsite and will offer the same structural support as more expensive solid wood beams. You ll need to release the tension in the torsion spring before you begin working on the garage door. What you re seeing here is a header built with a 2 6 bottom plate 2 4 cripple studs and a 2 4 top plate resting on the adjacent block walls.

The longer the distance a header spans and the heavier the load it supports the more substantial it needs to be. The exact location depends on the type of door.