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I ended up with a roll-up door. Takes no ceiling space, and it's 16' wide and 12' tall. Not expensive, either....and very secure compared to a normal garage door. This is on my 4-bay shop. I had the ceiling raised on the part of the structure where the lift is and the cars are serviced.
I considered a roll up when I did the garage a few years ago. However, being in FL and designing in climate control, the issues I ran into with the roll up were sealing ability and insulation. Aesthetics were a minor issue (residential home, but with garage facing an alley). For the right situation, though, a roll up may work great.
Sure, the trusses can be cut. But there are some qualifications. How much bracing you add, how many you cut. Which way do they run.
If the trusses run the same way as the car, you probably only have to cut 2 or 3 and you should be able to brace the ones to each side enough to support the load.
Now if the trusses run across the car, you probably have to cut 10 of them. I wouldn't do that without some serious engineering calcuations on the loads first.
All of this has been very helpful, I have a "hip roof" and a 9" unfinished ceiling in my garage. We had a "jack shaft" garage door opener installed last week and extended the track so that it is only 1 1/2" off the rafter. They also shortened the track so that if the car (17 GS) is parked backward there is no encumbrance whatsoever. After reading some of the successes and afraid of a DIY failure I think I am going to engage an engineer to move things around so that I can clear the 2 rafters and get the car up high enough to stand under it and park others underneath. Will update you on progress...here are some preliminary pix, the new opener is a Liftmaster 8500 and is quiet and awesome. No worries on all the negative reviews on it, they have re-engineered some of the problems and the new models are supposedly bullet proof.
It looks like you are on 16 inch centers and the bottom tie brace is on 48 inch centers. Since the purpose of the bottom tie brace is to tie the walls together, you can probably double up in the center between the cars (looks like a double car door) and put a could along the door track and remove the one over where the car and lift would go. You may need more bracing to stiffen the wall, but looks doable without too much hassle.
On Mine I cut 4 cross pieces just enough to raise the lift enough for each car to fit underneath. I then added new support like MH62 suggested. The Mini was the highest at 50", the Vette and the Porsche were around 48-49". That limits the height I can get. Luckily I raised the supports a little more than I needed because on the lift you have to go past the lock and then let it down to lock.
Wish I'd thought of a roll up door. Part of my issue is the door when I open it. Has to clear the duck tail on the Porsche and I had to replace the Vette antenna with one that fully retracts.
12-01-2017, 01:31 PM
