French doors on a garage?

TARider

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2011
Location
Concord
I'm finally running electic to my workshop in the backyard. It currently has a 8x7 rollup garage door which I want to replace with swing out doors to make room for a loft area over the door.
Anyone know of a pre made set of swing out doors that fits an 8 foot wide opening? I see a bunch of 6 foot wide but I don't want to lose the extra width for moving stuff in and out.
 
8 foot wide French doors?
That means each door is 4' across.
Sounds like what you want are more like "barn" doors. At the end of the day the difference is just a name and style, but French doors are generally made for interior applications where an 8' opening is pretty rare. 36" is a standard size door/opening so 2x36 makes sense.
I'd bet if you search exterior applications (like barn or side-opening garage doors etc) you'll have better luck.

Honestly making 2 doors isn't that hard. Biggest thing is you need good hinges to hold the weight.
 
Thanks. Yes, I thought about just making a set myself but figure a pre fab set would lock up a little better.
I'll try googling barn instead of french and see what shows up.
 
As he said, just build two "barn doors" with some heavy hinges. "French doors" are usually no wider than 36" each, an 8' opening would be difficult to fill.

That is how the doors are on my shop, they are 10'x8'6", with a heavy 2x4 framing, plywood covering, and exterior wood siding to match the shop. Very simple design, could be made in an afternoon, of course they don't need to be quite that heavy, but it works. You could probably find some pre made barn doors to fit your opening though. Seals up decent enough, my shop is heated/AC.

Not the best picture, but you get the idea, one set of doors closed, you can kinda see the other set open.
ai44.photobucket.com_albums_f43_GCncsuHD_photobucket_13188_1321275277860.jpg


From inside, spring loaded "bolt" as a latch. Also a hasp/padlock down lower (not seen) for even more secure locking.
ai44.photobucket.com_albums_f43_GCncsuHD_2011_06_17_19_24_15_667.jpg
 
Thanks for the pics. I think I found some locks I feel more comfortable with as well. Looks like homebuilt it is.
 
RatLabGuy said:
holy crap Ken those must be heavy
Click to expand...

Nope. Very light. The steel was 1.5"x 1.5" very thin wall and with skins on 2 of us lifted them up and attached them with no issues at all.
 
I guess I've just had .120 wall so engrained in my head it's automatically what I assume lol
 
At least look into a barn style roller door we built home made ones at my pop in laws house years ago...dound simila rto what ken has...but a 4' piece of metal in a breeze..either warps or is strong enough to be a pain to control. in our case it cost my sis in law a finger.

If I had it to do over again we would have done top rolled barn doors.
 
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