Neathawk Designs said:
About the sag, I keep thinking about welding a frame and welding the hinges to the frame to set the door in. I'm not sure if its a good idea, but it keeps crossing my mind. I appreciate all the help here too!
I think sgt_rjp is absolutely right. You need to look at the whole wall at the end of the barn that that door opening is in.
If you can think of the wall framing and its wood cladding in terms of a panelized system, it's there to aid you in giving whatever structural support you need to handle the live loads (moving doors, whether slide or hinge) you are going to design to move in that opening.
Most if not all of what you need is already there.
The welded frame is an interesting idea but for this size it would make sense to integrate it into the wall, so why not just use the wall you have and add framing lumber accordingly as necessary.
I would want to take a look at the framing on the inside.
I'm curious as to whether the opening was originally that tall. Could a farmer have raised the height to fit the garage door that's installed there?
I don't think you can simply rely on historical building construction norms with a barn to answer questions about its history because- no disrespect intended- it may have been owned by a farmer who knew jack squat about carpentry.
It occurs to me after looking at their website that there might be something to add to the mix:
What about lowering the height of the doors to a more human scale, adding a beam above the doors, and then making a transom above it to fill in the rest of the existing opening?
That way, you get light coming in through the transom year round, rain or shine, whether the door(s) are opened or closed.
If you do a visual inspection of the inside of the wall and there's a beam hacked through to raise the opening, the barn itself is practically asking you to restore the beam, put doors below, and a transom above.
I looked at that carriage door website and again thought about the intended use for this barn and it occurred to me that a third option for the doors would be to make four doors (two bifolds on the left and two bifolds on the right that come together in the middle) and mount them on the inside of the opening. The bifolds would fold away against the wall inside the barn.
Imagine if they were- for example- Left: 36X96 and 36X96, Right: 36X96 and 36X96. Beam above. 144wX36h Transom above that.
Now you can open the doors in increments of 25% (one half of a bifold laid against its mate) all the way to 100% with all 4 panels open and stored against the inside of the wall.
This gives your client a heck of a lot of flexibility in terms of how they use the opening. The doors themselves could have glass panes in the upper panels... More light into the barn year-round.
The gambrel end wall doesn't have a lot of room outside to lay a door against (at full height of the existing opening). If you build two giant hinged doors as they suggest, it doesn't look like they can even open all the way and lay flat against the exterior walls without hitting the roof overhang first. I appreciate what they want to accomplish but it just seems like there are some constraints in this case that should be carefully considered.
Lastly, if you look at the website photo of the opposite gambrel end wall, you can see in the wood siding that the barn used to have a door below the window. It could have been used to load things in and out to a wagon parked below. You could propose to put a door in that opening (which is maybe 42X84 or so) that simply opens for cross-ventilation and sunlight. They would probably want a permanent handrail for safety on the inside but it might be nice to be able to open up the opposite end at least a little bit.
Neathawk Designs said:
Daver- do you think its a bad idea to make smaller triangular panels that sit in the door frame similar to a cabinet door (or any wood door for that matter)? My thought was that it would reduce the panel sizes, which would reduce the amount of wood that can shrink or expand. I've never done this to this scale so I'm just not sure.
I don't think using the triangular panels instead of a full-height/side to side panel reduces your area subject to seasonal wood movement.
Remember that the greatest amount of movement is going to occur perpendicular to the grain. With your planks running vertically, that means the panel is going to want to swell outward in the summer and shrink inward in the winter.
The triangle design doesn't change the number of vertical planks you have butted or T&G'ed against each other that are going to want to move perpendicular to their grain. Hope this is making sense but I'm always happy to clarify if necessary.
