barn door question...

tod osier

tod osier

Well-known member
In the building we are planning for boat and vehicle storage, I want an 18' door in one end (and a 12 in the other). Options are sliders and overhead. This would be in a 10' wall, so both options are plenty high (overheads loose 18-24" in height).

Are there any drawbacks to sliders? Both Jen and I think sliders would be neat. Overheads can be powered and insulated better, so those are positives. Anyone have a reason why not to put a huge slider on the end?

T
 
Speaking from great experience..... if you get any amount of snowfall, sliders are a B*$%# to get open in the winter. It all depends on the location of the barn and if the snow will drift there or not. We have 2 different cow barns and a machine shed on our farm. The one cow barn is out of the wind, plus the slider goes overtop of the barnbridge and has a big drop off under where to door slides 2. It works great year round. The other cow barn though is built perfectly so whatever snow we get drifts right against the door. I've already spent a half hour just opening the door to get the skid loader out.

Other than that they work great and are much much cheaper to install. With the right closing hardware they can be made very airtight and insulated as good as an overhead door as well.

Kirk
 
You should be able to power a slider as well. Nothing off the shelf from Home Depot, but I am sure you can set up a chain driven sprocket system at the top near the track to pull and then push the door. I bet you could even use a chain driven overhead door system and modify it to work.

From what I remember from the few sliders I was around in Nevada as a kid was they didn't hold warm air in the building very well. But then those buildings were heated with cow emmissions so we really didn't want to hold that "warm air" inside anyway.
 
My father in law has sliders on his old barn (built circa 1890), and they are located on the inside of the building almost like pocket sliders. Each door is roughly 4 feet wide by 10 feet high. I've pulled many a car in and out of that barn and even had my small skiff in there on the trailer one winter. I can take some photos of it if you like.

Nate
 
Only ones I've used are on the outside of the building on tracks, and the main problem is like Kirk mentioned with snow buildup. Kind of a PITA. I like the garage door style I have now, with openers. Handy as can be. If I can 't get into the man door because of snow drifts at the eaves, I just power open the garage door and I'm in.
 
Tod

My dream shop has sliders, not overheads. The overhead style eat up significant shop space in my opinion. The tracks interfere with taller tools (snowflake bandsaw for example :) and lumber racks or other storage. While I'm dreaming I'd like a crawl space instead of a slab. You can run dust collection under a wooden floor to keep things tidy. Should you drop a tool it won't break upon impact with concrete. It's enivitable, you will drop expensive tools and concrete is so unforgiving.
 
“While the cock with lively din, Scatters the rear of darkness thin; And to the stack, or the barn door, Stoutly struts his dames before; Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn, Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn”

John Milton
 
Sliders suck. Freeze in winter if you have them low enough to keep snow and wind out, rub your siding, has an unsightly track that has to twice as wide as your opening, don't seal up worth a hoot if you want heat and cost as much as a steel overhead door when you figure all your materials and labor....the track and accsy ain't cheap.If the door slides on the inside you waste twice the wall space with a slider. With a 10' ceiling you can put in an 8' high door or even a 9' high with a low headroom kit. You might look at rollup doors but they are very pricey. Not sure how they would be in the way of anything since the door would be closed usually when you are working in there and I can't imagine too many 7 or 8' tall tools. For Jens sake, if she will be using it to park her car...get an OH door with an opener. Also a 16' wide door may be cheaper than a 12".
 
Yeah, what Lee said. The ground heaves just enough under the slider on my shed to lock it from winter to spring. Raising it up a couple of inches invites every leaf in SE MN to blow under it. I totally agree with the PITA comment.

George
 
Oh cripes... I go to work and I come home to lots of good thoughts.

For some reason Jen really likes the sliders. Price doesn't matter much, sliders and overheards aren't really much different. Eric's point with tidyness inside is a good one. I like the look of sliders and hate overhead tracks and stuff hanging there, but these overhead doors would be like 8'+ high, so they woudl be out of the way. And in a 30 x 50 building there will eb plenty of space to hang stuff.

I have two automatic overhead systems that are new in the house (and will be removed) and could be put in the barn. That would be slick. Especially for the drive through with the boat.

We don't get all that much snow and we have no drifting because the snow is always wet here on the coast. Building will face S. So a lot of melting force.

I have no plan to work in the building as a shop, but I'm sure at some point I'll be in there and want to heat it up to do something, so overheads may hold the heat better.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'm leaning towards overheads, they sound more trouble free, but we will see. If I go with sliders I have to go to 36' wide to fit an 18' door, but that is not a bad thing.

T
 
Tod. I saw a home in wells maine that a friend is in the process of buying and the barn has a slider and behind the slider is an over head door. Bill
 
Eric, those doors are cool as heck motorized. I'm toying with the idea of putting a pair of big wood doors on the woodshop entrance, rather than overhead (not the barn, but the old attached garage that I'm turning into a shop).
 
Todd the 18 footer doesn't need to be a single.Two 9' doors meeting in the middle would work.If this is for the work shop,you would not be opening them often.For the boat barn,the auto overhead,drive thru seem a better choice,with both doors programmed on the same remote.
 
Tod. I saw a home in wells maine that a friend is in the process of buying and the barn has a slider and behind the slider is an over head door. Bill
Click to expand...


That sounds like the worst of both worlds, you have a door that will freeze in place on the outside, and all the hardware hanging on the inside.

Tod,

My dad literally has dozens of sliders on his farm. He has the full assortment of outbuildings that all farms of that era had, just most people have let them rot away by now. He only has one overhead and that is on a newer leanto addition grandpa did in the 60's. Biggest advantage to sliders I see is the hardware is safe from harm. Be it a roudy steer or an oops with a tractor. It is (relatively) easy to fix a wood door, where as a mangled track or gashed manfactured door panel means a trip to town, and or a wait to have a replacement ordered. I don't know that this aspect is much of an asset for your application, but if frost heave and snow drifts are not an issue, you can make some pretty interesting sliders in a woodshop.

Here is the largest door he has, I think it is roughly 15x12. You can see two more to either side up high, that are access for the hay elevator.

2003barn2.jpg


Chuck
 
Whoa! That motorized outswing door looks like an accident waiting to happen.That thing would kill a kid or a dog. It's pretty ingenious how he did it though. If money is truly no problem, there are a million options out there. A simole search will give you more than enough info and ideas. You can get an overhead door that looks just like carriage house doors. You want to waste time with mauntanence on wood? If you enjoy scraping and painting...have a ball.
 
Harker,

That is what I put in my garage. From 25 feet you can't tell they are carriage doors, hardware and all.

I got the cheapo commercial stamped metal ones, but guys make really nice hand made wooden ones.

Check these out:
http://www.moultoncustomdoor.com/

I think they are hand made, cut apart and attached to a heavy duty insulated steel door.

Someone good with woodwork (not me) could make some nice ones...

Charlie
 
We got a door like that for a big house last year. They are damn fine looking doors. From the road you couldn't tell it was an overhead door and they get a lot of complements on it.
 
No, this is on a pole barn, no painting no messing around. Neither of us care much what it looks like, just the function.

Plain Jane for me, thanks.

T
 
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