If you’re shopping for a new garage door, size is the first thing you must confirm. Your garage door size impacts the availability and price of your new door. Most doors fall into standard sizes ranges, but some custom homes, RVs, and workshops have custom-size garage doors.
Why are most garage doors standard sizes?
Most homes in the US are production homes, meaning a land developer and builder partnered together to create a neighborhood. The partners aim to build and profitably sell homes as fast as possible while maintaining specific quality standards. They do that by standardizing openings of building materials like windows, patio doors, front doors, and garage doors. Standardization allows builders to simplify material pricing, framing requirements, and bulk orders to save money. Standard garage door sizes speed up the framing process, limit mistakes, and save money.
A recent development near our shop in Fort Worth, Texas, comprised about 70 homes. The garage door configurations on homes sitting on corner lots were one 16′ x 7′ double garage door and one 9′ x 7′ single garage door. The remaining homes had either a 16′ x 7′ two-car garage or two 9′ x 7′ one-car garage door openings. All garage doors were ordered white, saving the builders a few dollars per door, and then painted to match the home’s trim.
What are the benefits of standard garage door sizes?
A standard garage door height and width simplify pricing and availability. Garage door manufacturers like Amarr and Clopay build steel garage door styles roughly the same size. It’s simple to price and replace your standard garage door because sizing isn’t an issue. A replacement garage door is the same feet wide and tall as the original.
Why build a custom size garage door?
Many of our custom-size garage door requests come from property owners in rural North Texas who need custom garage door sizes for their farm or ranch equipment or an RV. It’s common for a barn or shop to have multiple garage doors with different door sizes. There may be one double door for primary access to the barn and two single doors for various equipment stalls. Custom garage doors may be built to house utility vehicles like a Kawasaki Mule or Club Car that don’t need a full 8′ wide garage door but require something narrower. An RV garage door can range from 14′ to 20′ wide and 14′ to 20′ tall.
Garage doors for golf carts also require custom door widths and heights. Depending on the make and model, a golf cart garage door may be as narrow as 5′, which isn’t available from the big garage door manufacturers. For example, Amarr’s single-car garage door sizes start at 8′ wide.
What are the standard garage door measurements?
Residential garage doors range from 8′ to 20′ wide and 7′ to 14′ high, but some models can be sized down to an actual width and height of 6′.
Configurations Common Widths Common Heights Single Doors 8, 9, or 10 feet 7 or 8 feet Double Doors 16 or 18 feet 7 or 8 feet RV Doors 10, 12, or 14 feet 12', 12, or 14' feet Golf Cart Doors 5 to 6 feet 5, 6, or 7 feet Notes Doors heights may be available in 3" increments Door widths may be available in 2" increments
Standard garage door sizes for single-car garages
We recommend a single-car garage door 9′ wide by 8′ tall if you’re building a home. Depending on your garage depth, you can comfortably park a full-size truck or SUV at this size. Even if you don’t drive a larger vehicle, it’s nearly impossible to change the size down the road.
Standard garage door sizes for double-car garages
Our local North Texas builders are shifting from 16′ x 7′ to 18′ x 8′ two-car garage doors. As cars and trucks get broader and taller, you don’t want your garage door to decide what vehicle you buy. 18′ x 8′ is the size of most double garage doors we’re installing these days.
What about three-car garage door sizes?
Ah, we love this question. If you are a car collector or hobbyist, we want you to know that we can design and build a custom garage door for you. Is it standard? No. Is it beautiful and inspiring? Yes. Would we love to build it for you? Yes.
How can we build a three-car garage door, but the steel garage door manufacturers can’t?
Our wood garage doors are built with Douglas fir frames. DF (Douglas fir) is a strong softwood that allows us to span widths up to 24′ and heights of 7′, 8′, or taller. Our frames are then through-bolted to the DF frames, ensuring a secure connection to the frame that won’t sag over time. We also use best-in-class wood glue and build our doors on a flat surface to ensure maximum wood adhesion. Once cured, these doors can last 15 – 20+ years with proper staining & maintenance.
Standard garage door sizes for RV storage
RVs have always been popular for people to get out on the road and explore with loved ones. The question of where and how to store it is essential when planning to buy an RV.
If you keep the RV at home instead of at a storage unit, you can opt for a 3-sided car-port with enough depth to back your RV in to keep it out of the elements. Alternatively, you can add a garage door to keep it completely safe from the elements. Whether you need a 10′ x 12′ or 14′ x 14′ depends on your RV type. Class A motorhomes may require a commercial garage or custom wood door.
Garage door combinations
Standard garage door sizes show up in most combination garage door settings. To nail the proportions, most architects will call design the garage opening with a single door at 8′ x 7′ and a double door at 16′ x 7′. The main thing to get right is the height. It would look awkward to have garage doors next to each other that have different heights.
Can you change your garage door size?
That’s a tricky question. The short answer is probably not without a significant renovation project. Three sides of your garage are fixed, so expanding them to accommodate a larger garage door isn’t likely.
Can you convert a two-car garage door into two single-car garage doors?
Sure, you could do this. If your existing garage door is 18′ to 20′ wide, you likely have room to insert two to three studs to frame the new openings. You’ll end up with two single garage doors. Check with your architect and framer to see if the new separate doors require a custom size or if a standard garage door size will work.
Adding a second garage door means you will need two openers, two sets of torsion springs, two torsion bars, and four garage door sensors.
How to measure your garage door?
If you’re ready to start a new garage door upgrade, we’ve written a helpful article outlining how to measure your garage door.
Ready for new garage doors?
If you’ve measured your door or not, call us at 817-500-5988 or contact us to discuss your garage door project. Whether you’re looking for a colonial bead board garage design or a chevron pattern wood garage door, we can help.
Recent Garage Door Client Review
Please read one of our recent Google reviews of our garage door services.
“I have used Doorvana several times over the past 8 years, from custom cedar garage doors, gates, repairs, and a new operator installed this morning. Their installer. Eddie kept me informed of my appointment and notified me prior to arriving, which I greatly appreciate. Once he completed the installation, he programmed the remotes and showed me the process so that I could program additional remotes in the future. Before leaving, he cleaned up the power cords that ran from the opener to the ceiling outlet and also reattached the rubber seal on the bottom of the door. I also appreciated being able to pay my invoice right on the spot with their customer hub site. This great service is very reasonably priced as well. I will not use any other overhead door company!!” – Greg Houchin
