So I have been in my house over 2 years now and have been working my way to get the garage finished. As it stands now, it is just studs inside with two single bay doors. I replaced the motor on the right door as it already had been set up for a motor and just crapped out (Sears Craftsman 3/4 HP, chain).

I would like to:

-Convert from two doors to one (the driveway opens up behind the house and the left door is situated almost directly behind the house but only back about 15-20 feet. The brick pillar separating the two doors creates a pretty finite angle to work the car in/out without rubbing)
-Insulate/Drywall the walls and ceiling

My questions are:

Is there a reco for a garage door company to convert from two doors to one?
Granted, there will probably be new hardware going in for the garage door; should I finish up the interior of the garage first, as much as possible, to have it ready for the revamped garage door hardware and opener placement, or do the door first and re-situate it once the drywall/finishing has been complete?

Is there a single beam that spans across both door openings currently?

Aggietaco, you continue to be my guiding light. I will have to look when I get home. That was a question I had as far as load bearing column or not.

Aggietaco, it does seem to be just a single header to support weight across the garage doors, so I would think the "column" could be taken out. See picture, albeit blurry, below.

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Aggietaco, it does seem to be just a single header to support weight across the garage doors, so I would think the "column" could be taken out. See picture, albeit blurry, below.

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That's not a single header. It looks like from the picture that there's some blocking in between the two headers that gives it that appearance.

How tall is your garage ceiling? Standard garage door heights are 7 feet. Do you have room to put in an eight foot tall door? How wide would the opening be if you took out the two doors? 17 feet? You might want to consider a 17x8 door instead of a standard 16x7.

Edit to add my 2 cents to the rest of the question.

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should I finish up the interior of the garage first, as much as possible, to have it ready for the revamped garage door hardware and opener placement, or do the door first and re-situate it once the drywall/finishing has been complete?

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I'd go ahead get your door opening done first since it would seem that there is more structural work to be done that you first thought. Then I'd Sheetrock and install the new door/opener afterwards. Also, I'd consider an insulated garage door if you are insulating your garage walls/ceilings.

Spider96, I was in a time crunch and that is not the best picture. I do think its a single header and the way they installed the door hardware kind of skews the picture. Today of tomorrow I will get better light and a better angle on the beam/header.

As far as measurements, will also have to do that when I get home, I had measured before but lost the measurements somewhere along the way. Just from guessing, I would say height is 7' because of my truck clearance coming in but will double check; so I would guess ceiling is 8' and would not be able to do and 8' door... I think the width was a bit screwy when I first started looking in to it, as I think I recall the total width did not seem to be of the "industry norm" size, I will check.

For your two cents, I tend to agree across the board. There is an offset room in the garage with 1/2 bath that is finished but needs some minor work, I would not consider a garage apt but usable space that will eventually get a small ductless AC, so I am going to try to insulate the garage some to try to limit ambient heat from the garage side.

If it's a single or double 2x12 (or something similar), you'll have to replace that with either a laminated wood beam or steel.

I would guess that there are very few cases of the structure being built to allow for a wide span but installing two doors.

How's your 300 build?

Do yall have a reco for a company that would handle the beam and everything involving the garage door directly to do the door transition then call back out for the hardware/opener once complete?

The 300 build- the handguard was back-ordered to be cerakoted, will be delivered tomorrow, I have a rail section and fore-grip waiting. So functionally it will be ready to go. Just want to add a flashlight and optic, but first order was to get it functional with "iron" sights.

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Do yall have a reco for a company that would handle the beam and everything involving the garage door directly to do the door transition then call back out for the hardware/opener once complete?

The 300 build- the handguard was back-ordered to be cerakoted, will be delivered tomorrow, I have a rail section and fore-grip waiting. So functionally it will be ready to go. Just want to add a flashlight and optic, but first order was to get it functional with "iron" sights.

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I don't have a recommendation for a company that does that. You might want to send a pm to Ryan the Temp. He did a garage conversion to apartment not too long ago. He might have some advice.

I got with Houston overhead, they have in house contractors that will handle the hole bit including new header if needed. They are supposed to come out within a week.

Good! Good luck with the project.

So after 3 weeks and about 3 phone calls, the company has yet to call me back to get started on this project. So I guess I will need to piece
the job out. I guess my question is, does anyone have a structural guy to come look at this header to verify whether the column is structural or not and tackle that first?

I don't have a specific structural guy, but I have used Marc Frelich as a home inspector in the past and would recommend him. He is a licensed profesional engineer and could probably look at it
mfrelich@comcast.net
281.414.8060

to save some time though you may be able to look at it yourself. step one would be to confirm whether or not the beam is truly a single header spanning the whole gap. If it is not a single header, unbroken along its length, then the column is load bearing and the header would need to be replaced. the next step would be to look at and measure length of the header and check the openings width against a header span table. here is one for conveniance:

source: 2012 IRC

if it doesn't fit that table, (or get close to it, honestly you can do longer spans than the code recommends but just be sure you know what you are doing and that it is not meeting code) then the column is likely load bearing and the header will need to be replaced. worth noting, the largest opening you can span by code with wood headers looks to be 14' 1". if i was personally doing the work depending on your house layout i might consider pushing that boundary a little to fit a double garage door, but most city inspectors would not agree with me... so depends on how you do the work.

so long story short (i have a tendancy to ramble) if its a solid header close to those dimensions you may be able to remove the column, no problem, if its not, I would count on purchasing a laminated or metal beam.

edit to my comment above,
looking at this table it looks like structurally there is safe justification for wider spans since it is a garage supporting a roof load only, but I don't know how the code would treat this since I didn't see that option in the code. Here is a table for roof loads only on the garage and the allowable spans

http://www.southernpine.com/media/SS_1-6L.pdf
and the relevant table:

Thanks Black Gold

Unfortunately Marc Frelich is retired and is now looking to work. Any other help is appreciated.

I had a friend use his brother Mike Frelich and like him, though I can't personally attest to him. His website is still up so I'm assuming he is not retired yet?
MF Engineering & Inspections

also good to know Marc is retired, I guess I'll stop recommending him to people...