Installing the Garage Doors

The time had come to finish closing up the new utility building. Windows and entry doors were installed, the roof was in place, and the steel was going up on the walls. I had the garage doors already purchased and being stored in my daughter's garage. Now, we just needed to transport them four hours away without damaging them as we bounced down the road.

Earlier in the week, I started to outfit the flatbed trailer for the trip. But before I talk about that, I will take a small tangent to the gate.

I know we need to get a gate installed on the property to keep people out. Not that we have a major issue, but I have seen cars, via the trail cameras, driving all the way back to the clearing. The building can be seen from the highway when the leaves are off of the trees, and we just don't need people driving in and checking out the building or building contents. So, we need a gate.

We like Nick's gate, so were targeting building a gate similar to his. I was trying to source the material from my employer; I work for a garage door manufacturer, so we have all kinds of steel tube in many different sizes. But long-story-short.... we had just moved a production line from our existing campus to the new campus out by the interstate, and some guarding was not going to be re-purposed. I was offered this material, and I now have a steel scrapyard at my house with a lot of steel that I may be able to re-purpose for other needs.

Key among all of this steel is a 15' section that, with some steel cutting and welding, can serve as a fine gate. In addition, someone had ran into a 16' steel 4"x4" post at the new facility. This post has flanges welded on both ends and, cut in half, would work very well for the gate posts.

My flatbed trailer is only 14' long, so I had to remove the back gate to be able to haul all of the steel, but especially the "gate" and the "gate posts". I had hauled all of that steel on Monday. On Tuesday, I built some bracing for the garage doors to be moved to the property. On Wednesday, Nathan (my son-in-law) and I loaded up the trailer and got things all packed and braced, and took it over to Bryan's where we re-did some of our installation to re-distribute the weight.

Lorraine and I were heading up on Thursday after work, while Bryan and Amy would come up Friday morning, hauling the trailer with the garage doors.

Lorraine and I had a decent trip on Thursday night, hauling the camper. After about a half-hour delay on the interstate, we arrived around 9:30 PM. It was pretty much "throw up the camper and go to bed".

I was awake at 4:30 AM on Friday, so drove up to the building to start work preparing the openings for the garage doors. I had pre-cut all of the lumber to extend the jambs and install the spring pads. I was able to do this work while waiting for the garage doors to arrive with Bryan and Amy.

I did take a small break to heat up burritos and coffee at the campsite once Lorraine was awake. We had brought Oliver (our dog), and Bryan and Amy were bringing Cooper (their dog). Once we were done with breakfast, we went to the building and I finished up the 10x10 door spring pads while Lorraine did some sweeping of the floor. It was nice working on a clean floor.

Bryan, Amy and Cooper arrived sometime near lunchtime, and we got to work unloading and staging the garage doors and began installation on the larger 10x10 door. A small break mid-afternoon to grab some late lunch of hot dogs and take a need dip in the water to cool off, and it was back to work on the garage doors. We wrapped up our work around 7:00 PM and had our dinner. A bit of time around the campfire, a rotation of showers, and off to bed.

I was awake early on Saturday morning, and took off to the building. I was able to get the shaft/spring assembly installed and up at the top. Bryan showed up a bit later, and we finished the garage doors. One small issue on the 8x8 door that needs to be fixed, and adding the locks and such still needs to be done.

After a quick breakfast of burritos, donuts and coffee, Bryan and Amy took off, hauling the empty flatbed trailer back home. They left around 9:30 AM and we left about an hour later.

The building is coming along, and it felt good to get the garage doors installed and operational. Having Bryan and Amy come up to help really helped put this task behind us, and we appreciate their efforts!