Structural Garage Door Header Missing

You don't see this too often, and garage door opening framed with a 2 x 4 header. The builder clearly, has never seen a structural header sagging, because there's too much weight above it. Even though the garage door opening is only 8 foot wide, it should have at least a 4 x 8 header. This is the minimum size for a structural header that I would suggest in a situation like this.

I hate to see projects like this being built. I know what this garage door opening is going to look like in 10 years. Yeah, I know that the garage won't fall down, but you will have structural cracks in your walls and a sagging garage door opening.


Home Repair Tip: Remove the 2 x 4 garage door header and replace it with a 4 x 8 or 4 x 10 header.

Home Repair Common Sense: The roof on the garage is going to be constructed using an engineered truss roof system. The interior trusses sit on two exterior walls and the weight of the roof is disbursed to each of them, one at each end of the truss.

The gable truss or the truss that sits on the ends of the garage, (like the roof truss that will be located above the garage door headers), distributes the weight evenly along the length of the entire wall.

If there isn't enough structural support underneath the gable roof truss, (proper sized garage door headers) the weight of the roof and the weight of exterior finish (siding or stucco) could be too much to handle.

If the structural supports can't carry the weight, they will eventually, start to sag, split or they could even break.

If you have any questions about an engineered roof truss system, you should contact the manufacturer.