Much more often homeowners seek to increase the garage door size to match vehicles that don t easily fit through the existing opening.
Should openig be same size as garage door.
The size of the finished opening should be the exact same size as the sectional garage door or down to 1 smaller on each side and or the top.
From a structural standpoint it is fairly easy to reduce the size of the opening in a garage thus creating the need for a smaller garage door.
As i stated earlier you will want the finished opening to be the same size or slightly smaller than the door.
Measure the width and height of your garage door with a tape measure so you know what you have.
However it is quite rare for anyone to want to do this.
Single garage door openers generally do fine with smaller openers while double doors may need a little more horsepower.
The width of the rough opening should be 3 inches greater than the width of the garage door you are purchasing.
If it s 9ft the opening must be 9ft 3 inches and so on.
While a door width of 36 inches is oversized for an interior door it s the standard size for front doors the standard height remains the same however.
Once again it should be obvious that if you have an arched opening the height would be the same as the highest point of the arch.
You get the picture.
This way the door will have a nice tight seal once the weatherseal or door stop molding is applied.
While technically the door could overlap the opening as much as the space will allow the design on the outside of the door disappearing behind the jamb will tend to distract from the overall outside appearance.
Doors larger than this are considered double car garage doors.