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I am closing in an 8'x7' garage door with a wall and 32" exterior entry door to make more space in our family room. The floor will be raised to meet the existing floor which will elevate the new exterior entry door. I need to cut and raise the garage header for the door jamb to have 81 1/2". Width of new header is 37" long.

The wall was installed therefore supporting the existing headers with 2'x4' 16" o.c. leaving 34" unsupported for the door jamb.

Can I cut the remaining header without supporting the 2nd story above since it will only be 37"? I plan to raise the header and reinstall with jack and king studs. Thank you.

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  • It's unclear what you mean by "without supporting the second story". That obviously needs to be supported right?
    – JPhi1618
    Commented Nov 26, 2019 at 20:10
  • Without supporting means without a temporary wall supporting the load. The new header installed for the 32" door will support the second story when reinstalled.
    – Robert
    Commented Nov 26, 2019 at 20:22
  • Why take the risk? You are only talking about $30-40 to build a temporary wall.
    – peinal
    Commented Nov 26, 2019 at 20:25
  • You haven't given us the critical dimension, which is the final height of the beam over the new door opening.
    – isherwood
    Commented Nov 26, 2019 at 20:41
  • Does the garage slab have adequate footing to bear a load bearing wall?
    – NoSparksPlease
    Commented Nov 27, 2019 at 15:36

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The new man-door opening will have to be framed as usual - jack studs / header / cripple studs so that part of the wall doesn't sag. (Of course the header for the door will not need to be nearly as big as the original for the overhead door, it's span is so much shorter.) That's simple enough.

The trick is figuring out a way to temporarily support the portion of the wall where you're cutting out the old header and framing the new opening. There are a number of methods of temporary support, depending how much room you have to work, but you couldn't really suggest what's best without a clear picture of the existing wall framing.

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No you still need to support the span the new door will occupy. This is especially important in a multi story building on a load bearing wall you will need king studs and cripple studs to do it properly possibly double on the long span because of the load. Don’t try to scab things in without proper support or next winter your wall may fail causing major structural failure,

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