Standard singles run 8x7 and 9x7 feet, standard doubles 16x7, with 8-foot-tall variants common in newer construction, and the measurements that decide your options are the opening itself plus headroom above and side room beside it.
By Ryan Gold, lead technician, Reliable Garage Doors ยท Updated on July 19, 2026
Residential widths run 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16 and 18 feet, heights 7 and 8 feet with taller available. Builders default to 9x7 singles and 16x7 doubles, which is why those sizes price best and stock fastest. Golf-cart and RV doors push height to 10 or 12 feet, common on Suffolk and Chesapeake outbuildings. If your house was built after the 90s, odds are strong your opening is a menu size.
Four numbers: opening width jamb to jamb at the narrowest point; opening height floor to header, checking both sides because slabs settle; headroom from header to the lowest ceiling obstruction, 10 to 12 inches for standard torsion track, 4.5 to 9 workable with low-headroom kits; and side room, roughly 3.75 inches each side for vertical track. Note anything living in the headroom zone, pipes, ducts, the opener rail, because track has to share that space.
Pre-war garages across Norfolk, Portsmouth and Hampton were framed by carpenters, not catalogs: 7-foot-6 widths, 6-foot-8 heights, headroom measured in slivers. Manufacturers cut custom widths in inch increments for modest premiums, low-headroom double track solves tight ceilings, and in the worst cases reframing the opening an inch beats forcing a wrong door. Measuring is part of every quote we run; sizes feed straight into the numbers on the cost guide.
Want a number, not a sales pitch? Call 757-208-1600 and we quote it on the phone where we can.
Only by reframing; the door seals against the opening, it does not create one. Widening an opening is carpentry plus a new header, quoted separately and plainly.
Almost certainly 16 feet wide, 7 feet tall unless your ceilings run tall. Measure anyway; 15-foot doubles exist and surprise people at order time.
Different track and drum geometry and spring sizing, yes; height changes the lift math. That is ordering detail we handle, not homeowner homework.
Standard problem with standard solutions: rail repositioning, low-headroom track, or a jackshaft opener on the wall beside the door that abandons the ceiling entirely.
