I'm building a hangar. The door opening is 40 X 12. A bi fold electrically operated door is $6600.00, delivered. I'd prefer a manual slider, horizontal bi fold or other, I hope, cheaper door. The builder furnishes the sheathing for the door, so I'd hope to buy the frame and mounting hardware. There is a good supplier in New York, but because of the freight and availability, I'd like to find something closer to home (Northern Nevada.) I've been beating the bushes to no avail all day. Does anybody have any suggestions? Maybe I'd better go measure the wingspan of the Bearhawk again.

I liked the design of this company's high clearance door so well that I copied it and built my own. I think it's cheaper than 6600 but I haven't priced one for 5 years. Built in Wisconsin. Folds up flat with no loss of head room.

http://hi-fold.com/contact-us/

Trust me, anywhere there's snow, ice, or frost heave...,you'll appreciate a door that goes up! Especially if your hangar door faces north...joe

Another alternative is to build 4ea 10'w x 12'h panels. Hinge left pair together, right pair together, use rods slid into floor to secure closed. I 've rented a hangar with this system and it worked great. Light weight and no power needed. I agree with joecub. Tracks are a pain in snow country.

Cowdog:
I have built 5 hangars in the past 2 years for rental. I would urge you to reconsider the 40 ft width, in my view its too narrow. You will lose a foot off each side for the wall thickness, that brings it down to 38, your bearhawk must be 36 wingspan? That pretty close shooting when you put the plane away. Someday when you trade up to that 185 with wingX extensions you will be looking for more. I think 44 wide should be a minimum, and it doesnt add a lot of cost.
I have struggled a bit with the doors, we put Schwiess bifold on 3 of them, and then built some schweiss replicas in my machine shop. They work good but we didnt save a lot building rather than buying them. All the bifolds are pretty similar in price, except the aluminum ones which are more. There are some guys who put horizontal folding, also side stacking and tracked doors here in Maine, all of those suck in our snow and ice. Good advice here about a door that lifts, but there is a price attatched.

Jim

I think hydroswings are a little cheaper than schweiss. I like mine but it's not as good in snow as a bi fold, it is superior in the Summer. My neighbors built their own by copying a schweiss and I think my hydroswing could be easily replicated but unless you're going to do the whole thing yourself, I think the kits are the way to go. It's hard to shortcut a folding wall.

One thing to consider about the single panel swing up like Hydro swing. Paint a large no parking zone in front of the door. Pulling a plane or vehicle up and parking in front of one of those can be very expensive when someone inside decides to open the door, and out she comes. The crunching sound is an expensive one.

Cowdog – I have slider doors on a hangar. They are four 10’w x 10’h. I used Cannonball double (side by side) track. Each of the four doors hang by two rollers, but each of those door rollers are in different tracks.
The front rollers on all doors are in the closest track to the hangar. The rear rollers are in the outside track. This lets the doors overlap for a better seal (part of the reason).
I have two posts 10 feet past the hangar and the tracks each have a 90 degree turn section. The inside track turns just outside the hangar. The outside track turns at those posts.
This lets all four doors stack parallel with the front of the hangar and only take up 10 feet on one side. I built a 10’x2’ roof over the door stack area in case of rain.
I am happy and they cost $1400 with labor several years ago.

The hangar is 42X40X14. The 40' opening is designed for the Schwiess door. There are other complications, too. Cleary's discount pricing ends today, so I have to make a deposit today to secure the good deal on the building. Schwiess wants their contractor to install the door, but he's pretty busy and hasn't returned my calls. I'm not sure we have the time and native ability to install the door ourselves. As Scouter says, the width is a worry. The wingspan of the Bear is 36' which gives me a couple feet wing clearance. Sitting here, drinking coffee, that seems like that should be enough, but I'm uneasy about that, too. We get quite a bit of snow and the hangar door faces away from the prevailing wind and that means drifts, so maybe an overhead door is a necessity, but Bushmster's solution appeals to me. I'll call Dirtstrip's supplier in Wisconsin this morning. Blackrock has a single piece hydro door that works great, but costs nearly $9000.00. My Son and Ranching Partner, Maverick, thinks we might have increase the budget.

Maybe I'm too wishy washy to be a hanger owner. (Take that, Zane!) The saga continues.

I've got a High Lift on one hangar, and a Schweiss on the other. Both are 50' and both have good points. I always liked the looks and simplicity of the cantelever doors that AeroMark has, down in Idaho Falls, ID. They had no cables or anything and the guy showing them to us said they'd been opened in some awful winds! If I'd have had the time, I think I'd have gone that way when I built my hangars.
John

Given a do-over on my door, I'd still go with the hydro swing because it's such a great awning in the summer but I'd put in a port hole window to look before opening and I'd install hydronic tubes four feet in front of the door. The hydronic heat is cheap to operate if you set it to only turn on while its snowing. The external frame at the bottom of the door makes it trap snow where you can't get, then it freezes.

Cowdog wrote:I'm building a hangar. The door opening is 40 X 12. A bi fold electrically operated door is $6600.00, delivered. I'd prefer a manual slider, horizontal bi fold or other, I hope, cheaper door. The builder furnishes the sheathing for the door, so I'd hope to buy the frame and mounting hardware. There is a good supplier in New York, but because of the freight and availability, I'd like to find something closer to home (Northern Nevada.) I've been beating the bushes to no avail all day. Does anybody have any suggestions? Maybe I'd better go measure the wingspan of the Bearhawk again.

Come on down AZ50 and see the doors that were built for less than $1000.00 -Bi fold .You really don't want "slider doors" if you dirt or snow they are really not fun to open or close. Roll up (heavy)fabric doors are cheap and work well .

Word of advice if you buy a bi-fold door.
The problem:
My door was transported (the door company arranged the shipping....) on a flatbed in the middle of winter from the midwest to near the west coast (W20).
At first thought, that doesn't sound like a problem, but the states it passed through use salt/deicer on their roads and evidently my door 'skeleton' received a pretty thorough coating during its exposed ride. The paint they used on that skeleton was no match for the deicer/salt that gave the frame/skeleton a 'nice' rust patina..... That patina was in every nook and cranny on the framework and was just barely starting when it was hung, but in a short time it became quite, ah, er, quite un-attractive (understatement).
Also the electric motor and transmission were exposed to the corrosive treatment. The transmission input and output shaft seals, which should have been good for decades, were chewed up by the rust on the turning shafts going into/out of the transmission. Replacing the seals was not real expensive since a friend and I did the work, but was very frustrating since it was caused by abuse before the door even reached the contractor who was building the hangar. So far the electric motor is still functioning, but I can't imagine that road crap did the motor any good.
The local Cleary Co. metal building erector built my building/hangar. They had just established a local presence and didn't have much of a track record. The price was good but make SURE it is 'all there' in the contract. They were building three hangers at the same time and mine was lagging the others when I noticed they were not installing vapor barriers under the metal roofs. Well, without a vapor barrier in this climate it can rain INSIDE the hangar when it is not raining outside in some circumstances. I felt a vapor barrier was understood like a door to get in or trusses to hold up the roof. NOT so. The local guy for Cleary took a huge hunk ($) out of me for that 'change order'. I was displeased with other things that had to do with the local Cleary representative/contractor (how do you spell 'shyster'?) and in a small community that kind of guy really hurt Cleary, and they didn't last locally very long.
This was probably close to 15 years ago now. I paid the 'tuition' for these lessons. I relay them to future builders free of charge.
Thank BCP
lc

Upon Re-read / further reflection.....
Cleary did provide a very well designed / engineered building at a fair / good price with quality lumber / products. Unfortunately their local representative I was dealing with was an expansion office with a young fella that spent too much time looking out for himself and not for the customer nor the company he worked for.

I have built 4 hangar , doors all bifold doors. 12 ft X 42 ft. They are not that hard to build. The lay out is simple all one needs is a welder and the room to do the lay out. If your interested I am willing to help.
Good luck with your project..

Ken in Alaska

Littlecub...I never thought about the spray crap on the roads...but great point!! Did you ever tell the door mfg about that? I'd think they'd have the trucker tarp it if they knew that.
John

Cowdog wrote:I'm building a hangar. The door opening is 40 X 12. A bi fold electrically operated door is $6600.00, delivered. I'd prefer a manual slider, horizontal bi fold or other, I hope, cheaper door. The builder furnishes the sheathing for the door, so I'd hope to buy the frame and mounting hardware. There is a good supplier in New York, but because of the freight and availability, I'd like to find something closer to home (Northern Nevada.) I've been beating the bushes to no avail all day. Does anybody have any suggestions? Maybe I'd better go measure the wingspan of the Bearhawk again.

try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... s9cbcIQQqg

I rent my hangar at GXY. When I first was there, the slider doors (4 panels) were very problematic and took close to all I had to get them open sometimes. The airport rebuilt the door hardware (same door panels) some 3 years ago, putting in a heavy duty overhead track and cutting a groove in the concrete along the opening. Each door has a 1" square tube welded to it that runs in the groove to keep them from swinging in or out in the wind.

Frankly, I thought that the hangar would be inaccessible in the winter (west facing, snow, etc.), but it hasn't been a problem. The doors move pretty easily without the need to dig out the groove, most of the time. However, they are not weather tight, and if the wind blows while it's raining or snowing, it gets inside. They added vinyl strips along the edges to try to reduce that, but it only helps a little. So anything on the concrete floor has to be either wet-proof or raised, so I built a bunch of pallets to put my file boxes from the office on.

For a year after 3V5 closed, I hangared my airplane at a ranch strip northeast of Ft Collins. The hangar was pretty tight and weather resistant, but the sliding doors were a real chore in the wind. As soon as the drop rods were loosened, they'd start swinging until they were stacked to the side. So sliders really need something to hold them in place throughout their movement.

My previous hangar at 3V5 before it was closed had a bi-fold. Although it worked fairly well, a cable came undone once and nearly cost me my airplane. If I were to build my own hangar, I'd probably opt for an overhead bifold, but I'd sure want a door that was reliable and had some sort of safety mechanism to keep it from dropping if something broke. I think that would eliminate any home-made door.

Cary

Littlecub...I never thought about the spray crap on the roads...but great point!! Did you ever tell the door mfg about that? I'd think they'd have the trucker tarp it if they knew that.
John
God put me here to accomplish a certain amount of things...right now I'm so far behind, I'll never die!!

I think the truck flat bed was loaded up at the factory with door 'sleletons' and then the trucker zig-zagged his way accross the northern tier dropping off the doors at different sale sites. I think mine might have been next to last (been a long time).
As to tarps, well, truckers are notoriously 'independent'......
Maybe plan your construction so the door skeleton/ mechanism travels in summer?

I didn't personally notify them. The local Cleary guy was supposed to, but he was not good on follow through.
The transmission seals blew out a few years later. Nobody would have cared. The transmission supplier was very surprised though, and said they self lubricate and should have lasted decades.

lc

A guy I know has a pretty cool hangar door set-up, it uses multiple roll-up garage-style doors, maybe 14 feet wide each. You roll up all three, then the tracks on either side of the middle door pop out & waa-lah! you have a 42 foot opening. I don't know what something like that costs, but since it is not airplane-specific like bifolds & hydroswings it might be a lot cheaper. Esp if there's probably more than one roll-up door installer in your area-- nothing like a little healthy competition to keep prices down. Plus it looks very attractive, not so industrial as a one-piece door. Worth looking into anyways.

Cary wrote:My previous hangar at 3V5 before it was closed had a bi-fold. Although it worked fairly well, a cable came undone once and nearly cost me my airplane. If I were to build my own hangar, I'd probably opt for an overhead bifold, but I'd sure want a door that was reliable and had some sort of safety mechanism to keep it from dropping if something broke. I think that would eliminate any home-made door.Cary

Here are my safetys for a bifold/hi fold style. Homemade and Handy and safer than most.
In this photo notice there are four independent supporting cables that lift the door. If one breaks the others will keep it from falling. Many older doors rely on just one or maybe two cables that thread through pulleys to multiple pull points. If one broke the whole door came down, or with two cables one end dropped, twisting the door.
Four independent cables provide saftey and notice they are anchored at the top of the door frame itself making the tension of pull transfer only to the door frame, and not to the building header. The hinges of the door then spread only the lift weight to the header, not to cable pull points attached to the header. The cable anchor points at the top of the frame then also move outward as it opens eliminating the back and inward pull of cables that comes with anchoring to the header. Also notice the cables at the hinge point, they go over kickouts. As the cables tighten it kicks the hinge point outward starting the fold. This door cannot fall if one cable or hinge breaks. The motor and limit switch box along side allows setting the upper stop point and the lower stop point for automatic operation. I wired mine so on one push it fully opens but wired the close button so I have to stand there and hold the button the whole time. I can't make that last second dash to move something in the way while the door continues to close. I made this nearly idiot proof with the change below.



Second photo shows the safety lock/unlock I made. The over center lock lever handle has a plate welded to it. The plate covers the open button when in the down/locked position preventing anyone from pressing the open button when the levers are locked. You have to lift and unlock the lever first. Easy solution and preferable to the fate of hitting the opener button when the door is still locked down. Many bifolds have met their early demise by this screwup.