High lift moves the bend in the track up the wall, so the door climbs straight past the top of the opening before it turns and runs back under the ceiling. The work changes the track, the drums, the cables and the springs, which makes it part garage door track repair and part cable and drum work.
It comes up in two kinds of building around Clark County: a home garage where someone wants a car lift or a clear ceiling, and the shops and RV bays on rural lots. In both, the ceiling height settles what is possible.
Standard lift, high lift and vertical lift, explained through the drums
The three lift types differ in how far the door climbs before it turns overhead, and each one needs its own drum shape to stay balanced through that travel.
DASMA defines high lift as the distance from the header to the underside of the horizontal track, and vertical lift as hardware that opens the door straight up with no horizontal track. A spring supplier measures from the top of the door instead, and by that measure ordinary residential track already has about 4 3/4 inches of high lift on 12 inch radius track.
Standard lift drums are flat, because nearly all of an open standard lift door rests on the horizontal tracks. On a high lift door, part of the open door still hangs in the vertical track, so the springs keep holding weight at the top, and the drum tapers at one end before it runs flat. Vertical lift drums change radius all the way across.
| Point | Standard lift | High lift | Vertical lift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the door turns | Just above the opening, through a 12 or 15 inch radius | Partway up the wall, set by the added vertical track | Never; it rises straight up |
| Drum shape | Flat | A tapered section, then flat | Grooves that change radius across the drum |
| Horizontal track | Close below the header | Higher on the wall, nearer the ceiling | None |
| Springs with the door open | Nearly unwound, the door resting on the horizontal track | Still carrying the part of the door left in the vertical track | Carrying the door through its whole travel |
| Headroom in Clopay’s commercial chart | 14 1/2 inches on 12 inch radius track, 16 inches on 15 inch radius | The high lift plus 12 inches | The door height plus 12 inches |
| Where it fits | Ordinary garages | Car lifts, tall shops, transom windows | Buildings with a ceiling at least twice the door’s height |
Those figures are for commercial hardware; Garaga’s residential page asks for 12 inches above the opening for torsion hardware on standard lift and 2 more for an electric opener, and the manual for your own door has the final word.
The drums one maker builds for high lift
High lift drums come in families sized by how much high lift they allow and how much door their flat section can carry, and one drum maker’s catalog shows the range.
| Drum | Most high lift | Door height the flat section carries | Load per drum | Largest cable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D400-54 | 54 in. | 121 in. | 275 lb | 5/32 in. |
| D525-54 | 54 in. | 179 in. | 500 lb | 3/16 in. |
| D575-120 | 118 in. | 145 in. | 500 lb | 3/16 in. |
| D6375-164 | 164 in. | 229 in. | 800 lb | 1/4 in. |
| D800-120 | 119 in. | 266 in. | 1,100 lb | 1/4 in. |
The catalog’s rule is that the door’s height minus the high lift must fit within the flat section. A 7 foot door with 24 inches of high lift leaves 60 inches, well inside even the smallest drum’s 121, so on a house door the amount of high lift and the load per drum decide the model.
High lift drums are also larger across, almost 6 inches in outside diameter by one supplier’s account, and need about 3/4 inch more ceiling room than standard drums. Past 54 inches of high lift, that supplier moves to larger drums and commercial hardware.
When a homeowner wants high lift
High lift makes sense when the space above the opening is worth more to you than the open door hanging in it.
A car lift
One spring supplier says the usual home reason is a lift that raises one car high enough to park a second beneath it. The raised car and the open door compete for the same space, and raising the track moves the door out of the way. With the track ends pitched toward the ceiling, a car on a lift can sometimes fit just under the open door.
The lift itself, from the slab it bolts to up to the ceiling it rises toward, belongs to its maker and installer; this guide covers the door hardware only.
A tall shop or RV bay
Acreage around Hockinson, Venersborg and Brush Prairie adds detached shops, RV bays and pole barns to the county’s garages. In a building with height to spare, high lift parks the open door up near the roof framing, clear of a tall vehicle and the lights. With a ceiling at least twice the door’s height, a spring supplier says vertical lift becomes possible.
Storage, lofts and transoms
A raised track lifts the open door above the zone where overhead racks would otherwise meet it, and conversions also come up when a loft over the door is taken out. Garaga lists high lift for openings with transom windows and for garages where the owner wants the full height inside.
High lift does not turn the door into a shelf. DASMA advises against hanging anything from the tracks or the door, warns that weight hung from track can twist or buckle it, and notes that doors already weigh from 90 to more than 500 pounds.
The headroom arithmetic
High lift needs clear height above the opening for the extra track, the drums and the top of the door at full travel, and Clopay’s commercial chart puts it at the high lift plus 12 inches.
- Measure the opening height, from the floor to the underside of the header. The door is that tall.
- Measure from the floor to the lowest obstruction above the door’s path: a beam, a duct, a light fixture or the opener’s rail.
- Subtract the first number from the second. That is the clear headroom above the opening.
- Take 12 inches off the headroom. By Clopay’s commercial chart, the rest is roughly the most high lift the space allows, before room for the opener or for high cycle springs, which Clopay says may need more.
Take a 7 foot door under a 12 foot ceiling with nothing hanging lower. That leaves 60 inches of headroom and, by the chart, about 48 inches of high lift. One supplier’s installs leave the horizontal tracks roughly 8 to 9 inches below the ceiling.
The arithmetic misses two things: a door with windows may need its track adjusted on high lift to keep the glass off the stop molding, and the opener needs room of its own. Your door’s manual, not a rule of thumb, sets the final number.
What a conversion changes, part by part
A high lift conversion replaces the counterbalance and much of the track while the door sections stay, because each of those parts was sized for standard lift.
Track
Vertical track is added above the existing track on each side, with angles and support brackets to carry it, and the horizontal tracks are raised to meet it. Low headroom double track can be converted too when the ceiling allows, reusing the lower horizontal track and radius and usually replacing the top and bottom fixtures.
Drums and cables
Standard drums come off, because a flat drum cannot balance the extra vertical travel, and tapered high lift drums replace them. The lift cables get longer, and a spring supplier gives a check on the finished job: each cable should start wrapping onto the flat of the drum just as the top roller enters the horizontal track. If it does not, the cable is short or the install is off.
Springs
The old springs come off too. On high lift they must carry weight at the top of travel, which takes more turns, and one supplier warns that adding those turns to the old springs leaves the door too strong to close. A drum maker’s chart for the same door shows the turns climbing at every step of added high lift.
So new springs are calculated from the door’s weight, its height, the amount of high lift and the new drums. A door on side springs starts one step back: high lift drums ride on a torsion shaft, so it first needs an extension to torsion conversion.
The opener
Clopay’s commercial manual says not to put wall-mount (jackshaft) openers on standard lift or low headroom track, and DASMA quotes its standard: not on those layouts unless the door maker provides for keeping the cables taut. Extended vertical track is one of the provisions DASMA lists, which puts a wall-mount opener on the table for a high lift door.
Whether one suits your door still comes from the door and opener makers’ instructions, and EZ-Set doors, with their small drums, cannot take one. Our opener comparison and opener installation pages cover the choice.
Why a high lift kit is not a weekend project
Every step of a conversion starts with the spring tension released, and the supplier that sells these kits calls installing one a long process that is very dangerous.
Before track or drums change, the springs are unwound and the door is clamped. The bottom brackets and red fasteners stay put until the cables hang slack, and nobody lifts or runs a door whose springs are off or broken. Winding the new springs comes last, and like any winding job, it belongs to a trained technician.
To price one, text photos of the ceiling, both ends of the shaft and the track tops, with the door’s height and the clear height above the opening.