Low Headroom Garage Doors: Which Track Fits Your Ceiling

By the Garage Sized team · Updated October 7, 2026 · Figures from door and opener makers’ manuals and guides

Headroom is the space between the top of the garage door opening and the lowest thing above it: the ceiling, a beam, a duct or a light. A low headroom garage door is an ordinary sectional door on different tracks and springs, so it rolls back under a ceiling that would stop a standard one. This page compares every option at one scale, shows which one fits the headroom you have, and covers what changes with the opener and the depth of the garage. To take the measurements, see how to measure a garage door opening. For door sizes, start with garage door sizes.

What counts as low headroom

DASMA, the door makers’ trade group, defines headroom as the clear space “above the door opening, and below the lowest ceiling obstruction”. Your headroom is low when it is less than a standard track needs:

• Torsion springs (one spring shaft above the door): 12 in for Clopay, Garaga and Raynor, 13½ in for Wayne Dalton, on 12 in radius track.
• Extension springs (long springs beside the overhead tracks): 10 in for Clopay and 11 in for Wayne Dalton. Garaga lists 8½ in, on a tighter 10 in radius track.
• A ceiling opener adds 2 to 3 in on top of either. Amarr puts the total for most doors with an opener at 15 in (Amarr).

Sources: Clopay installation manual, Wayne Dalton torsion and extension manuals, Garaga, Raynor. Measure at the lowest point above the opening, not at the ceiling in the middle of the garage. A beam or a light over the door counts.

Low headroom options, from most to least headroom

“With a ceiling opener” is derived: each maker’s headroom plus its own opener allowance (Clopay about 3 in, Wayne Dalton 2½ in, Raynor 2 in on rear-mount, Garaga 2 in on standard lift only, per its FAQ; its architects’ page adds 2 in without that limit). Sources: Clopay manual Tables 3-A and 3-B, Clopay track options, Raynor, Garaga (headroom FAQ, low headroom FAQ, architects’ page), Wayne Dalton (front-mount and rear-mount low headroom manuals).

What each one does:

• Front-mount low headroom. The torsion springs stay on the wall above the opening, as on a standard door, and the tracks change. DASMA calls a front-mount spring one “mounted to the header above the door”.
• Quick-turn bracket. A bracket on the top section lets its top roller turn sooner, so the horizontal track can sit lower. Clopay lists it for extension springs on 12 in radius track.
• Double track. A “second pair of horizontal tracks to reduce the high point of travel of top section” (DASMA). The top section runs in its own upper track, so it doesn’t swing up through a 12 in curve.
• Rear-mount low headroom. The torsion springs move to “the rear of the horizontal tracks” (DASMA), which frees the wall above the door. It needs the least headroom and the most backroom.

Conversion kits exist for some doors. Clopay sells low headroom conversion kits at retail stores for extension springs and its EZ-SET torsion springs, and says its standard torsion low headroom tracks are for professional installation only. The kits work only on doors up to 8 ft tall (Clopay). Wayne Dalton’s 6 in conversion kit fits 12 in radius track only. Garaga needs a door at least 6 ft 6 in tall for low headroom.

Which option fits my headroom?

Find your headroom in the left column. Where makers differ, the table says which ones fit.

Derived from the maker figures in the table above. Check the install sheet for the exact door and kit before you buy.

Is there a zero clearance garage door track?

No. The lowest figure we found for a sectional door is 3½ in, Wayne Dalton’s rear-mount “3 inch” low headroom kit, and even that kit’s manual asks for 3½ in, not 3. Garaga lists anything from 0 to 4¾ in as not possible on its FAQ (Garaga), and 0 to 5 in on its architects’ page, with the note “lower headboard of door” (Garaga). The old one-piece doors needed only about 2½ in, but Garaga says they haven’t been sold since the 1960s.

Lowering the header trades door height for headroom. Clopay builds heights in 3 in steps (Clopay), so a 7 ft opening with 3 in of headroom can become a 6 ft 9 in (81 in) opening with 6 in, enough for a double track or rear-mount kit. Check your vehicles first. A Ford F-150 4×4 at 76.7 to 80.7 in still passes under 81 in, though the tallest, a Raptor on 37 in tires, has only 0.3 in to spare. A Ford Transit low roof van at 82.2 to 82.9 in does not (F-150, Transit specs). More on clearances in garage door height.

How low headroom changes backroom and side room

Low headroom tracks still have to hold the whole door when it is open, and rear-mount springs sit behind the tracks. So the space you need behind the door wall (backroom) usually grows. The makers don’t agree on how much:

Numbers in brackets are each maker’s rule: door height plus that many inches, worked out for an 84 in door. Sources: Clopay track options, Raynor, Wayne Dalton standard, front-mount and rear-mount manuals. Wayne Dalton asks for 3½ in of side room with every track. Clopay’s side room and backroom are from its track guide; its install manual asks for 3¾ in beside the opening for a standard track (4½ in above the opening for torsion springs) and door height + 18 in of backroom (102 in).

Compared with the same maker’s standard track, a rear-mount system needs 3 in (Raynor), 4 in (Wayne Dalton) or 14 in (Clopay) more backroom. Front-mount is a wash: Clopay asks for 7 in more, Raynor 6 in less and Wayne Dalton the same. For an 8 ft door, Wayne Dalton’s rear-mount kit needs 118 in without an opener and 137 in with one. Clopay’s rear-mount track also wants 7½ in of side room, more than its 4½ in for a standard track.

Low headroom garage door openers

A ceiling opener (the usual kind, with a rail down the middle of the garage) needs space above the door’s highest point as it opens: 2 in for LiftMaster, a Chamberlain Group brand (LiftMaster 3575 manual) and 2½ in for Genie (Genie). Door makers add 2 to 3 in to their headroom figures for it, and Clopay and Wayne Dalton add it to their low headroom kits too. Garaga adds its 2 in only to standard lift. A ceiling opener also reaches far back: 123 to 128 in from the door wall for a 7 ft door with a Chamberlain opener (Chamberlain).

A wall-mount opener (also called a jackshaft or side-mount opener) bolts to the wall beside the door and turns the torsion spring shaft directly. There is no rail, so it adds nothing to the door’s own headroom. What it needs instead:

• 8½ in of side room on the motor’s side (Garaga, LiftMaster 98022 manual).
• A torsion shaft above the door. Garaga prefers the shaft center about 2 in above the door. LiftMaster wants at least 3 in from the ceiling to the shaft center and a 1 in torsion bar.
• The right track. Garaga lists standard lift, high lift, low front headroom and inclined track, and calls front low headroom “not optimal”. It doesn’t list rear-mount low headroom, where the shaft is at the back of the garage.

That matters most if you have 12 to 14 in. A standard torsion door fits (12 in for Clopay, Garaga and Raynor, 13½ in for Wayne Dalton), but a ceiling opener would not. A wall-mount opener solves that without a low headroom track.

The opposite case: high lift and vertical lift

With a tall ceiling, the track can climb the wall before it turns, so the open door sits higher. DASMA defines high lift as the “distance from header to underside of horizontal track”. Clopay asks for headroom of the high lift plus at least 9½ in, so a 48 in high lift needs about 57½ in above the opening (Clopay). Garaga uses it for transoms or to free up height inside the garage (Garaga). LiftMaster’s 98022 wall-mount opener handles high lift up to 54 in.

A vertical lift door goes straight up the wall and doesn’t roll back at all. Garaga’s residential page says the headroom equals the height of the door, and Amarr’s commercial guide says door height + 13 in (Amarr). For a 7 ft door, that is 84 to 97 in above the opening, about 7 to 8 ft.

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