Need a carpenters recommendation
 

My daughter just bought a house with an unattached garage. The garage is a concrete block building with no doors, its basically a shell. So I need to put doors on the mutha.

I think the best way to this is to frame in the opening and hang the doors from the frame(no way to do an over head w/out ALOT of renovation). Well I tried to put masonry anchors into the concrete(the lead type) and holy moly what a chore. Those blocks just ATE the carbide drills. AND the hole was not uniform enough to get good grip with the anchors.

How the heck do you attach wood to concrete?

a dad in dire need of help am I

Remington.

KT

You can try a powder actuated ramset by Remington or Hilti, but you might just want to go down to the local rental yard and get a heavy duty hammer drill and drill thru the concrete and "Redhead" bolt the wood or epoxy threaded rod and bolt the wood to the block. Regular handyman drills just will not do the trick.

I agree.


KT

Yep, there is no way to cut a decent hole in crete without a hammer drill. Craigster59 is right... epoxy threaded rod & then bolt.

I don't know that those lead plugs would old in a doorway very well. They are ok for keeping things positioned, but not so great on things like doors that get banged and beat on.

Hilti gun would be the fastest. It drives a hardened nail into concrete. It's what home builders use to fasten interior wall frames to the slab. Many Home Depots rent them.

Hilti stuff is the shiz-nit. We spec Hilti HY-150 anchors all the time. Stuff holds great and this is for heavy-duty commercial construction. Look for KB-III (the Kwik-Bolt II aren't available any more) for the anchors.

Hammer drill + proper bit and lag shields. You're looking at 1 minute per hole, tops.

Hilti concrete nails or hammer drill and anchor bolts.

Contact I think Speeder, he posted some of his work and it was very impressive!!

OK guys, lets get it straight...
A hammer drill is simply a drill with a built in vibrator. What you need is a "rotary hammer" which turns slower and hammers harder and doesn't burn up the bits. Rotary hammer bits are NOT straight shank. They come in SDS, SDS Max, Spline and Taper drives. Rent the right tool for the right job. The bits are more expensive but last so much longer.

Check your Codes, you probably need to use treated lumber that is directly against the concrete. There may be rules for minimum distance between fastners as well.

Are the cells of the block filled with concrete/grout?

Seems strange that a carbide bit wouldn't go through a standard block. I bet your drill bit speed was way to fast and you burnt the bit up.

Go slow and let the drill do the work.

What are you using for doors if you're not using and overhead door?

Or he hit rebar in a grouted CMU wall. . . Possible I suppose.

Flatbutt1, what is the opening size now? What size opening do you need? Are you planning on installing an overhead sectional door or jamb hinged swinging or maybe a side rolling pair of doors with a top and bottom track?
Consider what you want and then decide how much support you'll need and consider alternatives that might fit your budget, skills and materials better.

No the cells are empty.

We fabricated doors ourselves out of treated plywood and hung then hinged off of the jamb.

The opening is just over 10 feet wide. There is no overhead structure to work with aside fron the roof. As I say it is a shell. She wants jamb hinged swinging doors.

Thats why Im thinking about framing in the entire front wall then hanging the doors from the frame. Therefore I'd need to only anchor the jamb members...I think

Can you take a picture of the interior and exterior of the opening and post it?

It would be especially helpful to have pictures of the head condition where the roof framing comes down and sits on the block.

What is the current opening Ht and how tall do you want/need it to be?

How do you plan on keeping the doors square?
With that large a door panel it will want to sag if it's supported on the edge.
I would look at useing a turn buckle and cable system to go from the upper outside corners down to the lower inside corner to keep the doors from saging out of square.