Most large recreational vehicles (RVs) exceed 12 ft. in height, so in order to garage them you need a tall and fairly wide door. Schweiss Doors has handled many requests for bifold doors to fit these needs. In some cases, in order to get around zoning restrictions that don't allow the look of these tall doors, the exterior cladding and design on them can be configured to make a door appear half the size that it actually is and make it blend in with the rest of the home or garage.

Jay Hare works as a partner in the prestigious accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Minneapolis. He and his wife, Kathy, of North Oaks, a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., did have to deal with zoning restrictions on their garage door, but with the assistance of Schweiss Doors they were able to work around them. The finished look on their 12' x 16' RV bifold autolatch liftstrap door with remote opener and photo eye sensors gives them a clear opening of 14' but gives the outward appearance of a door half that size in height.

Schweiss Doors features many stories on its “Must See Photo” bifold door website. One particular story that Kathy in her research happened upon was the Schweiss bifold RV door owned by Herb Korthuis that was designed to address uniformity code zoning restrictions on his home in Lynden, Washington.

The Hares' decided to see that door firsthand while on a trip and took time to visit with Korthuis.

"We were actually out in Seattle visiting friends and went out and saw Herb. He was quite open to giving us a tour of the garage and a demonstration. Armed with additional photos and a video we went back to our builder and with very similar restrictions as Herb had, we were able to get it approved by an architectural review committee - a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a million," explained Hare.

RVing is a big part of the Hare's life. They recently sold their 2006 Mountain Aire RV and will be getting another soon. They've visited all 48 states in their RV on family trips.

"We used an uninsulated garage door to clad the bottom (outdoor) half of the door and LP Smart Siding on the upper half with insulation in the middle of it and then used a plywood backing to sandwich it in on the inside and then painted it white," said Hare.

"You guys have so many different applications on your Schweiss website. We essentially copied Herb Korthius with his permission and input. Having that story and picture and the owner willing to share his story with us really helped us come up with what we needed to do with our house. Your website offers a real service for people looking for unique ideas for openings," noted Hare.

He went on to explain that many RV owners have to place their expensive coaches in storage or leave it outside in unfriendly weather where they don't want to. Prior to building his home and garage he stored his coach two hours away and now is very happy to have it handy for staging and servicing. His wife calls it the marriage preservation mancave because Jay likes to spend time out there tinkering.

"I like the strength and durability of the door and what looks like a car garage door that opens and folds in half to make room for the RV," said Hare. "We have all the conveniences of a regular door. The remote feature lets us pull up, hit the button, back in; just like parking a car. Without the Schweiss door we wouldn't have been able to build it. To tell you the truth, we kind of built the house around the rest of the garage. The door is high quality and should hold up for many years."

One point he wanted to share with other RV owners looking to get a similar door is that RVs by law can't be wider than 8.5', however, the mirrors can stick out from that to about 10' so you want to make your garage door wide enough to accommodate the mirrors on each side. He said his automatic latches work fine but are close to the mirrors, giving him about three inches of clearance on either mirror. (Automatic latches reduce the functional width of his 12-foot door to a little over to feet.)

The mirrors on his new coach are about one foot higher and will probably stick up above the latches. So the footnote for someone putting in a garage door is to consider the flexibility of where the latches will go relative to the location of the mirrors on their RV.

Other tips he mentioned is to get the sightings and roof lines to work together and make sure the builder knows how to beef up the building to accept the weight of the door.

Hare said they initially made a few phone calls to Schweiss Doors to get things started and then the basically turned the contact information over to their builder, Accent Homes, Inc. of Ham Lake, Minn.

Bud Dropps, Owner and President of Accent Homes, said building a garage for this door did present some challenges.

"Our main challenge was when Jay first came to me saying he wanted to put an RV garage in the association maintained exclusive area of North Oaks. I said there's very little chance we'll ever get that passed through the architectural committee. I was able to talk to another builder in Washington State that had done about the same thing."

He said that before the door was put in there was a very large opening that caught the attention of the other residents who may have assumed that this was the finished opening size, but once the Schweiss door was installed and the false garage door was applied to the exterior along with the siding it now looks like a regular garage door for cars.

"Once I had pictures of it and a video of how it actually worked then it passed the architectural control committee; it's all about the facade out there, it has to look right. It was fun, it was challenging; I've been building houses and RV garages for 40 years and never done anything that remotely resembled that. All in all it turned out great. They love it and I think the door is awesome."

Dropps said it was also helpful to obtain some drawings from Schweiss Doors and said he consulted an engineer who recommended to use steel to ensure that the building's structural design would be capable of handling all the imposed loads that the door exerts on the door header, endwall and building.

Accent Homes Inc.

Accent Homes of Ham Lake, Minn. has been building and designing custom homes in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul for over 40 years. In that time they have evolved into a small, design-centric firm, building one-of-a-kind custom homes.

Building runs deep in their history, they are a family-run company, and a fourth-generation builder. Owner, Bud Dropps, proudly displays a framed photo in his office of his great-grandfather on the job in the early 20th century. Over the years their focus has remained building beautiful custom homes, tailored to their clients styles and lifestyles. Since 2012 they've also been building vintage inspired two-story bungalows on vacant lots. They have been honored more than 30 times with industry awards and accolades for excellence in design and construction, including 13 Reggie Awards of excellence.

Accent Homes is located at 13739 Lincoln Street NE, Ham Lake, MN 55304. Phone: 763-784-6013. For more information, visit their website at: www.accenthomesinc.com