My patio door will need replacing soon. The rough opening is 64 inches wide. Now, patio doors come in the 5 or 6 foot flavour (give or take maybe one inch), am I correct? So is 64 inches too big for a 5 foot door and too small for a 6 foot door?
The easiest thing would be to make the opening smaller, but then I'd have to change the vinyl siding panels on the outside wall. If I widen, I can just cut it back. But that probably means I need to change the header of the RO. And obviously, a 6 foot door would be much nicer than a 5 foot. If I have to replace some siding (maybe the whole wall since that siding is probably 20 years old) it might be very expensive to actually downgrade to a smaller door.. :S
I'm not sure how much load the wall is bearing. It is a two story + basement home. The door is on the first floor. The floor and ceiling joists are parrallel with the wall and the I beam is perpendicular with the wall (about 3 feet away). That exterior wall (width of the house) is about 25 feet wide. The house is rectangular with no gables.
Would it be necessary to put up a temporary wall a few feet into the house to serve as a support while the header is replaced or is there an easier way? Would screwing a 2x6 across all the studs above the header be sufficient?