Tuck-Under Garage Doors in Minneapolis, Richfield and Edina: Low Headroom, Water at the Bottom, and Noise Under a Bedroom

Drive any street in south Minneapolis, Richfield, the Southdale side of Edina or the Highland and Como neighborhoods of St. Paul and you will see the same house: a split-level or split-entry with the garage door at the bottom of a short, steep driveway, under the bedrooms. Builders called it a tuck-under garage, and from about 1955 to 1975 it was the cheapest way to put a two-car garage on a 50-foot city lot. I work on these doors every week. They have three problems that a detached garage never has, and each one has a fix that does not involve rebuilding the house.

Problem 1: the ceiling is somebody’s floor

In a tuck-under garage the header above the door is a beam carrying the floor joists of the room above, and the ceiling is usually 7 feet 6 inches to 8 feet, sometimes less once ductwork is in. A standard sectional door needs about 12 inches above the opening for the track radius and the torsion shaft, plus room for an opener rail. Most of these garages have 6 to 10 inches. The symptoms are a top section that scrapes the header, a door that was hung an inch short so it clears, and an opener rail notched into a joist by a previous owner.

• Low-headroom track. A double horizontal track or a quick-turn bracket moves the top roller so the section turns the corner with 4 to 6 inches of headroom. It is a hardware swap, not a construction job. How low-headroom track works.
• Rear-mount torsion springs. When there is no room for the spring shaft above the door, the shaft goes at the back of the horizontal tracks and the cables run the length of the track. Same spring, different place.
• A wall-mount opener. The LiftMaster jackshaft opener mounts beside the torsion shaft on the wall and needs no rail at all, which frees the ceiling and is the quietest opener made. Wall-mount opener guide.

What I will not do is cut the header. If the opening itself has to grow, that is a contractor, a permit and an engineer; I measure, tell you the honest headroom number, and fit a door to the opening you have.

Problem 2: the driveway drains into the door

The driveway slopes down to the garage, which means every spring melt, every salted January and every summer downpour runs at the bottom of the door. There is usually a trench drain at the threshold, and after forty years it is usually half full of sand. The bottom section rusts from the inside out, the bottom seal sits in a puddle and freezes to the slab, and the bottom brackets, which hold the cables under full spring tension, corrode until one lets go. A crooked door on a tuck-under garage is a rusted bottom bracket until proven otherwise.

• Clean the drain before I replace anything; a $0 fix that doubles the life of the bottom section. If the drain is gone or was never there, a rubber threshold seal glued to the slab keeps the water on the driveway side.
• Replace the bottom section only when the rest of the door is sound: panel replacement $200–$600 per section, and I replace the bottom brackets and cables at the same time because they are the same age. Panel replacement cost.
• A new steel door when two or more sections are gone or it is an original wood door: new insulated door from $2,000 ($2,800 for a 2-inch sandwich door), with a vinyl-backed bottom section, galvanized bottom brackets and a new seal. What moves the price.
• A new bottom seal every few years; it is part of my $129 winter tune-up (code WINTER through Dec 15, 2026), and it is the difference between a door that opens in February and one that is frozen to the floor. If it is already frozen down.

Problem 3: the door is under a bedroom

Every rattle in a tuck-under garage goes straight up through the floor. The usual causes, in order: steel rollers running dry in the track, a chain-drive opener bolted to the joists, a door that is out of balance so the opener strains, and loose hinge and track bolts. The fix is cheap and it is the same list every time: nylon rollers, hinges and springs lubricated, bolts tightened, the balance set so the door floats at waist height, and a belt-drive or wall-mount opener on rubber isolators. What each noise means.

Where I see these garages

Richfield’s 1950s ramblers mostly have detached garages, but the split-levels along Lyndale, Penn and Portland and around Wood Lake are tuck-under, and they share the Richfield problem of an opening sized for a 1958 car. More on Richfield doors. In Edina, the split-levels of the Southdale and Pamela Park area and the 1960s streets west of France are the tuck-under houses, while the older Morningside and Country Club garages are detached. More on Edina doors. Minneapolis has whole blocks of them in Kenny, Armatage, Hale, Diamond Lake and Nokomis, and St. Paul in Highland, Como and the Battle Creek hills. Old garages across the west metro.

What a visit looks like

I measure the real headroom, side room and opening, check the drain and the bottom brackets, balance the door by hand and tell you what is wearing before it fails. Repairs are done the same visit from the truck. A new door is a written price after measuring, before anything is ordered, and the old door leaves with me. Winter is when these garages fail, so the best time to call is before the first hard freeze.

Different decade, different garage? The Garage Door Age Check gives the short list for any garage from the 1920s to today.

Tuck-under garage questions

The other half of Edina, the 1960s ramblers and split-levels with the attached garage under the bedroom, has its own guide: Edina split-level garage doors.

Cannot wait until tomorrow? I run same-day emergency garage door repair in Minneapolis-St. Paul, usually arriving in about an hour. (763) 265-7671.

Written by David Tuito, owner and lead technician of David’s Urgent Garage Door, St. Louis Park. Minnesota-registered contractor #IR790255, insured, in business since 2019, 4.9 stars on Google. David answers the phone and does the work himself. About David · (763) 265-7671