instaling a bigger patio door

We currently have an old 6' sliding glass door opening onto our patio. I want to replace it with new dual pane slider and I am thinking of increasing the width to 8'.

My questions are these. The current slider is on the back wall of the house and is the load bearing wall for the trusses. How difficult of a task will this be? More importantly are there precautions I need to take to ensure that nothing "sags" when I modify the existing opening and install a new header?

I'm a pretty good diy'er and have done a number of remodeling projects around this house and others. I just don't want to blow it on this one.

Thanks in advance for the help

 

Increasing the WIDTH of the slider means you have to reframe the wall. Nothing will sag as long as your header is large enough for an 8' wide opening. Use a 4X12 for the header, and you are fine.

It's an exterior wall -- that makes it a bearing wall. Simply install a temporary supporting wall about 2' in so you can open up about 9' or 10' of the exterior wall and enlarge the opening. (2' in gives you plenty of room to work on the interior side.)

 

Thanks for the suggestions. That is exactly the info I was looking for. Now all I have to do is go buy the door and fire up the Sawsall!