Types of Insulated Garage Doors

Written By Arman Zulhajar on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 | 1:12 AM

By Justin Krutz


With the cold season upon us, you may be thinking about ways to keep your home as comfortable as possible and reduce your energy bills by cutting the amount of heat you need to use in your home. In addition to the numerous ways you can minimize heat loss in the rest of your home - you may not be aware that your garage door is also a prime source of heat loss during the winter. Due to the large amount of space that it occupies on the exterior surface of your home, the garage door can allow a good deal of heat to escape from your home - or allow a good deal of heat in during the summer.

Fortunately, it is possible to minimize the amount of heat that passes through the garage door - keeping it in your home during the winter and keeping it out during the summer. The main reason for this is to help cut your energy costs spent on heating or cooling your home - but if you also use your garage frequently for any reason such as working on your car or getting together with friends, the garage will be more comfortable during the summer and winter. Additionally, if you have a bedroom above the garage - it will be more comfortable during the summer since the garage door will not have as much heat passing through it that can then rise through the ceiling. An insulated garage door can also reduce the amount of noise heard from outside the garage. When considering an insulated garage door, your two options are to add insulation to your current garage door or purchase a new garage door with insulation already included.

If you're leaning towards buying a new garage door, you have a number of great wood or steel insulated garage doors available to you from the top garage door brand names. These garage doors look like regular garage doors when viewed from the outside - but they have a layer of insulation added to the inner side of the garage door that is either sandwiched by another layer of wood or steel on the inside or left uncovered.

If you would rather insulate your existing garage door, there is a wide selection of garage door insulation kits available to choose from such as foil sheets or panels of foam. While you can insulate your garage door as a do-it-yourself project, the issue to bear in mind is that adding insulation to the door will make it heavier, which can then throw off the balance of the garage door. It may be necessary to rebalance the garage door on the springs so it doesn't wear the springs out faster due to the extra weight. In this case, you may want to have a professional install the insulation and make any adjustments to the balance as necessary.

Regardless of whether you're considering a garage door insulation kit or you want a new replacement garage door, the R-value is the major point to keep in mind. The R-value is the measurement of the insulation's ability to prevent heat transfer. A higher R-value means a more effective insulator. Garage door insulation kits usually have an R-value that ranges from 4 to 9 depending on the type of insulation used. When it comes to garage doors with insulation built in, wooden garage doors are usually rated from 6 to 7 while a steel garage door usually goes from 13 to 17.5




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment