Garage Doors: To Insulate or Not to Insulate

Deciding if you really need insulation in your garage door depends on where you live, so the benefits of an insulated garage door and how to select the right degree of insulation to best suit your needs will differ quite a bit.

The amount of insulation you need in your garage door depends on if your climate is typically cold, hot, or somewhere in-between. With the garage usually being the primary entrance to the home and with living space often above or beside it, it’s best to keep the temperature in the garage as comfortable as possible. This is especially true in very cold or very hot regions. You can choose garage doors with varying degrees of insulation to best suit your needs.

The effectiveness of the insulation is expressed as an R-value. The higher the R-value, the better the insulation in the door.

Another point to consider is that an insulated door is generally quieter and has a more attractive interior than a non-insulated door.

Lastly, pests and insects enjoy nesting in the back of uninsulated garage doors. An insulated door doesn’t give them a place to call their own.

Reduce the Noise Coming From Your Garage Door!

Every time the garage door opens and closes, a loud rumble comes right through the walls of your home. Can’t stand it? Here’s some advice to help you reduce noise generated by the up and down movement of your garage door.

1. An insulated garage door can significantly reduce the intrusion of street noise into the home – especially important when there are bedroom or other living areas above or adjacent to the garage. If your door isn’t already insulated, the insulation can be installed by professional installers for a minimal charge, but it is not difficult to mount the insulation yourself and kits are available at your local home improvement retailer. It is important to consider having your springs recalculated because of additional weight to the door.

2. Have the steel rollers on your garage door changed to nylon. With nylon rollers, you will obtain almost silent running on the tracks and there is no need for lubrication.

3. Another point to look at is your electric operator. Any belt-driven model is best because the motor of this model is insulated from the metal case and will cut vibrations. The rubber belt is also quieter than the steel chain.

4. A noise isolator system (semi-rigid rubber 6 mm) can be effective. The supports that hold up the horizontal tracks can be insulated with a piece of rubber to cut the vibrations. On a wood frame, do not fix directly under the beams, place a piece of wood perpendicular under which you will have installed a rubber insulator. If you have a bedroom or living space above your garage and intend to add hardwood flooring, it is recommended to sound proof it by installing carpet and under carpet.

5. A good lifting system (springs) can also contribute to noise reduction. ”Torsion” type springs (instead of ”Extension” springs) is ideal because they allow precise balancing of the door and avoid friction of cables and springs on the horizontal tracks.

6. Concerning the tracks, it is best to choose tracks with the largest radius possible. In fact, the larger the radius the smoother the door action will be. The standard radius is 10 inches (”extension” spring) and 12 or 15 inches (”torsion” spring). Opt for the largest radius possible if you have a big clear space above the door.

7. Finally, regular lubrication (twice a year) of rollers and track is important.

With the above advice, it should easier to reduce noise problems from your garage door. Do not hesitate to call a licensed and insured garage door professional. They are trained to offer you top quality work and service and in the end, peace of mind.

It’s cold out there: Is your garage door insulated?

An insulated garage door can create a stable, dry, warm atmosphere all year round as well as vastly increasing the security, soundproofing and sealing properties of the garage door opening from dust, vermin, leaves and rain.

It will also help to save you some money on your energy bills. This is why the demand for insulated garage doors is increasing year on year as so many garages are now used for many other purposes other than storing a vehicle.

Insulated garage doors offer various advantages over standard garage doors namely:

1.They allow the garage to be used for other uses – e.g. hobbies, gym, play room, office, damp proof secure storage etc. etc.
2.They keep adjoining rooms and bedrooms above the garage warmer.
3.They offer increased security due to thicker and stronger door construction.
4.Weather stripping prevents leaves and debris blowing into the garage.
5.Weather stripping stops heat loss and prevents cold air getting into the garage.
6.An insulated garage door will help save on your heating bills and help the environment.
7.Reduced condensation.

The Benefits of Garage Door Seals

Garages are not merely a place for parking cars. They often have multiple functions like home-office, gym or hobby station, besides accommodating assorted storage for the house. Garage door seals help to maintain the internal garage environment preventing ingress of dirt and vermin and offering weather insulation.

Barrier

Garage door seals act as a barrier by covering the small gaps and joints between the door body and its structural surrounds. These gaps allow water, dust, leaves and even pests into the house. Water can damage stored items and pose a slipping hazard. Pests cause damage and create unhealthy conditions.

Garage door bottom seals are pieces of vinyl or rubber which are attached to the door bottom. Floor door stops prevent leaves and litter from being blown in. Garage door threshold seals are fixed to the floor and are tougher. Garage door floor seals are fixed using industrial strength adhesive. Garage door weather stripping includes pieces of vinyl or plastic attached to the jambs and header, using nails and screws which act as door draught excluders. Seal kits are available and can be installed as DIY jobs.

These different door seals ensure that there is an effective barrier between the garage interiors and outdoor elements.

Insulation

By sealing the gaps, garage door weather strips keep the weather out. Thus, they can control the internal conditions and bring down cooling or heating costs resulting in energy savings. This helps both the homeowner’s budget as well as the environment.

With garages being used for recreation or other uses for extended periods, internal conditions must be comfortable. Garage door weather seals play a significant role in improving these conditions.

Garage door insulation is inadequate without the use of seals. Garage door seals are critical to ensure that the results desired of insulated doors are achieved.

Protection

Garage door gaskets not only protect the interior and stored items; they can also prolong the life of the door and its surrounds. Garage doors are large and may often be handled roughly. This can cause wear and tear at the edges and may cause concrete, plaster or surrounding wall finishes to show signs of damage. Garage door seals act as cushions along the closing surface of the door. This helps to minimize the potential damage to doors and surrounding materials. By maintaining the good condition of doors, they reduce the possibility of frequent replacement or the need to refinish jambs and headers.

Garage door seals are an essential installation which bring many benefits to the garage interiors and prolong the door life.

It’s Getting Colder Out There! Tune-Up Your Garage Door

With the cooling weather, the following can you save you a lot of time and expense!

Keeping it Clean

Clean your garage door regularly with mild soap, such as car detergent, and a soft bristle brush. Avoid using abrasive cleaners and very strong liquid cleaners which could damage the paint or cause delaminating. If you have a steel garage door, you can revive its luster by applying a car wax as it will protect against acid rain and dust. It is best to avoid waxing in direct sunlight to achieve better results.

Weather Stripping

Clean the weather stripping with a good all-purpose cleaner. Lubricate it every 2 or 3 months with a SILICONE-based lubricant. Never use a petroleum-based lubricant on weather stripping as it will dry up and crack. Don’t forget the weather strip between your door panels. It is important to let your weather strip hang 1/2″ below the door base when you readjust your perimeter weather stripping. If the weather stripping is too tight, the door will not function properly. So if your weather stripping has lost its flexibility, it is best to replace it.

Maintaining the Hardware

Lubricate the rollers, tracks and hinges and all moving hardware parts with a little motor oil (e.g.: 10W30) every three months. Wipe off excess oil with a cloth. As for the springs, use the same oil applied with a cloth. You are not only prolonging the spring’s life, but also reducing the noise the springs make when the door is operated.

At least once a year, home owners must check the following :
– the sturdiness and adjustment of the hinges;
– the rollers for worn-out ball bearings, flattened rollers, and crooked rods;
– the tracks for premature wear and tear, loose bolts, and loose supports;
– the cables for wear and tear; especially near the pulleys and the lower support (corner bracket).

Open Sesame: The Garage Door Opener

Depending on the model you own, consult the manufacturer’s guide. If you want to add some white grease on the operator track, again you must first clean the track. By oiling all the mobile parts you will reduce the noise initiated by the motor. If it is still too noisy for your liking, then nylon rollers would help reduce the noise.

Pull on the trolley release cord and operate the door manually. Is it difficult to open and close? The electric operator only replaces manual operation, therefore it must move freely. If you have trouble operating it, contact your local l qualified and licensed garage door installer. For your safety as well as your child’s, check the automatic safety reverse system of the door opener every month.

Get Your Annual Exam

Consider your garage door as an important part of your home. With appropriate annual maintenance, it will operate beautifully. Ask a qualified and licensed garage door installer to lubricate and adjust your garage door at least yearly. In a 10 step check-up, they will lubricate all the above mentioned parts and perform any required repairs.

The Best Things About Garage Doors

One of the best things about owning a home is having a garage to park your car in at night. Having a place that you can store extra items in is a convenience that you become accustomed to.

With the ability to shut the garage doors homeowners can keep their automobile safe and secure. Too many people have been victimized by thieves the break into their parked car when it is on the street. With the convenience of a private garage however, a car can be tucked away out of sight and away from would be thieves.

Being able to your garage as a workshop where you can do some mechanical work or build some furniture for the house is an added blessing to being able to safely keep your car protected from the elements and other threats. With an automatic garage door opener you don’t have to exit your vehicle to open and close the garage. Making sure that when you push the button the springs and motor gently lower the door to the ground you can leave your house locked up, as you come and go through the garage entrance to your home.

Of course, there are occasions when the gears inside the automatic opener wear out and the unit needs to be replaced. When checking the chain that pulls up the door and fixing it in place around the new gear mechanism, it is a good idea to inspect the springs and look for signs that they may need to be replaced also. With well maintained garage doors homeowners can keep their house secure and know that as they need to leave their house in the morning that it will be safe as the doors close with the touch of a button.

Because many people leave their house empty during the day, it is important to make sure that all of the exterior doors are closed tightly and locked from the inside. By leaving through the garage homeowners can have the peace of mind in knowing that their house will be safe as they go off to work. Probably the most utilized entryway of any house, the garage doors are always being pushed and pulled by the automatic openers. When repairs to the system or the doors themselves are needed, it is up to the residents to keep their equipment repaired and running. Homeowners can find everything that they need to keep their equipment maintained by hiring professional licensed installers that can keep their house easily accessible and very safe.

Energy Saved with Insulated Garage Doors

Insulated garage doors are the perfect method to lower your electrical bill.

An insulated door comes in different dimensions, types and kits so there is no issue when it comes to matching the door to your home’s architectural style.

When seeking out insulated doors, make sure to do the necessary research as well as the R-value of each door. The R-value is the measurement of the resistance of the door’s material to changes in temperatures.

To understand how R-value and heat flow are related, think of your garage not as a single entity but as a part of a system with the external environment. As with most everything in nature, heat will want to redistribute itself in an effort to reach a state of equilibrium, or equal temperatures, on the inside and the outside of your garage. To do this, heat must pass through the garage door to reach the other part of the system.

Door insulation quality impacts your utility bills because your garage door is typically the largest opening in your home. Many people also like to spend time in their garages working or even entertaining guests. For those reasons, a well insulated garage door is important even if the garage is not connected to the house.

In the summer, it is naturally hotter outside of your garage than inside most of the time and heat will try to “get in” to even out the system. If a garage door has an R-value of 3, 1/3 of the heat will get through the door and into your garage. This does not mean though that the internal temperature will be 1/3 of the external temperature. It just means that as more heat is produced externally, 1/3 of it will enter your garage. Insulating your garage door can help keep the heat out.

The opposite is true in winter. Heat is produced inside your garage in winter, either by direct heating, connection to your house, or by effects of the sun. As it is cooler on the outside of the door, heat will try to escape through the door to even out the system. If keeping your garage warm in winter is a priority, or even to just lessen the overall effects of cold temperatures, then choose a door with a higher R-value.

Every year people everywhere lose thousands of dollars because they don’t have garage door insulation. This is very important. Especially as energy prices climb higher, it is important to seal up every possible interface with the outside cold and heat.

One reason to insulate garage doors is simply because if you don’t then untold amounts of extra energy will be expended in both heating and cooling your house. Think about it: the garage is the single biggest area in most anyone’s home which is not insulated. This presents a major problem. What happens, in effect, is that during the winter this “room” will take on all the cold that swirls outside, and it will effectively act like a refrigerator or even freezer butting right up against your kitchen or your living room, etc. In the summer the same thing will happen with heat.

Meanwhile, you’ve got your heating and cooling systems, such as your air conditioning, working overtime to make up for this vulnerability. Where you could’ve just done the right thing and installed garage door insulation, now you’re noticing a greater rise in energy and electric bills than you should otherwise have to be paying. It’s not a good situation. In fact, it could’ve been prevented quite readily with just a little forethought. But don’t kick yourself too hard. Instead, it would be a better use of your time if you’d just patch up the “hole” now.

Air-Tight Garage Door

When it comes to power efficiency, you’ll find a number of basic tasks a homeowner can perform to boost efficiency and lower the electric bill.

Even though a lot of homeowners may possibly overlook the garage door as a key source of power loss, it may be the largest culprit of heat loss within the residence, particularly in the event the storage is attached.

When a garage door is older or produced of wood materials, it could be clear just by looking at the doorstep that it requires insulation. If smaller cracks or splits inside wood enable light to travel via them, top quality wood epoxy is required to fill inside cracks followed by a refinish from the gate making use of paint. Even so, when the garage door appears to be in excellent shape, an uncomplicated way to tell when the doors are inefficient is by taping a facial tissue to a wire hanger and holding it against the bottom and sides with the doorway. In the event the tissue flutters or moves at all, air is freely flowing in and out of cracks along the edges with the front door and it can be time for some insulation.

The simplest approaches to making a storage far more utility friendly is by climate stripping the bottom in the garage door itself. By adding a climate strip the doorstep not only keeps out those wintry drafts, but it also becomes quieter as the strip adds a bit of cushion towards the bottom in the front door. You will discover many climate stripping kits offered that happen to be created specifically for standard garage door sizes. At the same time as custom kits for doors that happen to be of diverse proportions.

Once the bottom in the garage door is insulated, the next step would be to insulate the sides on the doorway. You can find a few various forms of self-sticking weather conditions stripping tapes to select from depending on the level of protection desired.

The four principal kinds of climate stripping tapes:

1.Open cell foam is the cheapest and most user-friendly from the tapes. It truly is extremely compressed foam that could be employed to seal little openings around the sides on the garage door.

2.Closed cell foam is usually a waterproof tape which is a little denser and firmer than open cell foam.

3.High-density sponge foam is extremely firm foam that might be employed to insulate automobiles and boats too as indoor areas.

4.Premium climate strip costs the most but will not crack or harden even when the temperature reaches far below zero.

Because of the availability of these basic, self-stick climate stripping tapes, creating a vitality successful garage door is produced straightforward and quick. Within an afternoon and with the slightest of ease, the garage door is transformed from a drafty strength drain into an air-tight and effective part with the property.

Winter is Here: Tune-Up Your Garage Door

With the cooling weather, the following can you save you a lot of time and expense!

Keeping it Clean

Clean your garage door regularly with mild soap, such as car detergent, and a soft bristle brush. Avoid using abrasive cleaners and very strong liquid cleaners which could damage the paint or cause delaminating. If you have a steel garage door, you can revive its luster by applying a car wax as it will protect against acid rain and dust. It is best to avoid waxing in direct sunlight to achieve better results.

Weather Stripping

Clean the weather stripping with a good all-purpose cleaner. Lubricate it every 2 or 3 months with a SILICONE-based lubricant. Never use a petroleum-based lubricant on weather stripping as it will dry up and crack. Don’t forget the weather strip between your door panels. It is important to let your weather strip hang 1/2″ below the door base when you readjust your perimeter weather stripping. If the weather stripping is too tight, the door will not function properly. So if your weather stripping has lost its flexibility, it is best to replace it.

Maintaining the Hardware

Lubricate the rollers, tracks and hinges and all moving hardware parts with a little motor oil (e.g.: 10W30) every three months. Wipe off excess oil with a cloth. As for the springs, use the same oil applied with a cloth. You are not only prolonging the spring’s life, but also reducing the noise the springs make when the door is operated.

At least once a year, home owners must check the following :
– the sturdiness and adjustment of the hinges;
– the rollers for worn-out ball bearings, flattened rollers, and crooked rods;
– the tracks for premature wear and tear, loose bolts, and loose supports;
– the cables for wear and tear; especially near the pulleys and the lower support (corner bracket).

Open Sesame: The Garage Door Opener

Depending on the model you own, consult the manufacturer’s guide. If you want to add some white grease on the operator track, again you must first clean the track. By oiling all the mobile parts you will reduce the noise initiated by the motor. If it is still too noisy for your liking, then nylon rollers would help reduce the noise.

Pull on the trolley release cord and operate the door manually. Is it difficult to open and close? The electric operator only replaces manual operation, therefore it must move freely. If you have trouble operating it, contact your local l qualified and licensed garage door installer. For your safety as well as your child’s, check the automatic safety reverse system of the door opener every month.

Get Your Annual Exam

Consider your garage door as an important part of your home. With appropriate annual maintenance, it will operate beautifully. Ask a qualified and licensed garage door installer to lubricate and adjust your garage door at least yearly. In a 10 step check-up, they will lubricate all the above mentioned parts and perform any required repairs.

Tips for buying a New Garage Door

One of the easiest ways to enhance the curb appeal of your home is a new garage door. When it comes time to figure out just which style, material and options to select, here are some tips that may prove helpful.

Tip #1 – Decide on a Look

Are you looking for a traditional garage door to match the rest of the home’s design? What about contemporary, ranch or other? You want to make certain that the garage door – a central point of your home – blends in nicely with the home’s architecture and style. Deciding on a look should be one of your first considerations.

Tip #2 – Choose Your Door Material

Types of garage door materials include wood (great for traditional styles), aluminum, steel and fiberglass. The material you choose may also depend on where you live (humidity, extremes of weather), maintenance and upkeep, and durability. The most popular, based on styles, maintenance and cost is a steel door.

Tip #3 – Select Door Type

Garage door types include a roll up or tilt-up design. Tilt-up doors rotate out and upward when opening. They have a disadvantage in that they may not open if objects are left too close to the door and they also tend to allow moisture, snow and other debris into the garage. Roll up or sectional overhead garage doors consist of several sections, usually 4 to 5, that roll over tracks and rest against the ceiling when open. Roll up models save on space and are considered stronger and safer.

Tip #4 – Pick Design and Options

Will you want insulation in your new garage door? This option will cost you a little more, which is well worth it if you live in a climate of weather extremes. Windows, special paints and decorative hardware are some considerations.

Tip #5 – Get the Best Warranty

Wherever you buy your new garage door, get the door with the best warranty you can – on both the product as well as the installation.