Insulating your garage door will keep your garage warmer in the winter, cooler in the summer, and reduce street noise. It also can qualify you for a federal energy tax credit and increase the value of your property.
There are four main types of garage door insulation:
- fiberglass panels
- panel foam
- reflective foil
- insulating foam
We’ll start with the fiberglass garage door insulation kit. The major manufacturer of this kit is Owens Corning, pioneers in the insulation industry. The kit has eight panels for a single door and includes a fastening system enabling a quick and secure method of attaching and holding the panels in place. Installation can be done in less than one hour for a single door. The cleanable vinyl surface resists denting and tearing and brightens the garage.
PanelFoam garage door insulation kits are made of expanded polystyrene panels with laminated plastic faces for durability and easy maintenance. The panels fit inside the channels of the door frame rails making installation relatively easy with no tape, glue or screws needed. These kits come with all the materials to do a single garage door. So remember, if you have the double garage doors, you will need an insulation kit for each door. There are some brands that offer kits with just the additional panels which is nice if you have a garage door with the windows along the top.
The garage door insulating kits with the insulating foam are available from another leading manufacturer, Dow. The insulation in these kits is polystyrene which is well suited for metal doors. Panels have a durable plastic surface and fit flush to the inside of the garage door. They can be cut to fit if need be. You then inject the foam insulation being careful to fill every space in the door. By bonding to the metal of the door, the injected foam insulation eliminates any possible voids.
Reflective foil insulation is our final option. This is the one for the solid garage door without the sections in the door. The foil insulation covers the entire surface of the inside of the garage door and can be cut to fit around parts of the frame if necessary to create a tight seal. This type of garage door insulation kit is available in double foil or single foil types. The cost is minimal between these two types of insulation. Again, the kit comes with everything you need to install the insulation and can be done in an hour.
The R,factor is a consideration when selecting the type of garage door insulation kit you will purchase for this easy weekend project. This is the measure of the resistance to heat flow which can be determined by the type of insulation and its thickness. But it should not be the determining factor in the type of insulation used to insulate your garage doors. The type of garage doors does make a difference. Solid wooden doors cannot be effectively insulated with the current insulation kits on the market. If your garage doors have the new hurricane bracing, both panel and reflective foil insulation will work with a little more trimming and work to get to the panels themselves.
Some common concerns to garage door insulation are the cost of the kits and the affect the insulation will have on the operation of the garage door. Most of these kits of all types of insulation can be found at major home improvement stores or purchased online through garage door manufacturers such as Texas Garages that offer several types of insulation kits with reasonable prices and delivery options. They usually range in price from $85 up to $200 for double garage door kits.
Any tools needed are probably sitting in the garage right now such as a utility knife, straight edge, tape measure, and work gloves. A one year warranty is common with these kits along with complete instructions. Some have videos you can download and watch before beginning the installation. So do a little research, adjust the budget to ensure some long term savings on heating and cooling your garage, and pick a Saturday morning.
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Questions!
Did not tell the R-value.
How to handle gaps around doors?
Hi! The R-value of any garage door insulation is going to depend on the manufacture, the material they are using, and what they think is needed at a given point in time. For instance, with all of the emphasis on energy conservation with home insulating, there may be a move towards higher r-value garage door insulating kits. The best way to handle it is to narrow down your choices, then compare specifications side by side.
Gaps around garage doors can be handled in a number of ways, but your choice will be a function of the kind of door you have and the surrounding material. Having said that, I have had good results with a fabris strip, and I have also used a simple flap type threshold piece. A lot depends on how your garage door closes too.