It’s the time of year when it gets colder. There’s no better time than now to make sure your house is capable of keeping your family warm without breaking the budget as your heater cranks into high gear. Don’t forget to add your garage to the list of spaces to improve when thinking of methods to increase your home’s energy efficiency.
Although most people don’t spend a lot of time in the garage, it can have a significant impact on your home’s energy efficiency. Due to its seldom use, the garage is sometimes the most neglected part of the home. But take into account that the average two-car garage is 480 square feet in size. This makes up about roughly 20 percent of the average American home. If you want to reduce your energy usage and utility bills, that is a lot of room to ignore.
It takes more than just buying an insulated door or restricting how often you raise and lower the door to design an energy-efficient garage. In some circumstances, investing in an insulated garage door could not even significantly reduce the amount of energy your garage uses. Why? How hard the systems in your home have to work to keep the interior at a suitable temperature is measured by its energy efficiency. Therefore, everything that influences how hard such systems must work, such as lighting and power, building materials, and even the garage’s heating, falls under the umbrella of energy efficiency. If you have an insulated door but neglect these other components, your garage’s potential isn’t being fully realized.
Tips for Garage Door Insulation
It’s crucial to conduct research before making decisions and spending money.
The garage door is likely the first item that springs to mind when considering energy efficiency in the space. After all, the majority of homeowners use their garage door as the main entrance and exit to their home. Today, many garage doors see significantly more traffic than a house’s front door.
If you want to increase the overall energy efficiency of your garage, insulating your current garage door or getting a new, insulated one can be an excellent place to start. Insulated doors include an inside core that is designed to reduce the amount of heat and cold air that is transferred from the outside to the inside of your garage. If you’re unsure whether or not an insulated door will significantly alter things, take into account these advantages:
Comfortable Temperature Indoors
The garage in your home functions as a barrier against outdoor temperatures by separating the outside from your indoor living area. Imagine it as the entrance vestibule you pass through to enter a bank or your preferred eatery. Your garage is made to stop outdoor temperatures from quickly entering your home, just like these access points. You may keep more stale air outside and maintain the temperature you want or air conditioner uninterruptedly if your garage door is insulated. This is because there are more layers to pass through in those outdoor temperatures.
An insulated door significantly affects the temperature of the garage as well as helps to preserve the internal temperature of your home. Why is this crucial? Maintaining a comfortable temperature throughout the year helps to make the garage usable if it houses a workspace, hobby shop, or even a laundry area. Your cars, tools, and whatever else you store in the garage are all protected by maintaining a constant temperature inside. Anything with a liquid inside, including lawnmowers, power washers, and hoses, can become damaged over time if left in extremely cold temperatures. Even your automobile battery will work more efficiently in a garage protected from chilly winter weather.
Peace & Quiet
Although it’s not exactly an advantage connected to energy efficiency, nobody has ever fought in silence. Insulated garage doors are heavier than non-insulated garage doors and heavier garage doors move up and down less loudly. A garage door that has a hard inner core is unable to move and squeak like a regular door.
Best Energy-Efficiency
Metal or a metal component is frequently used in the production of standard garage doors. Metal is an extremely efficient conductor of heat and cold, but the problem is that you don’t want the outside temperature to transfer inside. If such were the case, your home would have to work much harder to function properly; hence, its efficiency would be very poor. An insulated garage door reduces the potential of the metal to transport heat or cold into your garage and, ultimately, your home by covering the metal components with foam or another type of insulation in its core.
Garage Door Insulation Techniques
As we previously stated, if your garage is losing energy in other ways, installing an insulated garage door may not significantly improve your home’s energy efficiency. Here are some of our best recommendations for increasing garage door effectiveness:
Solar-Powered Garage Door Heating
A fantastic first step in optimizing the energy efficiency of your garage is installing an insulated garage door. However, it only works well if other tasks are done at the same time. This is due to the fact that insulation is intended to slow rather than necessarily stop the flow of hot and cold temperatures.
An insulated door won’t be enough to keep the cold winter air out if you spend a lot of time working on chores in your garage. You could certainly plug in a space heater nearby, but it won’t be able to heat the entire garage and requires a lot of electricity, making it not the most energy-efficient option. You might want to think about heating your workspace with a solar heater, which emits infrared heat designed to reach every corner of your workspace.
How does it function? Infrared light is used by infrared heaters to produce heat. They don’t require electricity and don’t run on any fuels like propane or natural gas. Although there are many different versions available, solar heaters essentially work by putting a small solar panel on or near a window or another location that receives a lot of sunshine. It takes in the light and then produces heat using the heater. In the end, the sun generates a lot of heat that can keep your garage workstation cozy even while it is snowing outside. Additionally, because it is solar-powered, it doesn’t result in higher energy expenditures for your home.
Weatherstripping for Garage Doors & Windows
The good news is that sealing cracks and crevices surrounding your door will keep your garage at a more consistent temperature, and it’s neither difficult nor expensive to do so. Installing fresh weather stripping, or repairing it if it’s worn out and damaged, will stop air leaks and help you maintain a more stable temperature in your home. If you’ve never replaced weather stripping before, it could seem difficult, but it’s actually a rather straightforward process that doesn’t take much time or effort. If you’re looking for a great place to start if you’re looking for weather stripping or other solutions to increase the energy efficiency of your garage door, companies that specialize in garage door installation and maintenance are a wonderful place to start.
Don’t overlook any windows in your garage when you’re thinking about potential sources of air leaks in and around it. It has been shown to save homeowners 10 to 15 percent in energy costs by 10 to 15 percent by caulking leaks in their windows and doors. Weatherstripping, which you also added to your garage door, is one of the various materials available to deal with any window. A new seal between a window’s frame and use caulk to create a new seal.
Consider installing weather stripping on the door that connects your garage to the interior of your home while you are upgrading the weather stripping surrounding your garage. It’s simple to ignore this point of entrance, but if it’s old and no longer has a tight seal all the way around, it might be a major problem.
Check the seal to see if it is the following to verify if it is in good condition:
- Present around the entire door
- Pliable
- Intact
Wait until midnight, turn on the light on one side of the door, and turn out the lights on the other to see if you can spot any gaps or fractures in the seal. As you observe the door from the dark side, take note of anywhere you see light peeking through. Air can pass through if light can.
Examine the garage floor one last time. Although it might not seem like a significant concern, air can enter the garage through floor fissures. Even minor cracks that allow moisture to enter can freeze in the winter, causing damage to your floor and even shifting. When that occurs, it’s possible that your garage door won’t be able to open and close properly. Even if it requires a significant amount of repair work, keep in mind that maintaining the proper temperature in your garage will be more difficult if it cannot close properly.
Lights, Switches, & Outlets
Many people take lighting in their homes for granted. It should be present in every room. But outlets, fixtures, and light switches can admit air into and out of your house, garage, and other buildings. They may leave holes and tiny openings all over your indoor area since holes must be cut into the walls and the ceiling to install your lighting and the required power sources.
These little gaps pile up. Six ceiling boxes have a 1/8-inch space around them that allows as much air to enter as if you had just cut a 4-inch hole in the center of your ceiling. Why wouldn’t you take precautions to ensure that your outlets aren’t allowing unwelcome air inside if you wouldn’t willingly drill a hole in your ceiling to let air in and out? The presence of these spaces in your garage can also make it possible for gasses like carbon monoxide, which are produced by vehicles entering and exiting the building, to get through.
It could be challenging to pinpoint specific leaks or gaps around outlets and lighting, so it’s a good idea to insulate every one of them in your garage. All you’ll need is a steady hand, some caulk, and some spray foam. Consider installing an LED retrofit light/baffle kit to seal any possible leaks in your garage’s can lights.
Ceiling & Walls
You might not be aware of it, but your garage’s walls and ceiling might also be inefficient in terms of energy use. Adding insulation can increase your home’s ability to maintain a comfortable temperature year-round. To enhance your garage’s ability to keep out unwelcome temperatures, think about insulating both the walls and ceiling. What use is it to insulate the walls only to have an uninsulated ceiling that allows all of the air inside to escape?
Depending on how your home was constructed, you can either roll insulation between your joists or have insulation blown into a tiny hole between the drywall and ceiling. Always keep in mind that while choosing insulation, you should check the R-value, which is the scale that measures insulation’s ability to prevent the passage of heat or cold. The better certain insulation performs, the higher its R-value.
The walls and ceiling of your garage can be improved in a variety of ways in addition to insulation. In the garage, there may occasionally be gaps between the floor and the drywall. Look closely at the line where these two intersect to see if that’s the case. It’s important to take action if you notice any gaps or sense any airflow. Use a silicone or latex-based sealant along the joint where the walls and floor meet to fill up the gaps.
Get in Touch for All Your Garage Door Needs
It can be challenging to consider upkeep and energy efficiency improvements for your garage when you have so many daily responsibilities. However, you can keep your family comfortable all year long and save money by maximizing the energy efficiency of your garage. Your home’s ability to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer might be improved by caulking cracks or installing weather stripping to the garage door.
The addition of weather stripping or the purchase of a heater may not always be sufficient. Investing in a brand-new, insulated garage door is occasionally one of the best moves you can make. Allow Fort Lee Garage Doors to assist you in finding the ideal replacement if your current garage door simply isn’t cutting it. Fort Lee Garage Doors, based in Fort Lee, has been in business since 1972. Our goal is to assist you in choosing the ideal garage door for your residence or place of business. We take great satisfaction in our excellent level of customer service and provide free quotes and 24-hour emergency repair services.
We’ll help your garage become more energy efficient. Contact us or call us right away at (201) 8006757!
