Summer is a great time to think about insulating your garage doors. It’s good to do any time of year, and you can gain benefits during any season. We did this primarily for the winter, but it helps keep your garage cooler in hot weather too.
Why insulate garage doors?
Insulated garage doors accomplish at least three things. They will:
- Keep the garage warmer in winter
- Keep the garage cooler in summer
- Help cut down road/street noise
- … and if you happen to be in a garage band, your neighbors will thank you!! 😉
Insulating your garage doors will also provide one more layer of insulation for your interior walls, as well. The benefits of keeping your garage cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter will transfer to energy savings inside your home as well!
Mr. At Home and I spent some time measuring and figuring out just how we wanted to insulate the garage door. Being an engineer, he has lots of experience figuring out solutions to problems! While this insulation project is a bit of an investment, it is definitely affordable – moreso than replacing the door with a pricey insulated door.
We knew we wanted to use some R-value foam insulation…
…as well as a reflective material between the foam and the metal garage door.
Since our garage doors are on the South side of our house, they do get some sun. That’s where the reflective radiant insulation comes in. It’s amazing how this helps keep the heat out in the summer. Another reason we used both kinds was to entirely fill the space inside the channels of the metal door panels. The white rigid foam insulation also looks very good from the inside of the garage. Additionally, using both kinds of insulation raised the R-value.
Here’s how to insulate garage doors:
- Measure your door(s). Consider the total size of your garage door, because you will need to know the entire area that you wish to insulate in order to purchase the correct amount of insulation. The garage door insulation kits are already cut into sheets that you can trim to fit the panels. A typical kit contains enough for a 9-foot door.
- Measure the metal panels of your garage door. You would think that the door panel sizes would be uniform, but ours varied slightly. We measured and trimmed the foam insulation to fit each individual panel measurement. We used a light weight saw, just for ease and quickness.
- Cut the reflective insulation to size and apply it first. You can use a double-sided adhesive tape to attach it to the inside of the door panels, or just hold in place until you get the foam pieces installed.
- Cut and apply the foam panels from the garage door insulation kit. We ordered our kits from Home Depot and they were shipped to our house. These panels are so great because, once trimmed to fit, they will flex a bit and you can just slip them into the channels of the inside of your garage door. Be careful not to trim too much away. You want them to entirely fill the inside of each panel of your garage door.
Where Can You find Garage Door Insulation?
To help you find these products, I have included our sources: (these are affiliate links)*
Both forms of insulation were found at Home Depot. The Garage Door Insulation Kit comes with enough foam panels for a 9-foot garage door. We ordered 3 kits, as we have a 3-car garage, with one double door and one single.
!!!Important!!!
One word of caution: Another thing you need to do after you’ve installed the insulation is check the balance and spring tension on your door. Extra weight can put strain on the door opener motor and spring. Although the insulation is light, you may need to have the tension spring on the door adjusted, a job best left to garage door installation specialists.
We love our newly insulated garage doors! It is much quieter in the garage, and we can walk out there without suffocating in the summer or freezing in the winter.
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*A word about affiliate links: We do use affiliate links here at Sondra Lyn at Home. All that means is that we help you find the source for a product that we have used, include the link and, if you make a purchase, may receive a small commission – not from you, but from the product source. This costs you nothing extra and any small commission that we make helps us keep this blog going out to all our readers! Thanks for reading!!
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