Should I Insulate My Garage Door?
Should I insulate my garage door? Given the cost of energy prices and the belief they are going to go up substantially in the future, it seems a wise move.
A home is like the hull of a boat, but obviously upside down. The hull is only as water resistant as its weakest point. If a leak springs in the back, it doesn’t matter how water tight the front of the hull is. The boat is going to sink. Such is life.
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Your home works much the same way. It keeps the elements out, but also keeps the internal temperature cooler or warmer than the outside air according to your preferences. While leaks will not sink your home, they do create a loss of climate control that causes your heater or air conditioner to fire up. This runs your utility bill up, up and away!
After a couple of lofty bills, homeowners tend to get very interested in improving the insulation of their home. While windows are an obvious area to consider, the homeowner is going to get around sooner or later to the question of “Should I insulate my garage door?” The answer generally is you should, but depends on your home layout.
Let’s assume you have a two story home. Most designs incorporate a garage. The garage is often tucked up and under the structure. While this makes for a nice meshing with the rest of the home design, it is not great when it comes to insulating the home. Why? Well, you create a pocket of climate within the general home shell that is going to introduce colder or warmer temperatures than you want in the rest of the home.
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Consider the summer. How hot does it get in your garage? It can get boiling. This air is warming up the walls shared by the garage and interior of the home. Wall insulation helps, but it is not going to stop the interior from warming up. This will require the air conditioner to run more and your utility bill will be through the proverbial roof. In such a situation, it often makes sense to insulate the garage door to lower the temperature.
What about a single story home? It depends on your design. If the garage is isolated to the point it only shares one wall with the interior of the home, you might be better off just insulating that wall and the door leading into and out of the garage into the home. You can then place a vent in the upper wall area of the garage to the outdoors. This will allow heat to escape in the summer when temperatures are high. You’ll want to close the vent in the winter and count on the insulation around the entrance to the home to fight off the chill as much as possible.
Should I insulate my garage door? Insulation always helps, so we recommend it. You can get away without doing it on some single story homes, but all and all it is a smart move in the long run to insulate as much as you can.
