Do You Know How Much Your Garage Doors Might Be Costing You?

How can a garage cost its owner good money on an ongoing basis? Simple really, if it is integral to the property and (as is so often the case) devoid of suitable.

Why is that? Easy really; you’re paying good money to maintain a pleasant temperature in your home, by means of operating either air cooling and/or heating. But without adequate insulation throughout then really you’re also shelling out on chilling or warming outdoors, which commonly proves to be a costly proposition.

It’s easy to see that if, for instance, the roof is well insulated but the windows are poor quality then heat will leak straight through the windows instead. The net result being that the roof insulation may as well not be there either. The key message is that insulation is an all or nothing measure; any gaps and the whole thing founders.

Likewise, well insulated and tight fitting windows and doors will be simply bypassed if the loft space or cavity walls have inadequate insulation. Temperature differences will always seek out and exploit the weakest link, usually taking your money with them.

So where does the garage fit into this picture? Simple; an integral garage is what it sounds like – integrated into the overall structure of the property. Imagine for example if you had a living room the size of your garage which was poorly insulated – the effect on any connected rooms alongside or above would be quite noticeable. Well, that’s pretty much what an un-insulated garage can do.

In reality, nobody would consider compromising the insulation of a room within the main home just because, say, it didn’t get used much. The effect would be felt elsewhere in the house, resulting in having to spend more money maintaining a comfortable temperature. Yet that is exactly how a great many folk treat their garage.

Insulating a garage is very much the same as insulating the rest of the house, with one particular and very large difference: the garage doors themselves. Most contemporary garage doors consist of a large steel panel that possesses all the insulating characteristics of, well, steel. It’s a fact that steel is quite simply one of the most effective thermal conductors on the planet and therefore utterly hopeless at keeping heat either in or out.

But all is not lost; thanks to add-on insulation kits and new internally insulated garage doors it is neither difficult nor especially costly to very effectively insulate a garage door. The ready insulated doors are particularly suitable for people who have or want wooden garage doors. These have a much nicer appearance and better intrinsic insulation properties than metal doors, but still not close to modern domestic insulation levels. However, due to their greater thicknes and weight it is near impossible to add on a secondary insulation kit and so pre-injected insulation is the way to go.

For much more information on this subject, check out these additional articles about wooden garage doors and garage door insulation.