Each time winter comes and it gets cold outside, most of us start thinking that we are again going to need more money for our monthly bills. This is the point where some of us get creative and try to figure out new solutions for keeping the heat inside and the cold outside. The keyword here is insulation. Insulate your windows, your doors, your patio and your garage and you’ll have a cheaper winter.
If your garage is common with the rest of the house, its insulation is important, because the heat exchange through the connection door is a factor that contributes a lot to your increased energy consumption for heating your home. The main energy hog of an old garage is the door. Garage windows are usually small and many times there are no windows at all, so the thermal exchange takes place through the garage door. If your door is old, then chances are that its insulation is not very efficient.
Your Garage Door Insulation and the R-Value
Latest models of garage doors, since 7-8 years ago, started to include the r-value of the insulation in their technical specifications. R-value is a clue of how well your garage door protects the interior of the garage against cold and how efficient it is in preventing thermal exchanges on its surface and all around it, on the edges. The higher the r-value of a door, the better its insulation. Common garage doors have an r-value between 5 and 7. Such doors come with a polyurethane insulation or with a special insulating foam injected inside their structure. This is how such doors feature a good thermal efficiency without you needing to do anything else to insulate it better.
Older Garage Doors Can Have Good Insulation Too
If your garage door is old, that’s not necessarily a reason to replace it, in case it’s still solid and good. The key to paying less for good thermal protection is to get a so-called “garage door insulation kit“, which is easy to install and relatively cheap. Such kits are usually suitable for any residential garage door, allowing its refurbishing into a well-insulated one. Kits can be for 8 foot one car garages or 16 foot two car garages, they are usually made of polystyrene and they can provide an average r-value of 5. It’s not the best one can get, but it’s surely more than decent for only a fraction of the cost of a new garage door. It makes sense to buy such an insulating kit, because nobody loves to throw money on the window. Insulating windows and doors should be the priority of each responsible homeowner or family head. Ignoring the benefits of insulation could be fine, but in this case you’d surely have to bring in more money to compensate for the bigger energy consumption in your home.