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.

Of course, not all steel doors and not all garage doors are alike. Better quality ones come with special insulation layer already built-in, so if you want to save time and money on long term, you’d better choose one the these, even if you’ll have to pay more upfront. Design options are also multiple. You can have a steel door that matches with your house exterior. A good example of an excellent steel garage door is the Clopay Value Plus Series. These are double-layer doors, made of an exterior steel layer, doubled by an insulation layer made of environmentally safe polystyrene. The bottom weather seal retaining system is made of durable aluminum, very effective and rust-free. The hinges are galvanized, so they are also protected against bad weather conditions.

The door features a neat 3 panel design with the option of including also windows, if you want to. However, you need to be aware that only the variants without windows qualify for energy tax credit.

The total door thickness is of 2″ only, and it’s very quiet in operation. This was possible thanks to the top quality nylon rollers which are silent and durable.

Clopay offers five color choices for this type of doors: white, almond, sandtone, desert tan and brown, on three detailed panel styles: short Traditional, long Traditional and Flush. These being given, multiple combination variants are possible. Depending on your door width, you’ll have to choose the number of panels across the door. Moreover, the decorative windows and inserts are so beautiful that it’s hard to see them and not wish to have them for your door.

As you can see, insulation and style can meet in a simple garage door.