If you’re planning to replace the garage door on your current home or you’re building a new house with an attached garage, it’s worth considering installing an insulated garage door. Insulated garage doors are more expensive than uninsulated doors, but the benefits they provide can more than offset the higher cost. We’ll explain the main benefits of installing an insulated garage door and discuss what to look for when choosing one.
1. Improved Energy Efficiency for Your Home
Most attached garages are somewhat well insulated, but having an insulated garage doesn’t mean all that much if it has an uninsulated door. An uninsulated garage door allows lots of air to seep in and out through its panels, which can make the garage blazing hot in summer and freezing cold in winter. Some of this hot and cold air will then end up seeping inside the main part of your home and force your air conditioning or heating systems to work harder to keep your living space at a consistently comfortable temperature.
As long as your garage itself is sufficiently insulated, installing an insulated door will overcome these issues and help make your home more energy efficient. For these reasons, an insulated garage door is a great investment that can pay off by helping you reduce your air conditioning and heating costs.
2. More Consistent Temperature Inside Your Garage
Many people use their garages as much more than a place to park their vehicles. Most garages offer greater storage space than any other part of the home and are used to store holiday decorations, tools, lawn and garden equipment, and more. Many people also use part of their garage as a home gym or workshop. An insulated garage door can come in handy in any of these situations.
In hotter, more humid climates, an insulated door can greatly reduce the risk of mold starting to grow inside your garage and potentially forcing you to throw away any stored items that get contaminated. In places with colder winters, having an uninsulated door could easily allow your garage to get so cold that things inside it start to freeze. You may also end up needing to still warm up your vehicle in the morning or scrape lots of ice off its windows, eliminating some of your reasons for parking inside in the first place. Extreme heat and cold can also negatively impact and potentially damage your car, tools and more sensitive items.
Even if your garage doesn’t have heating and air conditioning, installing an insulated door will help to keep it at a fairly consistent temperature that avoids extremes of heat and cold. In colder climates, we’d also recommend choosing an insulated door that doesn’t have windows. Most garage door windows aren’t well insulated and allow lots of cold air to seep inside.
3. Superior Noise Reduction
Insulated garage doors have a double- or triple-layer construction with a thick piece of polystyrene or polyurethane foam insulation in each of the panels. This foam provides the secondary benefit of blocking out lots of noise and helping to keep your home quieter.
Reducing noise transmission doesn’t really matter for a detached garage, but it can make a big difference if your garage is attached to your home. With an uninsulated door, noise from your neighbors, the sounds of street traffic and other external noise will often travel through your garage so that you can hear it in your home’s interior. This is especially true if you have any rooms located just above the garage or if the wall between the garage and the main part of your house isn’t sufficiently insulated and soundproofed.
4. Improved Strength and Durability
Uninsulated, single-layer garage doors generally aren’t all that strong or durable. While a steel door is stronger than one made of aluminum or wood, there is still a higher risk of it suffering damage from strong winds, vehicles and other impacts. As long as you choose a high-quality one, an insulated double-layer door will always be much stronger, more durable and more robust than any single-layer door.
Opting for an insulated triple-layer door is an even better option. Not only are triple-layer doors generally the strongest, most durable option and, thus, the least likely to experience damage, but they also provide a much higher level of insulation. This type of door will work best to block out heat and cold as well as noise.
An insulated garage door can still incur damage, especially from things like hail or an accidental ding from your vehicle. But it will be less prone to most minor damage and can help to prevent you from having to pay for repairs or file a claim with your homeowner’s insurance. An insulated door will also usually last quite a bit longer than an uninsulated door, which is yet another reason why installing one can be a great investment.
Factors to Consider When Choosing an Insulated Garage Door
Color and style are usually the main concerns most people have when in the market for a new garage door. These factors are obviously important since they have a major impact on your home’s curb appeal. However, they aren’t the only factors to think about when deciding which type of insulated garage door to install.
The material the door is made from is important both in terms of durability and how well the insulated door performs. Steel and vinyl doors are among the most popular options due to their strength, durability and low maintenance requirements. They are also much better insulators than options like aluminum, wood and composite wood. The primary drawback of steel doors is that they are fairly heavy, so they often require a more powerful opener and more robust hardware. This is one reason why many people now opt for vinyl garage doors that weigh quite a bit less.
Another thing to consider, especially if you live in a place with cold winters, is the type of insulation the door has. Polyurethane insulated garage doors generally have at least a slightly higher cost, but they also perform better than doors insulated with polystyrene. Polyurethane is much denser and has a lower thermal conductivity, so it works better at preventing air from seeping through the door and keeping the garage at a more consistent temperature. Its higher density also helps to strengthen the door and make it less prone to damage.
With more than 50 years of professional experience, Door Pro America is the company to trust for your garage door installation and replacement needs. We offer an extensive selection of new garage doors in a range of different colors and styles, and our team can help you find a door that matches your desired look and meets your home’s needs. We can also help if you need a spring replacement or any other garage door repairs or maintenance services in Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado, Oregon or Washington.
To learn more about your options for installing an insulated garage door, contact us at Door Pro America today.
