Insulating garage doors

[ahofle]

This has been a really unusually cold winter around here, and I have been thinking about putting some kind of insulation on the cheap thin metal garage door I have to try and keep the garage a little warmer in the winter (and cooler in the summer).  I found this article and decided to try it out this weekend:
http://www.fivecentnickel.com/2005/08/04/insulate-your-garage-door/

Just wondering if any of you have done something similar or if you ran into any issues or have any suggestions?  I will definitely be having the spring tension readjusted after adding the weight to it.

[SavannahLion]

In my first place, my roommate did what you did. We (or rather he, I didn't give a rats ass at the time) encountered two interesting problems. The first problem was he was careless with his coming and goings and he managed to ruin the bottom panel insulation. The second dealt with our animals and their tendency to chew, scratch and essentially turn the bottom panel insulation into a nice layer on the bottom of the garage.

I don't recall how he installed the white foam panels, I wasn't interested in home improvements at the time.

I see the purpose and I intend on doing same to our garage. However, I don't believe the work he did really ended up doing any good. He had a bad habit leaving the garage door open about 8" all the time. That pretty much negated any usefulness the foam might have offered.

[WaRpEd]

The insulation and liquid nails work fine to hold the panel on the door.
My Dad and I installed 1/4 inch thick luan paneling with sheet metal screws to keep the dog out of the insulation. I the garage door opens and closes as before and the paneling adds very little weight. It keeps the garage a lot cooler in the summer on those 90 plus degree day down here.
Good luck with your project.

[AcidArmitage]

i saw a guy put a lawn chair on a foam insulated garage door and use it as a boat

[paigeoliver]

I worked at a garage door company the year after i got out of high school. That foam stuff is exactly what we put in all the doors. You don't even glue it in, it is held in by tension and gravity. If you have a standard sized door made in the last 20 years or so then you should be able to get the stuff where you will only have to cut it to size in one dimension.

[ahofle]

Do you guys recommend any particular foam insulation?  The guy in the article used 3/4" foam sheets doubled up (he had 1.5" of space to insert the foam).  I see other guys saying they used regular insulation plus a sheet of the thin foam to hold it in.  I was just planning on just cruising around the hardware store until I found something that would work.

[SavannahLion]

I guess the white styro-foam-like material is what you would want to look for. IIRC, Home Depot actually sells a package of foam panels specifically sized to fit inside those doors. Personally, I think they charge a bit too much just to have precut foam, but I guess if you calculate the inevitable waste from cutting your own it turns out to be a moot point.

In any case, if you're interested in that, HD usually keeps it either right next to the home insulation or in the isle where they model garage door openers.

[paigeoliver]

Just call a few garage door places and see how much they want for the real stuff. It can't be that high, I only recall there being about a $70 difference in price between an insulated garage door and a non insulated one (about 12 years ago) and that was with us installing the insulation.

[ahofle]

I just thought I'd bump this to follow up with some results.  I can't believe how much cooler the garage is this summer so far.  I also noticed a pretty significant difference in the winter, although it's much harder to keep the cold completely out with opening and shutting it frequently.  I highly recommend this inexpensive improvement for people with metal garage doors.  I ended up using the 8x4 sheets of insulation with foil on both sides (they have it at Home Depot).  Oh and be sure and have the garage door spring tension adjusted afterwards as it does add a little bit of extra weight.

[FrizzleFried]

Measure how thick of a "rail" you have.  Mine was 1" thick so i just installed 3/4" myself.  It DOES add weight,  but not enough to make it an issue.

[SavannahLion]

How much waste did you encounter using the 4'x8' sheets?

[ahofle]

I can't remember the exact amount, but I do know that the waste pieces ended up fitting just about perfectly between the garage's studs so I just fitted them in there hehe (most of the sides of the garage were not insulated either).

[AtomSmasher]

Well this thread has inspired me to insulate my garage door as well.  I just bought three 1 1/2'' sheets of insulation (its tough to tell exactly, but it seems to say its rated around R7) and will be installing it later today.  By my calculations I will be a little bit short and will probably have to go back and buy a quarter sheet, but I figured I'd wait and see how much I need before I do that.  Total cost so far is $65 and that includes a roll of aluminum tape which I will use around the edges.

[AtomSmasher]

Well I've now got one sheet of insulation installed, but its over 100 degrees in the garage, so I decided to take a break.  Overall its been very easy so far.  I score the insulation with a knife, then snap it off and install it, but it does take a bit of time since I'm being very careful to make the cuts accurate.  One sheet cleanly fills 4 sections (16 sections total on the door) and I could use the scraps to fill a 5th section, so if I bought another quarter sheet I would have enough to finish the door.  However, I would like to make each section very clean and not have a line in the middle where I taped the pieces together, and with full sheets only costing $17, I think I'm going to buy another full sheet to finish it off.

Also, paigeoliver was right.  I don't need to glue or tape the insulation into the door since each section curls inward a bit to form a lip which holds the insulation extremely well.  I'll probably end up returning the aluminum tape I bought and get a few dollars back.

Another thing to note, I didn't realize how hot the metal garage door actually got until now.  I could probably fry an egg on it, which means this insulation should help immensely.  Thanks a ton to everyone here who gave me the idea and information to be able to do this.

[ahofle]

Good deal.
Just curious, how did you get the sections in?  I had to score the middle of each section to 'bend' the piece to get it to go in.  Then I used the aluminum tape to keep it in place.  It would have been much cleaner to just have the pieces slide right in, but the stuff I got was not flexible at all. 

[AtomSmasher]

Good deal.
Just curious, how did you get the sections in?  I had to score the middle of each section to 'bend' the piece to get it to go in.  Then I used the aluminum tape to keep it in place.  It would have been much cleaner to just have the pieces slide right in, but the stuff I got was not flexible at all. 

I slide it in at a bit of an angle and slowly work it in.  It's a bit of a pain as it doesn't flex too much, but it does flex enough.  Eventually the pieces pop in and snugly fit into place.  This is the stuff I'm using (only in 1 1/2'' thick) long link

[ahofle]

Ahh OK that stuff looks a bit different from what I used.  It was more of a fiber glass like material with thin metal foil on each side and would not flex at all. 
Let us know how it works out!

[AtomSmasher]

Ahh OK that stuff looks a bit different from what I used.  It was more of a fiber glass like material with thin metal foil on each side and would not flex at all. 
Let us know how it works out!

They didn't have anything like that at my Lowes, but I almost bought a couple rolls of aluminum type insulation and thinner sheets of the stuff I did get in order to double up with the best of both worlds, but it was a fair amount more expensive to get both, so I decided against it.

I finished installing the other two sheets today and will buy and install the last sheet tommorrow.  Since 3/4 of the panels are now installed, I'll hopefully see a significant improvement when I'm working in the garage tommorrow.

[AtomSmasher]

Just thought I'd give an update.  I now have entire door insulated, and overall the install was quite easy.  I think I averaged around 45 minutes to an hour per sheet (with 4 sheets needed for the door), so the actual install time was pretty quick.  I think the heat is currently trapped in the garage, so I'll need to wait for it to cool off first before I can find out if it stays cool, so I can't comment yet on how well it works.  Also, I did a spring test the instruction manual for the door explained how to do, and it didn't add enough weight for me to need to adjust the springs, which made the install even easier then I thought it would be.