How to Insulate Garage Doors

Adding insulation to your garage doors will help keep cold air out in winter and the heat out during the summer. While insulating your garage door won’t turn your garage into a warm winter haven by itself—it will help make the temperature a little more pleasant. However, the real bonus from insulating a garage door comes in hot areas of the country where the sun beating directly onto a flat garage door can raise the temperature inside the garage 25 or 30 degrees, making it a real sauna inside and raising your home cooling costs. Here’s an inexpensive way you can insulate your garage door to keep the heat outside and help make the inside temperature more livable—and save you some money on your energy bills.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sheet of 1-inch-thick poly insulation
• Sheets of ½-inch-thick, foil-backed poly insulation (two per garage door)
• Industrial adhesive
• Sharp utility knife or fine-toothed saw

1. Measure the height of each of your door panels and cut the 1 inch poly insulation into 2-inch-wide strips about 1 inch shorter than the height of the individual door panels.

2. Use industrial adhesive to glue the strips onto each door panel. Place one strip near each end of a door panel and two strips near the middle of each door panel. These will act as setbacks or block to keep the next layer, the reflective insulation, from coming in contact with the door surface.

3. Cut the ½-inch-thick reflective insulation into panels the same size as the garage door panels. Also cut them to fit end to end.

4. Position the reflective insulation panels onto the back of the door. Depending on the design of your garage door you may be able to just fit them into the sides of the doorframe. Alternatively, you can glue them directly onto the poly strips already in place.

5. Be sure to install the insulation with the reflective side facing towards the door (not facing into the garage). The reflective surface in combination with the air space you’ve created will stop that transfer from the door’s surface into your garage.

Tips & Warnings

• The reflective poly insulation comes in 4-by-8 foot sheets and a standard size garage door is 7 feet wide by 84 inches high, so you need two sheets for each door.
• Poly insulation and reflective, solid poly insulation are readily available at home and building stores.

[dgdubien]

on 12/6/2008 WASATCH - some hardware or home supply stores carry garage door threshold barriers that are normally affixed to the outside frame of the garage door. These are made to be placed at the top and at the side of the frame to seal the door from any drafts.

[jerryb1]

on 12/3/2008 I have a question about the value of adding insulation to a hollow-core wood garage door. While I have no doubt that any additional insulation would be of value, can the treatment you outline (very well, by the way) make an obvious difference to the relative comfort of the garage?

[Wasatch]

on 12/1/2008 Good article. My problem is the sides where air comes around.

[Meri]

on 11/28/2008 I didn't realize you could insulate a non insulated garage door on your own. Thanks for sharing the information. We bought a house that came with a non insulated door. It is a low priority item to replace. In the meantime this will help. Thanks.

[sixstring2slim]

on 11/28/2008 Can't we all just get along? Everybody's articles can be scrutinized to a negative end... Just because the article is written by an eHow.com expert should'nt be a reason to flame the author who is obviously trying to help others. It's just wrong dude, besides making you look like an ****!