Brooks Garage Door Services | Feb 25, 2021

How to Choose the Right Insulation for your Garage Door

Your garage is arguably one of the most critical entry points to your home and is used almost daily. Besides, the entry door to your garage from the house might be unintentionally opened by kids due to curiosity, or by pets. Garage door insulation is the process of reducing the heat flow that goes in and out of your garage, which can control your energy loss and regulate your cooling and heating fees. Depending on the climatic conditions of where you live, the amount of insulation your garage needs is different.

How do we compute insulation? The insulation property of every material is calculated with the use of the R-value or U-value. When we talk about R-Value, it is a rating system that calculates the resistance of your material to the flow of heat. U-values, on the other hand, shows the energy efficiency of your material. Higher R-values and lower U-values mean better insulation. Since garage doors are made with a variety of materials, they come with varying R and U values.

3 Kinds of Garage Door Insulation

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1. Single-Layer Garage Door Insulation

Single-layer garage doors are simple doors made up of only one layer of steel or vinyl material. For areas with moderate temperature or low noise, this is a great choice for you. If your garage happens to be separated from the main home or you’re using it for parking the cars or even storage, then you can choose single-layer doors for maximum comfort.

2. Double-Layer Garage Door Insulation

Single-layer garage doors are simple doors made up of only one layer of steel or vinyl material. For areas with moderate temperature or low noise, this is a great choice for you. If your garage happens to be separated from the main home or you’re using it for parking the cars or even storage, then you can choose single-layer doors for maximum comfort.

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3. Triple-Layer Garage Door Insulation

Triple-layer garage doors are usually made up of both inner and outer steel or vinyl layers, including a layer of insulation material in the middle. With three layers of insulation, the door makes the garage soundproof. These types of doors are usually ideal if you are the type of person who uses their garage as a studio, office, or if the garage is below the bed or guest rooms. They’re also highly recommended in areas with extreme temperature changes especially during the winter and summer seasons.

At first glance, we know that this information might be overwhelming, so we asked the experts at Brooks Garage Doors to inform us in layman’s terms why insulation for the garage doors is important, and how to choose the right kind of insulation for your needs.

Having installed hundreds of stylish, well-insulated, and efficient garage doors to the community of Nashville, TN for a decade and counting, the team at Brooks came up with some useful advice to help you choose the right insulation for your property.

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Are you looking for a reliable garage door installation and replacement contractor in Nashville, TN? Well, you don’t need to look any further and call us here at Brooks Garage Doors now! We assure you 100% customer satisfaction, free estimates for new installations, and a full coverage warranty.

DO INSULATED GARAGE DOORS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

1. Garage Door Insulation Saves Energy

When you look for energy-saving tips on the internet, you mostly get tips that focus on the inside of your home, and it makes perfect sense! From insulation, to energy-efficient windows, to better heating systems, these are proven to help you reduce your energy usage. With the amount of tips focusing on the inside of your home, though, we often overlook what’s on the outside – your garage. Garages generally aren’t considered to be part of the house, but they often have air-conditioned rooms above them. Many of them have a door that connects to the house, as well.

Since garages generally aren’t considered as living space, the construction standards for them are different, meaning, more gaps and air leakages are allowed. Due to this, garages become one of the least energy-efficient parts of your home, and they might be the primary reason why your heating and cooling bills become higher in the first place, even though all the energy saving tips for the interior of your home are taken into account.

This means that uninsulated garages transfer cold air to the rooms that are next to them. They also allow cold air into your home through the gaps in the door. Adding insulation to your door can help you save energy. By regulating the temperature in the garage, you’re reducing the amount of energy that is required to heat the rest of your home.

 

Garages also have a big difference compared to the rest of your home when it comes to heat loss.

This is because they tend to act as buffer zones between the heated indoors and the outdoor weather. The space in between is warmer than the outdoors, which means that you won’t be bringing gusts of cold air directly into your home. Since your heater won’t need to work as hard with an insulated garage door, you’ll save energy.

2. Insulated Garage Doors Are Lasting

Insulated garage doors for commercial and residential purposes tend to be constructed differently from single-layer garage doors, which make them stronger. This added durability makes perfect sense, too, as your door needs to stand up to cars, kids, equipment, and the weather.

A majority of today’s insulated doors are usually composed of steel or aluminum frames, which are filled with solid-core insulation. This insulation is then sandwiched between single or dual steel panels. This mechanism of construction creates a lightweight, energy-efficient door that is less likely to have dents, unlike older, uninsulated garage doors.

In comparison, older garage doors are made with less sturdy, outdated materials such as thin steel sheets wrapped with panel frames. Since this kind of mechanism has no insulation whatsoever, these panels could be easily dented by cars, items that are being stored in the garage, and even basketballs or children’s bikes.

These dents from daily activities mean more maintenance on the side of the homeowner. Not only that, but these kinds of garage doors with no insulation also lessen the curb appeal or value of your home. Insulated garage doors, which contain multiple layers of insulation, steel, and aluminum inside the system, make your garage door less prone to damage.

The added durability with having an insulated garage door helps its lifespan in many ways, too. Due to their size, garage doors are often damaged by bad weather conditions, which could be dents or scratches from wind-borne projectiles. This is the most common type of weather-related damage when we’re talking about garage doors. Insulated garage doors stand up better to these types of projectiles as well.

3. Insulated Garage Doors Extends the Life of Your Car

Insulated garage doors can also help a lot in protecting your car. A car stored in a garage that harbors an insulated door is less likely to be in freezing conditions. Since cold weather has the ability to affect your car in a number of ways, having an insulated garage door can do wonders for the lifespan of your car.

Freezing weather can affect your precious car in a variety of ways, including:

  • Shorter battery life or dead batteries
  • Thickened transmission, engine, and brake fluids
  • Low air pressure in tires
  • Unreliable spark plugs and wiring

The lower the temperature, the less likely your car is to run properly.

Do you remember that experiment about whether an insulated door on an insulated garage had any significant effect? The insulated door raised the temperature from 30 to 42 degrees. As most batteries work in their best conditions between 30 to 90 degrees, just replacing your door with an insulated one can already show a significant difference.

Temperature changes can also extend the life of other items aside from your car. Take the cans of paint you have stored in the corner of your garage, for example. Even the most subtle changes in temperature can change its consistency and efficiency. If you don’t put items like these in a temperature-controlled space, it becomes unusable more quickly. The same thing goes for many fertilizers, cleaning supplies, and motor oil.

How do you choose the right kind of garage door insulation?

The choice of insulation that you should employ in your garage depends on a lot of factors says the team here at Brooks Garage Doors. For example, in icy, colder regions with rough weather and more extreme weather changes, vinyl doors are more optimal. Wood is a natural insulator, but humidity can cause them to rot. If you were to cuse your garage as a workshop or a spare bedroom, then they need more insulation. If you are looking for moderate insulation, you may use polystyrene.

Polyurethane becomes an excellent choice for temperate climates, as they offer higher levels of noise cancellation and weatherproofing. The foams provided by polyurethane insulation materials also prevent denting. Thus, climatic conditions, budget, and the garage’s utility are very important factors that need to be considered for choosing the right kind of garage insulation so you can get the best value of your money.

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GARAGE DOOR DESIGNS

Wood Garage Door

Completes numerous architectural patterns, from conventional to current and adds classic charm and sensational appeal to the home. This new assortment of traditional wood garage doors offers  residential property owners a lovely wood carport entryway at a moderate cost. 

Traditional Steel Garage Door

Our traditional steel garage door are available with classic raised panels or modern long panels, these doors are surprisingly affordable.  Its low-maintenance finish manages to look amazing thanks to the double coats of baked-on polyester paint.

Amarr Stratford ST1000

Amarr Stratford takes quality to another level as its residential traditional steel doors feature UV inhibitors that block the door from becoming dull. This type of garage door is suitable for windy residential areas, as it is fitted with a wind load reinforcement system.

Carriage House Garage Door

Makes an astonishing mix of a lovely wood carriage-house door with the strength of steel.  This set of architecture-inspired garage doors feature first-rate design, thermal performance and stability. You can customize the look of these doors by selecting from a variety of paint.

DurafirmTM Collection Vinyl Clad

Features jagged, thick vinyl skin that frees any homeowner   from the anxiety brought by wood door maintenance and steel door rust.  Boasting an energy efficiency with an R-value of 11.75, these doors offer reliable strength and amazing sound absorption.

Modern Aluminum Garage Door

Modern aluminum garage doors are serving a smooth and refined look for today’s latest-styled homes. Featuring sleek design and neat lines shaped from stable corrosion-resistant aluminum and light-filtering glass make an impressive balance to your home.

Impression Collection®

These brilliantly designed entryways catch the magnificence and nitty gritty of common wood without the upkeep. They include a slyly shaped wood-grain fiberglass surface while covering strong steel development, and give quality, magnificence and incentive to your home.

Thermacore®

Thermacore® highlights our sandwich construction of steel-polyurethane-steel and between-section seals with thermal breaks to keep the thermal to keep the thermal effectiveness that will keep your precious home looking incredible and comfortable in both cold and hot environments.

Clopay Classic Door Collection

Clopay Classic Door Collection are specially designed steel doors for homes.  It comes with a flush, short or long panel.

Wayne Dalton Classic

The Wayne Dalton Classic door collection puts the spotlight on durability and powerful performance. These varying low- maintenance steel garage doors are designed with raised or recessed panels.

GARAGE DOOR OPENERS

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Product & Services

Leading Brands in the Market

To ensure superior quality and excellent performance of our products and services in Nashville and nearby areas in Tennessee, we continue our incredible partnership with the leading brands in the market for several years.  Here at Brooks Garage Doors, you are guaranteed advanced solutions thanks to the latest technology that constantly wows us and our clients with maximum security and sleek statements about their unique needs.

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Keep in Touch with Us

Location

1108 McKennie Ave
STE 500 Nashville, TN 37206

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