Tips for winterizing your garage door
Winter is quickly approaching. Is your garage door ready? You don’t need to have a heated garage to be concerned about protecting it from the worst aspects of the winter. Without being properly winterized, garage doors allow icy cold air to pour inside unimpeded.
Depending on where you live, snow, ice and freezing rain can easily seep into your garage too. As if these problems aren’t bad enough, an unprotected garage door is a prime entryway for insects and other unwanted pests. By winterizing your garage door now, you can reduce energy costs, protect your garage door and stay more comfortable this winter.
Preparing Your Garage Door for the Winter
Even if your garage door is already insulated and has seals or weather-stripping around its edges, it’s important to check over these things before winter swings into full gear. Insulation degrades over time, and things like garage door seals and weather-stripping lose their ability to keep out cold air and moisture.
Before assessing the condition of your garage door and potentially installing insulation, you should do a little routine maintenance. The importance of lubrication can’t be stressed enough. All metal moving parts should be lubricated regularly throughout the year, but it’s even more important to keep them gliding easily along when cold weather strikes. Without doing so, you’re certain to have problems opening and closing your garage door during this blustery season. Check out one of our exclusive garage door maintenance packages to help get you prepared for the winter.
As far as lubrication goes, try to use a lubricant that’s specifically designed for use on garage doors and their components. WD-40 will work in a pinch, but steer clear of lubricants that contain petroleum and silicone.
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Do-It-Yourself Winterization for All Types of Garage Doors
The type of insulation you use on your garage door will depend on the type of door you have. In the case of a wood frame-and-panel garage door, for instance, rigid insulation is ideal. Foam board is the most popular option, and it’s sold in rigid panels that can then be cut to size. Place them in the recesses between the frames of your garage door. For extra protection, considering installing two layers. Foam board insulation has an R-value of between three and six, so it is worth the money. R-value refers to insulation’s ability to resist heat flow. The higher the R-value, the better a material’s insulating power.
In the case of a flat garage door, or one that doesn’t have any panels, you can also use foam board.
If you have a steel garage door, you can technically use any kind of insulation. However, batt insulation tends to be the most versatile and easiest to use. This type of insulation is typically made out of fiberglass, and it’s sometimes backed with foil or paper. The R-value of batt insulation ranges from three to four per inch. The more you use, the better insulated your garage door will be. Just stuff it into the frames around the panels of the door.
Garage Door Seals and Weather Stripping
It’s all well and good to insulate the garage door itself, but you’ve probably noticed that there are gaps around its edges. This is totally normal, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. Those cracks allow wind, cold air, snow, ice and rain to seep into the garage, where they can wreak havoc. Garage door seals and weather-stripping can be used to close those gaps in order to insulate your garage more effectively.
PVC stop molding is one of the best options for sealing the tops and sides of a garage door. When it’s properly installed, it effectively closes those pesky gaps. PVC is durable, so this option will last a long time. Reverse-angle jamb seals are also popular. Another option is to install garage door seal retainers around all edges of the door. You can then easily swap out new inserts when needed. Popular materials for such seals include vinyl and rubber.
Hire Us to DO the Maintenance for You!
Is winterizing a garage door a do-it-yourself job? It certainly can be. We offer take home insulation kits if you have the know-how (or are adventurous enough) to try it yourself. If you’d rather not mess with it and want to ensure that the work is done properly, have the professionals at Jaydor do it for you.
We are the garage door experts, and we’ll use the best materials and tools to effectively prepare your garage door for winter before the cold weather arrives.
PVC stop molding is one of the best options for sealing the tops and sides of a garage door. When it’s properly installed, it effectively closes those pesky gaps. PVC is durable, so this option will last a long time. Reverse-angle jamb seals are also popular. Another option is to install garage door seal retainers around all edges of the door. You can then easily swap out new inserts when needed. Popular materials for such seals include vinyl and rubber.
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Call 610-539-4070 or email us today to learn about our home installation kits.
Winter Emergency Services
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