How to Insulate a Garage Door
Simple Insulation Project for Under £30
It won’t have escaped your notice that it’s getting colder lately. At 8am this morning as I ventured out into the workshop it was about 5 degrees Celsius (41 F) and quickly found the excuse to head back into the house. I want my garage workshop to be an all-year-round place and a few weeks ago I started work on eliminating draughts and installing insulation to keep the heat in.
Having evaluated my problem areas the first project on the list, and a priority, was the Garage Door. Any amount of heat I put into the workshop either left via the gaps around the edge, or was conducted away by a permanently cold 7ft x 7ft metal surface.
What you’ll need
2 x Pack, 25mm Jabite Polystyrene Insulation. (6 sheets per pack)
4 x Sheets Proplex Surface Protection (choose from Translucent, White or Black)
3 x rolls of Permanent Carpet Tape
20 - 30 steel self-tapping wood screws, plus washers.
As listed the materials will cost you approximately £45, however the cost can be substantially reduced if you purchase large sheets of Jabite insulation rather than the packs, or stick to your DIY store’s own-label polystyrene insulation boards.
Method
The basic approach is to place strips of carpet tape on the back of the insulation and then place on the back of the garage door. You’ll be surprised how quickly you progress at first. The first few sheets for the top of the garage door needed very little shaping to fit and to make the best use of the material I had, off cuts from the end of one sheet were used to start the next row. If a board was trimmed length ways the off cut was saved for later.
As you move down the door you encounter the door handle and the opening mechanism. Initially the long off cuts were trimmed and formed a triangle shape at the bottom of the door. Then larger pieces were cut from fresh sheets to fill the two gaps either side.
A check of the opening mechanism revealed the need to trim further either side of the rods that connected the handle to the latches in each lower corner. A few minutes adjustment had things moving smoothly.
The final step in this build was to attack a skin of Proplex over the polystyrene. This was to provide some protection for the soft insulation and to keep the insulation in-place if any of the carpet tape should loose its grip. Cutting each sheet to size, the sheets were attached with self-tapping screws with washers directly into pre-drilled holes in the metal framework of the back of the garage door. The only complication with this step is shaping the Proplex around the internal handle of the door.
And there you have it. A total time of around 2 hours and a fully insulated garage door. Only a few extra kilos were added to the weight of the door and no adjustment had to be made to the springs or dampeners. But you door might need some adjustment.
The result.
I have to say this step combined with sealing the gaps with silicone mastic has made a huge difference. When working near the door you don’t feel it’s coldness as much and the drafts have been all but eliminated - just small gap at the bottom of the door.
For the money a really cost effective treatment to a cold garage or workshop.