Garage door insulation before/after
Preface to the prefaces:
Yes, I know full well that insulating the garage door with absolutely no means of cooling or removing the hot air will not do anything in the way of making the space cooler.
Preface to the preface:
The following data doesn’t show as much of a difference as felt in person. You used to feel the heat radiating off the garage door, to the point that it was making me sick while installing the insulation. Temperatures felt like they varied greatly depending on what area of the garage you were standing in. After the insulation the garage temps felt much more evenly distributed, and there is no radiating effect felt from the door.
Preface:
After I placed the thermometer the first day I realized I probably should have put it in the middle of the garage, not off to the side that I did. I put it on top of a stack of boxes on the “cold” side of the garage. During the hottest part of the day, that side of the garage is noticeably cooler than the other side. But I was looking more for the overall trend; the exact numbers weren’t so important to me.
Garage basics:
-Brick exterior |
-3x exposed walls – house is a “U” shape, the garage is one leg of the U |
-No windows |
-Insulated walls – how well insulated I do not know |
-Insulated ceiling w/ crawl space access (no stairs/ladder). The flat ceiling to the garage is insulated, with the exception of the access door/hatch. The sloped roof of the crawl space is not insulated.
-Standard 16x7’ metal garage door |
-No threshold strip on the garage floor, but no light showing under the door when fully closed |
-No fan or other device to move air |
-Water heater is in a corner, with just one exposed side |
Test conditions:
-Digital thermometer rated to 125°F used
-Garage light left off except to check thermometer
-Garage light is a fluorescent bulb
-Thermometer left untouched in the same location throughout the test, placed out of direct sunlight when garage door is open
-No engines or other heat-releasing devices used (vehicle not started, no tools used, etc)
-Outside temperatures taken from www.weather.com for the 76052 area code - refreshed just before recorded
Recorded temperatures with notes:
http://www.guapozx.com/users/dogpile...etempsjuly.jpg
http://www.guapozx.com/users/dogpile...reandafter.jpg
http://www.guapozx.com/users/dogpile/garage/after.jpg
Install comments:
Installation took 41 minutes from start to finish. Time was started from when I picked up the boxes from the front door and carried to the garage, and ended when I put the last tool away. It included a short break to test two different wines (wedding preparations) and deal with my fiancé cutting her finger on the bottle wrapper. I would guess install took a total of 25 minutes start to finish. It only required a razor knife, a tape measure, and a straight edge (I used a 4’ level).
I had 113” of insulation left over since I had to buy two single door kits for my double door. This is enough to replace two sections in the future, should any get damaged, so that’s a decent bonus. I might just use it to insulate the crawl space hatch piece though. I was ten optional trim pieces short. I wasn’t expecting ANY, so receiving the seven they gave me was a welcome surprise. The pieces are just over $1 each, and definitely make the finished product look tidier, but they aren’t needed by any means (hence being optional).
http://www.guapozx.com/users/dogpile...ationboxes.JPG
http://www.guapozx.com/users/dogpile...nsulation2.JPG
You can see some of the optional trim pieces running vertically along the metal pieces:
http://www.guapozx.com/users/dogpile...insulation.JPG
Overall impression:
As I said earlier, the data doesn’t seem to tell the entire story. The garage feels much cooler, especially when standing right next to the door. I could literally feel the reduction in radiating heat as I was standing behind the door installing that column’s panels. It does retain heat, which should be awesome in the winter, but also means it stays toasty throughout the night. I would think you’d need to leave the door open for a bit after you pull in a hot car. Or get some kind of exhaust fan. However, the space cools much quicker when I open the door to the house – we have a small laundry room that you need to pass through to get from the garage to the kitchen, and leaving just the garage to laundry room door open will cool the garage a few degrees very quickly, without raising again until the door is closed.
The insulation added some weight to the door, but it is barely noticeable when lifting the door manually – my electric opener is broken right now (stupid car is directly under the unit, so it's a pain to get to it). The door still stays balanced and open at the same points it did prior to the insulation, so I don’t see a problem occurring with that when I fix the opener.
Noise is greatly reduced as well. I can hear less outside noises when I am inside, and the air compressor noise is greatly reduced when standing outside the door. I’m not sure I would have the compressor run while working out there with the door closed, but now I can start the compressor in the middle of the night without having to worry about waking the neighbors.