Workshop Garage Door Seal

[Bob Winkler]

I'm concerned that I made a mistake in building my workshop with 2 garage doors for easy access and resale. My fear is that when the cold weather comes (it gets cold in New England) that I will get a lot of cold air infiltration through and around the garage doors. Even though they are insulated, I still can see daylight in spots and doubt they can all be sealed.

I am looking for ideas to cover or insulate the doors in the winter. I even thought of maybe building a false wall with a regular door, but that would hurt access for materials. Has anyone come up with a good solution?

Bob

[Brent Smith]

Hi Bob,

A couple of years ago I insulated my garage doors with some stuff I bought at the home center. I don't remember the name, but it was just a bubble wrap with aluminum on it. I made sure to double insulate over all seams and down onto the garage floor. I was surprised on just how good this stuff worked at keeping the cold out, and the heat in.

[David Sparks]

I cut some stryofoam insulation panels down and bent them and popped them into the spaces in my garage door. It seems to help keep the cold out.

[Joel Goodman]

If the bottoms of the doors don't seal there is a rubber strip made for this purpose that is attached to the outside of the garage door and will help seal it. The door itself can be insulated with foam and then paneled on the inside. Garage doors are great for moving stuff in and out!

[Don Bullock]

If the bottoms of the doors don't seal there is a rubber strip made for this purpose that is attached to the outside of the garage door and will help seal it. ...

There are also seals that attach to the floor.


http://www.calcarcover.com/product.aspx?id=1427&cid=

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Bob,

I live in a area with some fairly good winters and mine seals great.

[Bruce Wrenn]

I have insulated roll ups on my shop, which I built 29 years ago. Last winter, I finally added seals to the sides and top. (I added heat and AC.) They came from Lowes, and were made by MD.

[Damon Marxer]

I had the same debate with my shop on what to do with the garage door. I ended up going with a Jeldwyn French door from home depot. They had it on sale for $299 and yesterday I saw it at $259. It is much cheaper and will seal much better than a garage door and you can still easily get equipment and stuff in and out. Plus, if you are concerned about resell you would already have it framed in for a garage door if someone wanted to change it. Here are a couple pictures.

[Joel Goodman]

And the French doors are classy!!

[Bob Winkler]

The doors look nice but I might worry about nosy neighbors and security. I really do like the look and probably should have considered something like that. Too late now.

[David Hostetler]

Bob,

Get to your local home center and get the rubber gaskets that attach to the wall on the top and sides that seal the door when closed. I'm not sure exactly what they are called. but I have seen more than a few of them in use. Mine have gone bad over time, and I will be installing new ones with the insulation upgrades to my garage...

As far as the poster talking about the bubble wrap stuff with aluminum on both sides, it's called Reflectix, and I am using it on my doors. It works okay, but is better radiant barrier than anything else. If I were to do it over again, I would span the panels on the inside with R9 foam block, and then covered the span between the ribs with Reflectix. (I wonder if that makes any sense to anyone not in my head...?)

[alex grams]

David,
I did the reflectix and then put the foam panels on top of it. Oddly though, the highest R value foam board I could find was r5 at the local HD/Lowe's.

I still need to seal the top gap on the garage door. it is quiet a large gap.

[Matt Meiser]

I have a massive overhead door that was here when I moved it. It is a good quality insulated door though. Outside there's weatherstripping and I added the seal Don posted, mostly because when heavy rain runs down a 12x12 door, there's a lot of water trying to get underneath. Works good. Its not terribly drafty overall, though I'm sure a wall would be more efficient.

The upside to a big door is that weather is like we've had around here for the past few days you can open it and the windows and its a very comfortable working environment.

[dan mahler]

I too have a garage door as the only access to my shop and installed the following:

Garage Door Weatherstrip

The complete Garage-Door Weatherstrip kit helps keep out wind, snow, and rain from all 4 sides!

Note: I purchased the same item on *Bay for $25 (new). Didn't install the bottom seal because the existing was working fine.

[David Hostetler]

David,
I did the reflectix and then put the foam panels on top of it. Oddly though, the highest R value foam board I could find was r5 at the local HD/Lowe's.

I still need to seal the top gap on the garage door. it is quiet a large gap.

I thought the pink foam board at HD is marked as R-9... Did I misread that? (It's entirely possible...)