Garage Door Insulation Panels?

[Christopher Charles]

Hello all,

I moved into a new (1950s) house about a month ago and am starting to get things under control. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself

The new shop is a 2 car garage with two new standard Overhead Door steelhead garage doors. The good news is the seal on the door is quite good when closed. The bad news is they are not the insulated version, my doors face west, and I'm expecting to be cooking in a month or so. I've looked a bit into the various pre-fab panels, NASA style space blanket, and DYI foam approaches.

I'm wondering if anyone has direct experience insulating a steel garage door and/or tips?

Thanks,
Chris

[Charlie Hinton]

It just so happens I put some insulation on my garage door yesterday and today.
It was not especially difficult.
I bought 4x8 panels and cut them on the tablesaw.
I cleaned the door and used foam panel adhesive and some screws, got everything from Home Depot.
if a kit had been available in the store I would have probably done that.
Hopefully it will make a difference.
I still need to blow insulation into the attic too.


image.jpgimage.jpg

[Christopher Charles]

Hi Charlie,

That looks great! Looks better than most kits i've seen b/c your panel completely cover the vertical supports. Do you mind if I ask who makes the panels and what they're called? And about how much they cost?

Best,
Chris

[Bob Bouis]

It depends on how your garage door is constructed obviously, but I found the best way to do mine was to put a layer of fiberglass batt directly against the door and to fit in a piece of foam board over it. The door had a channel that the foam board could be fitted into so that it was held in place by the fiberglass. For the fiberglass I just used regular bats and split them into about inch and a half thick slices. The foam board was 1/2 inch polyiso from Home Depot.

[Charlie Hinton]

I used this.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/R-Tech-1...0821/202532854
My door is all metal and is 30 years old.
It does not have channels that form rectangles in the door panels.

[Mike Ontko]

Just a thought - you could also add a thin sheet of plywood (MDO) or other material on top of the outside surface of the door panels to provide some amount of shade. If you were to mount that material using a short spacer of some kind; rubber grommets, washers, wood blocks, or whatever, it would allow air behind the shield that would take away most of the heat. You'll need to consider the clearance at the top of the door jam for when your raising and lowering the door. The crude diagram below illustrates the idea.

heatShield.jpg

[Mark Blatter]

I did it about five years ago with my door. It also faces west and on hot summer days the garage would heat up to around 100 degrees inside. I used standard R-11 batts covered with 1" white foarm. If I was to do it over again, I would try and find some polystyrene that was abouit 3" thick as it would fit better. I found some of the polystyrene last summer on a job site that was packing material and used it to replace some of my original insulation and it worked really well. I do not know what the R difference is though.

What I will say is spend the extra money to make it as air tight as you can so it stays cleaner and it will also work better.

Good luck.

[Bob Bouis]

I would emphasize that you shouldn't compress fiberglass batts because it reduces their r-value. You might get less than you would with a thinner one that fits better.

[Frank Pratt]

I would emphasize that you shouldn't compress fiberglass batts because it reduces their r-value. You might get less than you would with a thinner one that fits better.

Probably not true. As you compress a fiberglass batt, its total insulation value decreases, but the R value per inch increases. Only to a point though, as extreme compression will bring it back down. If you only have an inch or 2 space for the batt, you'll get better insulation by using a slightly thicker batt & compressing it moderately than you would by using one that is just the thickness of the space.

[Bob Bouis]

I stand corrected. Apparently compressing an oversized batt usually gets you marginally better insulation than using one that's the right thickness.

There are still good reasons not to compress it, though--waste of material, extra weight on the door, etc.

[Brice Rogers]

About 10 years ago I added styrofoam panels to my aluminum overhead shop doors. My shop is 24 x 36. Our climate is generally warm (San Diego inland). In the summer the air temps will hit close to 108 for a week or so at a time and in the winter, the daytime lows might be in the 40's occasionally and night-time lows in the mid 30's occasionally.

I have two OH doors (one is a double-wide and the other is a single-wide) and both face West. The single-wide door has a single vertical metal stiffener in the middle. The double-wide has 3 stiffeners. The stiffners are exposed and reduce the benefit of the insulation a bit. I bought either 3/4 or 1" 4x8' sheets and cut them with a drywall knife. The door panels had a horizontal lip , so I could stuff the panels inside of the lip and not need any adhesive. I had to slightly squash the styrofoam on the edges to get it to slip under the lip. The shop walls have 3-1/2" fiberglass batts and the ceiling has 6" FG batts. So the OH doors were the biggest factor for heat gain/loss in the workshop.

Adding the Styrofoam makes a big difference both in the winter and summer. I'm glad that I did that.

BTW, I really like the looks of the foil backed panels from Charlie Hinton. I'm wondering if both sides were foil lined or not. If not, I'm wondering if they might have been more effective with the foil towards the summer heat-source.

[Carlos Alvarez]

My previous house faced Southwest and had styrofoam/foil panels on the doors. They made a huge difference in heat. I haven't done it at my current house because both garages face North/East and are shaded.

[Bob Bouis]

BTW, I really like the looks of the foil backed panels from Charlie Hinton. I'm wondering if both sides were foil lined or not. If not, I'm wondering if they might have been more effective with the foil towards the summer heat-source.

Probably not. It can't reflect radiant heat back out unless there's radiant heat, which you won't get without an air gap between it and the door.

[Kelby Van Patten]

I've been battling heat in my shop since I moved into my current home eight years ago. I live in SoCal, and my garage door faces west. The afternoon sun has always heated up the shop to levels that make me spend less time in the shop.

I added a mini-split HVAC, and that helped enormously. But in the summer, when the outdoor temps can get over 90 degrees (sometimes over 100), and the afternoon sun is beating on the garage door, my mini-split had no hope of keeping up, and shop temps would climb.

I insulated the walls and ceiling, and that definitely helped. But my mini-split was still no match for the summer afternoon heat.

So, I got a thermal imaging camera. I learned a few important things that have helped get the heat under control.

First, the uninsulated steel garage doors were acting as a giant radiator. I knew that, but I didn't realize just how much that contributed to the problem. On those 90 degree days with the sun beating on the door, the temp of the outside of the garage doors would get over 120 degrees. The inside of the doors would get over 110. Since my shop is a 3-car garage, that's a lot of heat! No wonder the inside of the shop kept getting so warm.

I bought those garage door insulation kits from a big box store (I think HD). That made a significant difference, but the doors were still a big radiator. Instead of the inside of the door registering 110 degrees, it would get up to the high 90s. That's a 10-15 degree drop, but my mini-split still struggled to take all that heat out of the shop.

A few months ago, I upgraded my garage doors to some of those R-18 super-insulated garage doors (with no windows). That has made an enormous difference. We haven't yet had any 90+ degree weather this year, but so far, the inside of my garage doors has stayed pretty close to the ambient temp in my shop. So, whatever heat the sun is putting onto the garage door's exterior is mostly not making its way into the shop.

People get fixated on seals. In some circumstances, bad seals can be the culprit. But keep in mind that the job of the seals is to keep the heat/cold in the AMBIENT air outside from getting inside. When you have a West-facing garage door and the sun is beating on your garage door in the afternoon, the ambient outside temperate is really not the problem. The problem is that the sun is super-heating the exterior surface of your garage door to a temperature that can be 20-30 degrees hotter than the outside air. That's a much bigger problem than bad seals. I'm not saying that seals don't matter; I am saying that getting as much insulation as possible on the surface of your garage door is much more critical than seals for controlling heat if you have a West-facing door and you want to keep your shop cool. At least, that has been my experience.

The thermal imaging camera also gave me some additional insights. I had extensive fluorescent lighting throughout the shop, and the camera showed just how much heat those were putting out. So, I changed to LED lighting. Enormous improvement.

[Charlie Hinton]

My panels have a plastic film on each side.
One side is the solid silver and the other side has lots of blue logo printing on a white background.
I oriented the solid silver side inside the garage because it looks better to me.
The garage door kits I have seen are all white.
I figured doing something to the garage door is better than doing nothing even if the silver is on the 'wrong' side.

I retired at the end of 2017, my plan to keep myself from running the streets is to do lots of woodworking.
It gets hot in Dallas, so to be in the garage on a daily basis I am trying to do a few small DIY things to make it more comfortable.
I have also decided not to jump in and spend thousands of dollars right off the bat to make it "perfect".
For now I bought a portable AC / heater, and am adding insulation to the garage door and the attic.
Relatively inexpensive DIY additions that will be needed no matter what.
I also have all the stuff I need to add a subpanel to the garage and will get that done relatively quickly too.

My plan is to be conservative this first year and see how things shake out as I settle into a life of leisure.
So far it's pretty great.
Being six months in I am still very excited about going to the shop and doing things on a daily basis but I still need to give it some time to see if the flame flickers or if it burns brighter.
Around this time next year, depending on whether or not I am still gung-ho on full time woodworking, and depending on how well satisfied I am with the portable AC, I will do some more upgrades to the shop AC/heating.
If woodworking continues to be my go to activity I will replace my tablesaw with a SawStop PCS and I will replace the bandsaw or add another one.

Sorry for the ramble.