It's cold out there, anyone use spray insulation

[Gregory Myers]

My passion for woodworking has gotten the full part of me, but I have to admin the weather affects how I feel about jumping out there in my detached garage. I have found that in the middle of summer my sweat has dripped onto my wood die which just makes you kick yourself. Lately I find myself cuddling around the heater between cuts because it's so cold out there.

I'm in Alabama, so we do get the extremes, not like you all up in Maine, but it's enough to make you shiver. I've been thinking about putting up drywall and insulation, but I still have to think about those big garage doors. I don't want to remove them, because we do anticipate moving in the future, so I'm thinking about spraying the garage doors with spray insulation.

Has anyone sprayed a garage door? If so how effective was it?

Greg

[Logan William]

I have an old fiberglass garage door and recently put 2" thick, foil faced iso foam on and it seems to have made a big difference. It took several hours to cut the sheets to size and glue them up and make sure the door would still open, but I'm happy with the results so far. If you do spray the doors make sure you cover/block off the pivot points so that it doesn't become an evening with a knife to chop away insulation so you can open it!

[Ron Natalie]

I've got spray foam in my shop walls, but the big door (hangar) is insulated with rigid foam (2") covered with the same stuff I waterproofed the crawl space was just so it looks nice.

[George Bregar]

I have an insulated detached garage shop in northern WI so we actually do have extremes. Haven't done anything to the garage door and it's fine at least for me. Insulate the walls and ceilings first and see if you really have to worry about the garage doors.

[Art Mulder]

IMHO, nothing you do to an existing uninsulated door is going to look as nice as a new two-layer injected foam door.
And appearance has to count, if resale is your concern.

[Thomas Bank]

I'd say that gluing pieces of the foil faced rigid insulation to the insides of the doors would do you better than the spray foam. As has been mentioned, you don't want to gum up the operation of the door.

Temperature extremes? It's been in the upper thirties / low forties this past week so I've been out to the shop a lot more. Prior to that it had been in the teens and twenties for entirely too long - which was making me think twice about how much time I wanted to spend out there.

[Craig Michael]

Insulate walls and ceilings first, around windows, etc. Make sure you stop all air leaks too. I would not spray anything on an uninsulated door, the foam will look horrible. For the doors, you could replace them with insulated doors or buy some 4x8 sheets of rigid foam fur out around the garage doors as best you can with smaller pieces of rigid foam and make a removeable wall from the rigid panels. Where the tracks for the doors are you can fill that area with an old towel, etc. Will it work like your house insulation? No but it will work well and it's simple and easily removed. Make sure to use the tongue and groove rigid foam, better seal and it will stay together better.

[Gregory Myers]

I'm glad you guys answered the thread! I had no idea what options I had out there...sometimes I just jump in feet first without doing my research.

I think I have it now....I'll work the drywall and insulation on the walls first; not that it is hard but I've been resisting because of the nice storage I've had with all the exposed 2 x 4 s. It's a great way to hang up all the clamps. After that I'll check out if it made a difference, but more than likely will install some insulated doors from Lowes. The couple hundred bucks will be well worth the money.

Sounds easy, but it will be some serious work. Unfortunately, that also takes away from the wood working.

Thanks all!

Greg

[Bill ThompsonNM]

You can also google "garage door insulation kit". And you'll find there are a lot of kits made just to insulate garage doors which still keep the door looking nice. My dad installed one and it looked very professional.

[Marty Paulus]

Be careful with adding anything to roll up doors. You may overstress the counterbalance springs with the additional weight. If you have an electric opener on it you may risk damage to that as well.

[keith jensen]

I just googled and noticed something interesting on one of the results. They used solid foam panels that had dados cut in the back side. This allows the panel to bend. They bow it out towards themselves and then place it into the cavity. The bow obviously goes away and leaves a flat visual surface since the dados are towards the door. You must lose the insulating properties a bit with each dado though I guess. Company name is Atlas EPS. 85 bucks per 8-9' door so double that for a double door.

Maybe you could just use the solid foam and then seal the gaps between the foam (not the hinge points) with the spray foam. Seems like for asthetics, you could rivet a thin composite panel over the foam to make it look nicer too. I think they spray foam would really only be necessary if you had some draft areas. I can't imagine that having a small portion of the door uninsulated would be absurdly bad.

Try calling one of the spray foam companies in the phone book, they may have done this before too.

Let us know what you find....

[Craig Michael]

I'm glad you guys answered the thread! I had no idea what options I had out there...sometimes I just jump in feet first without doing my research.

I think I have it now....I'll work the drywall and insulation on the walls first; not that it is hard but I've been resisting because of the nice storage I've had with all the exposed 2 x 4 s. It's a great way to hang up all the clamps. After that I'll check out if it made a difference, but more than likely will install some insulated doors from Lowes. The couple hundred bucks will be well worth the money.

Sounds easy, but it will be some serious work. Unfortunately, that also takes away from the wood working.

Thanks all!

Greg

Talk to some local door installers and see what they could price them out for. The doors from lowes are not great, nor are the HD ones. The top brand used around here is a canandian door co Garaga, some use wayne dalton too but the Garaga are the best. I'm in the Northeast so Garaga dealers are all over, not sure how available they'll be down south. Check out their website though.

[David Hostetler]

Another vote for foil faced rigid insulation glued to the inside of the garage door panels. I have mine 2 layers thick, which takes up the entire cavity, and I have the foil facing both in and out so I get a radiant barrier effect as well... Mind you, cosmetics is NOT a concern I am taking into account... I will be replacing my garage doors if I go to sell this house. They are aluminum doors, and have taken a beating over the years...

My shop is insulated on the doors, ceiling, and common wall with the house. I have 2 uninsulated walls, and 2 large penetrations for the A/C that cause drafts. This time of year the penetrations (ducts) are stuffed with polyester batting and capped off which helps reduce the impact of the draft there... I do have some penetrations in the drywall on the uninsulated walls where pipes come through, I have filled those voids with spray foam, with some success. Make sure you stop the drafts with garage door gaskets as well... They can be drafty buggers...

[Ole Anderson]

The couple hundred bucks will be well worth the money.

I just priced two Clopay doors at the BORG. My big 8'x18' was $1741 DIY and my small 8'x7' rear door was $655, for the premium three layer R17.2 . I may hold off for a while...

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

+1 on this one -"Be careful with adding anything to roll up doors. You may overstress the counterbalance springs with the additional weight. If you have an electric opener on it you may risk damage to that as well."