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Best insulated garage door?

2

26Red

Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2006
Messages
9
Location
near Minneapolis MN
I've been looking for a good insulated garage door for my attached garage. I currently have the cheapo vinyl door (sectional 16 x7) with the polystyrene inserts. It's pointless to run my reznor garage heater with the existing doors in temps below 20 deg.

I was ready to buy a new clopay door, stated insulation rating of R17 or so, but I came across this article.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/energy-efficient-garage-doors

Doesn anybody have some insight to the brand of door I should be looking for? What weather seals are available for colder climates?
 
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N

NES

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Messages
488
Location
Illinois
My parents have Raynor garage doors. There awesome not only for insulation but also in quality. They have quite a bit of styles to choose from. They also have a website for the garage doors.
 
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D

deter

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Messages
578
Location
Indiana
good seals to use are nylon bristle weatherstrip. looks like a brush. most commercial doors use these. they block wind very well
 
U

upndown

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 5, 2010
Messages
3,107
Location
Desert Hills/Peeples Valley AZ.
Unfortunately I can't speak to extreme cold, having left the Midwest in 1979. Insulated doors were pretty much non existent in those days.

I can say in those days working in AZ, I used to hate seeing a metal door in the middle of summer facing west, almost untouchable! Insulated doors made a world of difference in that regard, but didn't mean squat in an uninsulated garage. Still hotter than Hell.

Check your walls and ceiling first, especially the wall between the house and the garage, make sure the insulation is up to par. Then get the thickest door you can buy, make sure the stop moulding is installed correctly.. that's the best you can do. A couple points of "STADED" R-value doesn't mean ****! You can add all kinds of **** and gimmicks to your opening, but the bottom line is your Door still has to go UPnDOWN..Good luck :beer:
 
A

aardquark

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
72
26Red said:
I was ready to buy a new clopay door, stated insulation rating of R17 or so, but I came across this article.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/energy-efficient-garage-doors
Click to expand...

The fellow in the referenced article makes an extremely important point that cannot be overemphasized:

Air leakage is a much more important issue than the R-value of the door.
Click to expand...

An an example, when I did a detailed energy analysis of my 24x30x9 garage, the total heat loss via conduction through the various walls, windows, doors, etc was approximately 21200 BTU/hr. Compare that to the (estimated) heat loss through infiltration around a pair of typical garage doors of 13200 BTU/hr. You can see that nearly one third of all head loss is around the (edges of) the garage doors. Of course that is based upon an estimate. It is very difficult to get an accurate number, because each installation is going to vary, and it is almost impossible to measure (without an impractically expensive laboratory setup). Nevertheless, most folks who has examined the edges of their doors on a cold winter day will attest to the cold drafts coming around the edges of the door. Only after you minimize that loss of heat, does it become important to consider the R-value of the door assembly itself, because the marginal reduction in heat loss you hope to gain there is small compared to (typical) losses due to infiltration.

For my two 8x9 doors I used a nominal value of R-8, and a design delta-T of 60 deg F, to produce a loss of 1080 BTU/hr. You can see that even if I double the R-value, I stand to save only about 500 BTU/hr, compared to the huge loss via infiltration.
 
J

JakeKohl

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 23, 2012
Messages
1,365
Location
Greenville, SC
aardquark said:
The fellow in the referenced article makes an extremely important point that cannot be overemphasized:



An an example, when I did a detailed energy analysis of my 24x30x9 garage, the total heat loss via conduction through the various walls, windows, doors, etc was approximately 21200 BTU/hr. Compare that to the (estimated) heat loss through infiltration around a pair of typical garage doors of 13200 BTU/hr. You can see that nearly one third of all head loss is around the (edges of) the garage doors. Of course that is based upon an estimate. It is very difficult to get an accurate number, because each installation is going to vary, and it is almost impossible to measure (without an impractically expensive laboratory setup). Nevertheless, most folks who has examined the edges of their doors on a cold winter day will attest to the cold drafts coming around the edges of the door. Only after you minimize that loss of heat, does it become important to consider the R-value of the door assembly itself, because the marginal reduction in heat loss you hope to gain there is small compared to (typical) losses due to infiltration.

For my two 8x9 doors I used a nominal value of R-8, and a design delta-T of 60 deg F, to produce a loss of 1080 BTU/hr. You can see that even if I double the R-value, I stand to save only about 500 BTU/hr, compared to the huge loss via infiltration.
Click to expand...


I'm a numbers guy so I appreciate what the numbers say...and I agree that controlling air infiltration is important at the edges. I still stand completely behind having insulated doors - it does make a really large difference in a heated/cooled space.
 
G

gpalmer77

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
515
Location
Mokena IL
I just got CHI doors with an R-17 rating, steel on both sides. They are about 2" thick. I think any thicker would be an issue, and any more R value would be a waste of time given that the minute you open it you have a gaping hole.
 
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