Garage door insulation

[Ed in Tampa]

You do know you will change the weight of the door. This may require you to tighten the lift springs. In my case I added a reinforcing bar so I had to replace my springs. Have an opener but I can lift the door with one hand with the lifter disconnected.

[Sazerac81]

You do know you will change the weight of the door. This may require you to tighten the lift springs. In my case I added a reinforcing bar so I had to replace my springs. Have an opener but I can lift the door with one hand with the lifter disconnected.

Ed, are you talking to me? The foam insulation weight on the garage door is negligible on the one door setup. You had to change spring tension for the foam insulation? I would not have guessed that the foam even on a two car garage door would require re-tensioning.

Do you feel like if there was no need for the reinforcing bar, there would not have been a need for spring adjustment/replacement?

Cheers,
John

[garys]

We are planning on replacing the whole door with an insulated one, perhaps this year. The bad news is it looks like we will have to spend about $1500 for it, installed.

Ed

You should consider installing the new door yourself. When I built my garage, I installed my own doors. My neighbor bought a new door from a door company and had it professionally installed. His installer messed up and didn't put a strut on the door for the opener. In the ensuing years, the opener pulled loose and bent the door in the center because of lack of strut. He paid a lot more than I did for his door and it is messed up.
I installed two doors on my garage and both of them still work perfectly today.
Like everything else, if you want something done right, do it yourself.
If you can read, the instructions are very clear on how to do it right.

Good insulated single wide doors are readily available in the $300-500 range, and good doubles in the $800-1000 range. You can save money doing it yourself and be sure it is installed right.

[reible]

Maybe 10 or 15 years ago I would have done it myself but its an age thing. With my bad back I tend to have to limit my adventures to things I know I can handle without misadventure.

We have a 16' wide and while the new door will likely be lighter the old one is a 40 year old brute. So taking it apart would be a bit much and then I'd have to pay to have it taken away.

Ends up with the cost being with in a few hundred with me having to do none of the heavy lifting except cleaning out the front 10 feet of the garage which is a daunting task in and of itself. Where everything is going to go for the day is still a major factor in getting the job done.

Ed

We are planning on replacing the whole door with an insulated one, perhaps this year. The bad news is it looks like we will have to spend about $1500 for it, installed.

Ed

You should consider installing the new door yourself. When I built my garage, I installed my own doors. My neighbor bought a new door from a door company and had it professionally installed. His installer messed up and didn't put a strut on the door for the opener. In the ensuing years, the opener pulled loose and bent the door in the center because of lack of strut. He paid a lot more than I did for his door and it is messed up.
I installed two doors on my garage and both of them still work perfectly today.
Like everything else, if you want something done right, do it yourself.
If you can read, the instructions are very clear on how to do it right.

Good insulated single wide doors are readily available in the $300-500 range, and good doubles in the $800-1000 range. You can save money doing it yourself and be sure it is installed right.

[stephen_a._draper]

Back when I did this the only option I knew about was the vinyl back fiber glass. The advantage was it just stapled over your existing garage door and provide insulation and some what of an infiltration barrier.

Short term is was nice, pretty easy to put up and help a lot with the winter cold we get in IL.

The bad part is that it got torn and rips started happening along the tack strip and now has large sections which I had to remove. A lot of the air infiltration has long since been gone.

Bottom line it worked really well for a few years, moderately well for a few more and now it needs replacing which I really don't relish doing because of the fiberglass exposure.

We are planning on replacing the whole door with an insulated one, perhaps this year. The bad news is it looks like we will have to spend about $1500 for it, installed.

Ed

We replaced our garage door two years ago with an insulated one. The shell is steel with foam insulation inside. We are quite pleased. It cost us $1046 installed from Overhead Door. The cost included removing our old heavy solid wood door. Ours is 6 ft 8 in by 16 feet. I am 65 now and did not want to mess with this kind of project expecially the removal of the old torsion springs. Homeowners who do not know what they are doing have been killed removing those. It was also time for replacement of our garage door opener so we went with the Liftmaster Jackshaft opener with battery backup. I love this one because it does not have that long track hanging from your ceiling. It is easy to install right on the shaft of the torsion springs.

[Sazerac81]

Pay some one to do it Ed. Save your back. The few extra hundred dollars will be worth it to not throw out your back or exacerbate your back pain issues.

John

[stephen_a._draper]

Not to mention the pain in your joints and the inevitable nicks, scrapes, and knuckle jamming that tends to happen along with the longer heal time of age.

[masonsailor2]

Thanks for all the good input. I am going with the foam insulation with reflective backing. Thanks all
Paul

[Ed in Tampa]

You do know you will change the weight of the door. This may require you to tighten the lift springs. In my case I added a reinforcing bar so I had to replace my springs. Have an opener but I can lift the door with one hand with the lifter disconnected.

Ed, are you talking to me? The foam insulation weight on the garage door is negligible on the one door setup. You had to change spring tension for the foam insulation? I would not have guessed that the foam even on a two car garage door would require re-tensioning.

Do you feel like if there was no need for the reinforcing bar, there would not have been a need for spring adjustment/replacement?

Cheers,
John

I adjust my door until it almost balanced, so if power goes out my wife can easily open the door. Any addition weight changes this balance. My garage door opener loafs. When it open and closes the door. Of course it is 40 years old and shows no sign of age.

When I added an additional reinforcing bar it added probably in the neighborhood of 40 lbs. door company suggested heavier springs and I agreed.
Door is back in balance. And door is now 131 mph wind rated.