Garage Door Insulation

In today’s economy people are looking at ways to save money and cut costs. One of the biggest costs homeowners face during the winter months is heating. It’s a delicate balance between keeping the thermostat high enough to be comfortable but low enough so you can still afford to pay the bills. Properly insulating your home goes a long way in reducing your energy bill and keeping your house warmer, but often the biggest cause of a cold home, the garage, is overlooked.

An improperly insulated garage will become cold in the winter as temperatures drop. The cold garage siphons heat away from the adjacent rooms, causing those rooms to become colder and forcing your heating system to work harder and expend more energy. Don’t worry, you don’t need to rip apart your garage to fix this.

Read on to quickly learn how you can insulate your garage door and reduce your heating costs.

Weather Stripping and Bottom Seal

The first thing you want to do is check the weather stripping and bottom seal around the perimeter of the garage door. From the inside of your garage, run your hand along the perimeter of the garage door and feel for drafts. Is the weather stripping and bottom seal cracked, or aging? Is there even any weather stripping or stop molding in place?

Replacing or adding good weather stripping and bottom seal is one of the biggest improvements you can make to your garage door to keep the cold out. Just like an insulated window, it doesn’t matter how good it is if you leave it open.

You can pick up weather strip and bottom seal at your local hardware store. Or you can call Precision and our certified technicians will winterize your garage door for you.

Insulating Your Garage Door

Having taken care of the weather stripping and bottom seal around the garage door, you can take the next step of adding insulation onto the garage door itself. You can purchase a garage door insulation kit from your local hardware store. They sell for $50 – $150 depending upon the size and type of the door.

We don’t recommend insulating the garage door itself as it adds weight to the door. Garage doors are designed to be lifted with a counter balance spring system. The springs render the door weight neutral which allows the garage door opener to lift the door. If you add extra weight to the door we recommend changing the springs to maintain balance. The change in insulation is minimal for all this extra work though. If you really need to add extra insulation you should consider buying a new insulated garage door.

Buy A New Insulated Garage Door

These suggestions will only go so far, especially if you have an older door. If you want to make the biggest impact on stopping the cold consider buying a new insulated garage door. With the government still offering a 30% Energy Tax Credit on new energy efficient garage doors it’s never been a better time. A new insulated garage door can make a huge difference in your heating bill. To find our what the best insulated garage door is call your local Precision Door.

One Last Tip

Now that your garage door is sealed and insulated, it might be a good idea to look at the door that leads into the house from the garage. Check to make sure that door is also properly sealed and insulated.

In the end, anything you do to reduce the inflow of cold air to your garage will help reduce your heating bill each month. It’s hard to tell just how much money you’ll save, but as time goes on those savings will add up. You’ll appreciate the difference, in both your wallet and being in a warmer, more comfortable house.

8 Tips To Spookify Your Garage This Halloween!

Turn your garage into a spooktacular room of fright this Halloween for friends and trick-or-treaters alike.

Image of Haunted Garage Kit from Shindigz.com

Just how creative you want to get is up to you. We’ve scoured the web for the best tips and ideas on how to convert your “gore-age” into a scream inducing experience!

1. Put away or move dangerous tools, and straighten up the area. Use coverings such as old sheets, ripped netting, burlap, or anything else you have around to conceal larger objects and shelves. The more ragged looking the better!
2. Arrange spooky props like tombstones and coffins, cobwebs, dripping blood, dead flowers, old candelabras, haunted paintings and animatronic bats, skeletons and zombies.
3. Cover a table or bench with Halloween table cloth and decorate it with plastic spiders, cobwebs, and any other plastic creepy crawlers your local party store offers.
4. Place your candy buckets with narrow openings on the table. If you feel like playing a trick, fill one bucket fill with candy and treats. The other place red Jello and cooked spaghetti to simulate innards.
5. Illuminate the scene and any moving or glowing decorations with a strobe light or black light. The odd lighting will also keep your guests off kilter and make them think the decorations are even spookier.
6. Play horror movie soundtracks or eerie sound effects. You can also lighten the mood by playing classic Halloween songs like “Monster Mash.”
7. Put a friend or older child in a cardboard box or large garbage can and conceal it as best you can. Have them jump out of the box as trick-or-treaters are taking their candy.
8. Make the garage even moodier with a fog machine

You can read these tips and more at:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2267391_make-garage-scary-halloween.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Garage-Scary-For-Halloween

If you decide not to turn your garage into a haunted room, you can still have fun decorating the outside. Think of the garage door as an empty palate. What you can do with it is limited by your creativity!

• Use sneakers and an old pair of jeans stuffed with newspaper to mimic a garage door accident.
• Purchase some decals and stickers from your local party store to spruce up the wall.
• String cobwebs, bats, spiders and more around your garage door.
• Put fake blood on and around the door.

For more great tips ask the salespeople at your Halloween store. Happy Halloween!

The Red Flags go up and the wind begins to blow… hard. It’s hurricane season and if your like many people in coastal areas your garage door is vulnerable.

The garage door is often the weakest point in a home because it is the largest space and the material from which it is constructed is not made to sustain high winds.

In Florida, the ways in which garage doors are made began to change in 1992 following Hurricane Andrew. When experts looked at the damage caused by this devastating hurricane; they found that homes with reinforced garage doors suffered far less damage than homes without these doors.

The Florida Alliance for Safe Homes did a study and found “80% of residential hurricane wind damage starts with wind entry through the garage door”

FEMA puts it simply, “If the garage door fails, winds can enter your home and blow out doors, windows, walls and the roof.” Not much left after that.

Because the garage door is integral to the integrity of a home, building codes were changed and the State of Florida now requires more stringent windloaded doors and missile impact resistance.

However, there remain many homes with garage doors that have not been updated to meet the new code. These homes are in jeopardy and often the homeowners do not even realize it. To help raise awareness The weather channel and Amaar have teamed in a campaign called Red Flag Ready to help get the word out.

So, how can you tell if your garage door meets code?

Here at Precision we think the Red-Flag Ready campaign is a great idea and would like to join Amaar and the Weather Channel and go the last mile. So, effective immediately we are offering a free hurricane garage door consultation.

Florida homeowners can fill out the form here

We will tell you for sure whether you are red-flag ready or not at absolutely no cost or obligation to you. Just call (866)443-7672