A few weeks go I finally got around to tackling a project that's been my to-do list since we moved in almost five years ago, insulating the garage door. It was fairly cheap, very simple, and seems to have made a difference temperature wise.
There are a number of different kits available on Amazon and elsewhere. Most of them seem to be more or less the same thing, rolls of reflective insulation that tapes to the door. I ended up going with this particular kit that cost me just under $100 with free Prime shipping.
It arrived on a Sunday morning around 11am and within a half hour I was out in the garage installing it. If it hadn't been for a trip to Lowe's to get extra tape I would have been done in about an hour or so.
Garage door before.
The insulation comes in four equal rolls, one for each horizontal row on the door. The kit says it'll cover up to 7x18 feet. Mine is only 16 feet wide so I ultimately ended up with some material left over. Installation was very simple. Put double sided tape around each door panel then unroll the insulation. Due to some dust and dirt I also wiped the door down ahead of time with a damp rag to ensure adhesion of the tape.
Tape around the panels.
One mistake I made (that resulted in making the trip to Lowe's was using two parallel lines of tape on the vertical sections of the door. I felt like it would provide better adhesion of the insulation but there wasn't quite enough tape provided for this. I picked up a $5 roll of double sided carpet tape that one of the reviews on Amazon mentioned and it worked perfectly for the sections I still needed to tape.
I did one horizontal row at a time. After taping my wife held the insulation and unrolled it as I made sure it was straight on the door. To finish it off Jenny used a utility knife to trim around the hinges and lock.
Finished door.
While I didn't use a thermometer to measure the temperature before and after it feels like it made a difference. A few days after installed it the temperature dropped into the mid teens over night and while it was still cold out there it seemed like it wasn't quite as bad as it had been in the past. It's only going to do so much however. It continues to annoy me that Ryan Homes did not insulate the exterior walls or ceiling of the garage where it sticks out from the house. (Despite me asking about it and even offering to pay extra.) I've since heard that from others that pushed much harder than I did and were able to get it done. I'd advise this if you're still in the build process. But I still consider it to be a worthwhile upgrade.
*Update July 15, 2019* After having this on our garage door for five and a half months and through a decent amount of days where it's been in the 90's I can definitely say this made a difference. Our house faces east and catches sun shining directly on the garage door for most of the day. While it's still warm in the garage it feels noticeably cooler than it has in previous summers.
