Winterproofing is a cost-effective way to help keep the heat in our homes. It is installed around doors and windows, but is often overlooked in the garage, and this can have a major impact on heat loss in the home, especially during the winter months.
Garage doors should be weatherstripped, especially if the garage is under bedrooms or the main living space. Cold winds blowing in and around garage doors can cause discomfort, especially on the floors, by cooling the hot air furnace ducts running within the floor joists. (Of course, this won’t happen in a heated garage.)
Use garage-door weatherstripping around the perimeter of the door on the wood frame and convex rubber door stripping on the bottom of the door.
After weatherstripping the door, vent the garage, as moisture will need to get out by means of proper ventilation. A simple way is to install eight-by-eight wall vents at the top of a wall, six inches from the plate, and at the bottom of the wall, six inches from the plate. This allows moisture to evaporate and exit through the passive wall vents.
When vehicles are parked in a garage during the winter months with snow and ice melting off, there must be ventilation to allow moisture to evaporate and escape without condensing on the door or windows. When moisture evaporates, it increases the relative humidity within the space. Relative humidity will always take the least line of resistance thereby taking the easy way out through the vents, leaving no puddles, drippy doors or windows.
Wood or single-skinned steel doors can be insulated using as a foil-type insulation such as Reflectix, keeping your garage cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Properly weatherproofing your garage door will help save you money on your utility bills with the added benefit of having a more comfortable home.
Your garage door needs to be maintained, as springs, hinges and bolts can come loose, making it drafty, noisy, and even susceptible to warping. Older steel wheels are very noisy, and must be maintained with grease or oil. These outdated rollers can easily be replaced with nylon rollers which are much quieter than the metal rollers, require no oil, no maintenance, and last twice as long as metal rollers.