If your family is like many, you use the garage as a place to store things you don’t immediately need, yet don’t necessarily want to part with. We don’t blame you—it’s convenient, especially for stuff used for seasonal yard work!
However, while it’s somewhat sheltered, your garage probably isn’t as temperature controlled as, say, your house. This might not seem like an issue until you consider everything that’s stored in it. You probably have temperature-sensitive chemicals in there, like motor oil, and your car can encounter tire pressure problems and battery issues if it gets too cold or hot. Given that we live in Minnesota, that’s practically a guarantee!
Your garage, even though you don’t live in there, should be a temperature-regulated space that’s safe to house your belongings in. Sound like a tall order? It’s not when you work with Door Power! Below, we’ll detail a few ways that you can keep your garage both cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
Consider Insulated Garage Door Options
You may only think of insulation in terms of keeping hot things warm. High-end coats come with insulation technology, for example. But insulation actually works to keep things cold too! It’s the same reason a thermos is great for a cold beverage on a hot day—and the same reason you should consider insulated garage door options for your household.
A new garage door installation complete with insulation helps keep wintertime temperatures from wreaking havoc on your belongings by stopping the cold air from coming into the space. Even though you probably don’t heat your garage, they can make more than a few degrees of a difference, and when it comes to materials that destabilize when temperatures dip below freezing, this is huge.
The converse is also true: an insulated garage door can shave some of the heat off of a blazing summer’s day, preventing temperature-sensitive equipment and substances from suffering the same fate.
Keep Up With Maintenance
We say it a lot on our garage door repair blog, but really, it can’t be said enough. Maintenance, aside from insulating your garage door, is the best thing you can do to keep your garage’s contents safe.
Garage and garage door maintenance entails quite a few (easily completed) tasks; check out the entry “Routine Garage Door Maintenance: Four Things you Should Be Doing” for more information on the comprehensive process. For temperature and insulation purposes, though, remember to do the following:
Regularly Check Insulating Accessories
Two parts of your garage—aside from the insulation inside of your garage door, of course—are important for maintaining a consistent ambient temperature: weatherstripping and your garage door seal.
What’s Weatherstripping?
Weatherstripping, aptly named, surrounds the smaller entrances and exits to your garage—think the doors for people only, not for vehicles. They’re often thin and fuzzy, but can also be made of foam or other materials that act as insulators.
When properly installed and working at full cylinders, they do a great job of keeping out chilly drafts and the hot summer air. When they’re not, they can majorly contribute to your garage’s unwanted warming or cooling. Replace these regularly, try not to step on them, and check them often for drafts!
Sorting Out Seals
Your garage door seal is similar to conventional weatherstripping; it just sits on the bottom of your garage door and stops uninsulated air from coming in. Instead of lightweight fuzz or foam, it’s often made of heavy-duty rubber, which is able to withstand your garage door opening and closing. The flexible material also conforms to the exact shape of the floor beneath your garage door, providing an air-tight seal.
As you can imagine, your garage door seal won’t last forever. After all, it gets squished into the pavement day in and day out! For best results, keep an eye on it and replace or repair it when it gets torn or otherwise becomes ineffective. Just like your garage door springs and your garage door cables, your seal is an integral part of what makes your garage door work, and it deserves just as much attention as more “critical” features.
Keep Things Opening and Shutting Smoothly
Even if your garage door is insulated, if it takes forever to open and shut, you’re letting an unnecessary amount of hot or cold air in. While of course you can’t just not open your garage door when needed, you can make sure it does its job efficiently and maximises your insulation’s potential.
There are a lot of moving parts—literally and figuratively—that go into keeping a garage door operating smoothly; you can learn more about a few of them in our blog “Three Common Garage Door Problems and Causes.” At the end of the day, taking care of them boils down to
● Proper lubrication
● Taking care of problems promptly to stop them from snowballing
● Trying simple fixes before moving onto more complicated ones
Door Power: The Only Garage Door Pros you Need
Our Norwood team is ready to optimize your garage door with all the latest and greatest features, and we’re always there whenever it needs a lift. Give us a call today at 852-467-3199.