Insulating a garage door

evoke

I have a typical up and over steel garage door. Is there an easy way of insulating it? I'm just looking to reduce the amount of heat escaping through it. My boiler is in the garage so anything that can keep the garage temperature up is good! I already have a frost-protection convection heater to maintain 5 degrees Celsius as the minimum temperature.

The garage door seems to be the weak link as it's metal and necessairly has a gap around it so that it can be opened.

penrhyn

I used some silver shiny bubble wrap stuff on the back of my door, I guess yoy could also use expanded polystyrene.
My only problem was that the weight of the insulation unbalanced the door so head trauma is a possibility when entering the garage!

http://www.diy.com/nav/build/insulation/loft-insulation/thermal_foil/B-and-Q-Aluminium-Thermal-Foil-M-P-Insulation-Silver-Length-7-5m-x-Width-600mm-10617653

ormus

filling the panels with rockwool and covering with alluminium panels (cut to shape) should help.
not sure if its cost effective though. unless you can get free metal flat panels.
i suppose steel or plywood would also do the job. might weigh a bit though.

penrhyn

There are several videos on the you tube, mostly American. e.g.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ykNaJadNiY&feature=related

Antispam

I did mine used some laminate floor insulation, and bubble wrap I had collected. I tuck it on door with duck tape. Only cots was the tape I had the insulation and the bubble wrap I collected for free. I have three layers of bubble wrap and one layer of floor insulation. Its still cold in garage though

forgotmyname

Why does the garage need to be insulated? What has the ambient air temperature got to do with the boiler?

As long as the pipework is well insulated you wont be losing any measurable amount of heat will you?

I would imagine that convector heater using way more than any potential saving you could make.

evoke

It's a part-integral garage and the boiler's frost-protection kicks in at 5 degrees Celsius. This is wasteful if the rest of the house is warm as it'll waste gas. Also, my bathroom is above (part of) the garage so it's cold if the garage is cold and the rad in there would be wasting energy.

evoke

Antispam wrote: »

I did mine used some laminate floor insulation, and bubble wrap I had collected. I tuck it on door with duck tape. Only cots was the tape I had the insulation and the bubble wrap I collected for free. I have three layers of bubble wrap and one layer of floor insulation. Its still cold in garage though

This is very useful. I have a lot of laminate flooring and carpet underlay which is foil-backed left over. It's high quality stuff and very dense with good thermal properties. I'll try sticking that onto the inside surface of the door.

I appreciate the garage will always be cold as there's not real heating in there but the aim is to stop it becoming very cold!

DTDfanBoy

If your boiler is any good it should have a thermostat on the pipework near the boiler. The frost stat will trigger at 5C or so and fire up the boiler, the thermostat on the pipework will trigger when the water warms up slightly 20-25c or so, and override the frost stat. The residual heat in the pipework should keep the ice at bay for hours, and you won't have the problem of your house warming up unnecessarily.

If your boiler is kicking in and running untill the garage temp reaches 5c, something hasn't been done correctly, and if you're heating your garage with an electric heater to keep the tempreature up you're throwing money away.

Unless the temperatures where you are happen to be pretty extreme, I'm talking minus figures for days on end, or you've got some strange pipe runs your boiler will be fine, even if it's switched off. You're probably better off spending a few quid insulating your pipework, than spending a lot more to insulate your garage door.

evoke

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

If your boiler is any good it should have a thermostat on the pipework near the boiler. The frost stat will trigger at 5C or so and fire up the boiler, the thermostat on the pipework will trigger when the water warms up slightly 20-25c or so, and override the frost stat. The residual heat in the pipework should keep the ice at bay for hours, and you won't have the problem of your house warming up unnecessarily.

If your boiler is kicking in and running untill the garage temp reaches 5c, something hasn't been done correctly, and if you're heating your garage with an electric heater to keep the tempreature up you're throwing money away.

Unless the temperatures where you are happen to be pretty extreme, I'm talking minus figures for days on end, or you've got some strange pipe runs your boiler will be fine, even if it's switched off. You're probably better off spending a few quid insulating your pipework, than spending a lot more to insulate your garage door.

The boiler is a decent boiler (WB 30CDi), but there's no pipe stat. All the pipework is insulated. The electric heater isn't kicking in until 5c or below but it rarely gets to that inside the garage.

The boiler has an automatic frost-protection built in to protect itself. What i'm trying to do is avoid it having to protect itself by conserving what little heat there is in the garage.

If I can do this for free or almost free then it's worth it! The garage walls are double-skinned brickwork and it's only the garage door that seems to be the weak link in terms of thermal insulation.

Maybe getting a pipe state wired in would be a good move too?

DVardysShadow

I would say your biggest problem will be draughts. If the air in the garage is relatively still, the losses will be far less significant than if a gale howls through. In other words, I think I would deal with sealing the edges before insulating the door itself.