If you happen to own a house that boasts an integrated garage but have never gotten around to insulating it then it\’s a good bet that that your garage is leaking more than heat. Fixing this could save you quite a bit of money.
Why is that? Simple really; you\’re paying good money to maintain a pleasant temperature in your home, by means of operating either air cooling and/or heating. But without adequate insulation throughout then really you\’re also shelling out on chilling or warming outdoors, which commonly proves to be a costly proposition.
It should be obvious that if, for instance, the roof is well insulated but the windows are poor quality then heat will leak straight through the windows instead. The net result being that the roof insulation may as well not be there either. The key message is that insulation is an all or nothing measure; any gaps and the whole thing founders.
Likewise, well insulated and tight fitting windows and doors will be simply bypassed if the loft space or cavity walls have inadequate insulation. Temperature differences will always seek out and exploit the weakest link, usually taking your money with them.
So where does the garage fit into this picture? Simple; an integral garage is what it sounds like – integrated into the overall structure of the property. Imagine for example if you had a living room the size of your garage which was poorly insulated – the effect on any connected rooms alongside or above would be quite noticeable. Well, that\’s pretty much what an un-insulated garage can do.
You wouldn\’t think about exposing any of the other rooms to the outside elements simply because you possibly didn\’t make use of them as often. It would obviously compromise the temperature control within the remainder of the home and cause extra and pointless expense. Yet many individuals embrace precisely this attitude with regards to their garage.
The techniques for insulating your garage are broadly similar to those applied to the other interior spaces in your home, with one notable exception, namely the garage doors. These days the majority of garage doors use a metal panel (usually steel). Like most metal objects, these are brilliant conductors of heat and thus absolutely terrible as far as insulation is concerned.
The answer though is remarkably easy and thankfully affordable. You can either get a garage door insulation kit which can be fixed to the inside of existing doors, or you can get pre-insulated doors. This latter route is for folk who either view this as a possible opportunity to upgrade their garage doors or for owners of wood garage doors. Despite the fact that wooden doors offer significantly better natural insulation compared to steel ones, in truth the only way to get seriously efficient insulation is by using a modern-day wood panel that has been manufactured with an internal layer of high performance insulation.
For much more information on this subject, check out these additional articles about affordable wood garage doors and how to insulate garage a door.
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