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What Are The Best Garage Doors For Insulation?
There are some excellent garage doors available nowadays for insulating your garage space and also your home when your garage is integral...
Energy costs and a focus on insulating your home is now a serious matter.
The increase in demand and sales for insulated garage doors has been enormous in the last few years and it's not hard to see why.
Now that garage doors with excellent weather sealing and insulation properties are readily available the older one piece up and over garage doors look pretty useless in comparison letting dust, leaves, rain and of course cold air in on all sides in many cases making your garage cold and filthy.
But which ones are best to look at for insulation?
Sectional Garage Doors
These vertically rising doors split into several sections (usually 4 on a standard height) and are constructed in 20 or 42mm thick insulated double skinned steel panels. They are about the best choice for insulated doors for normal domestic type garage doors. The U values achieved can be very good if installed BEHIND the garage structural opening and also installed correctly with consideration given to the floor levels for the best seal possible and a complete overlap at the sides and head to act as a thermal break. Far too often small compromises in the width and more often the height will mean that you have a door fitted with 42mm panels providing insulation up to say 7 feet high and then a single skin layer of steel fascia fitted above to make up the gap to the lintel. While this works fine for sealing the opening it does not give the maximum benefits for insulation, so always consider this if insulation of your garage is your primary objective.
Hormann, Carteck, Garador and SWS all offer either purpose made sizes or additional insulated fascia panels where required.
Hormann have been the first manufacturer more recently to offer a further upgrade option in their "thermoframe" system to potentially improve the insulation value even further, up to 20% more efficient.
Of course for those where insulation is absolutely critical we can always offer a choice of 80mm thick insulated commercial specification doors such as the Hormann DPU door as they are all made to order. These doors are used for cold stores and the like so will be at the top end of what is achievable in insulating any garage or room area.
Insulated Roller Garage Doors
The term "insulated roller garage door" is widely used but is a bit misleading as it is almost impossible to get a proper and accurate U value rating on a roller shutter garage door constructed from an average of 24 horizontal double skinned slats all technically offered with a small gap inbetween each of them.
Whilst there is a definite benefit felt from having these insulated slats, not only for strength but also for some descent insulation, as they are on average 19mm thick, the installed roller door will have very different insulation values depending on many varying factors. Rubber or brush type weatherseals in the guides or on the head fascia, a full hood cover for the roll and how much overlap the door slats have to the sides and the head of the opening will all contribute to how good the insulation will be, but do not expect an accurate U value to present to your architect or building inspector. Also some cheaper roller doors do use considerably thinner slats than others so do be aware of what you are being quoted for with this type of door as many features are definitely brushed over in the promotional material.
Insulated Side Hinged Doors
Traditional timber side hinged doors with all the right sub frame stops and a good tight fit will actually give quite a good insulation value as timber itself is a very good insulator (think of log cabins in the Northern European arctic circle), all depending again of course on the type and thickness of the timber used.
Double skinned foam filled steel hinged doors are the doors to look at with excellent design options and nearly all made to measure with a 'doorset' principle and all key components factory fitted before delivery.
These doors are definitely a very good option for any garage where the use is mainly for a workshop, office, gym, playroom or similar and whilst the insulation may be key to your choice remember a double skinned steel door construction gives a great opportunity to add in some serious locking to provide serious security.
To conclude if you really do want to make your garage as insulated as possible then look at the double skinned sectional doors. LPU 42, GSW 40 and others, all with the 40-42mm thick panels and make 100% sure the door is fitted completely behind the garage opening and now also consider the "thermal insulation" kit available from Hormann which gives extra insulation around the door perimeter to give one of the lowest U values for a domestic sectional door.
If not a sectional door then definitely look at the insulated hinged garage door options available.. Samson, Carteck, Hormann and Ryterna..
Call or email us for all the latest prices and technical information on insulated garage doors
