With winter quickly approaching, this is the perfect time to address some issues regarding your home and how to effectively "winterize" it. There are numerous portions of your house that definitely need winterizing: your pipes, your driveway, your roof, etc. One of the most overlooked areas of your home that definitely needs winterizing is your garage door. By winterizing your garage door, you are ensuring that the harsh coldness of winter and inclement weather will stay out of your garage. Throughout the course of this brief article, you will learn about 4 important ways to prepare your garage door for winter.

DIY Insulation

In many cases, you can install forms of insulation along the sides of your garage door. Depending on what type of door you have, you will have to go about using different material and installing the insulation in different manners. For example, if you have a wood frame and panel style garage door, it is best to install rigid insulation on such objects. Foam board is, by far and away, the most popular option for this style of garage door, as it is rigid enough to protect your garage from the weather, but also malleable enough that it can fit into nooks and crannies that are the bread and butter of garage doors.

Fiberglass Insulation

Although fiberglass insulation can also be installed on your own, it should also be noted that it often takes the touch of a professional to adequately install this sort of insulation alongside your garage door. If you have a garage door that consists of steel, you should most likely hire a professional to install "batt" insulation alongside the sides of your garage doors. This type of insulation is often times backed with foil and paper. The R-value of such a form of insulation ranges from 2.9 to 3.8 per inch. It is not recommended that you merely stuff this insulation in between the gaps in your garage door, but rather have a professional do the work for you.

PVC Molding

PVC molding is a form of weather stripping that will help you fill in the gaps along the garage door's sides and top and bottom. When properly installed, it should effectively remove all of those gaps such that you won't even be able to see them. Since PVC is such a strong material, this type of weather stripping will tend to last for years – sometimes upwards of 10 – without demanding or even hinting at needing to be replaced. Still, once a decade is, in general, a good rule of thumb for replacing PVC molding such that it will work to the best of its capacity.

Install a Garage Heater

Installing molding and insulation alongside your garage door will help to protect your garage door during the winter, but the best thing that you can do for your garage door is to take a holistic approach in ensuring that your garage stays winterized during those icy cold months. Installing a unit heater in your garage is one such way to ensure that your garage door will be winterized during these months. Both gas and electric heaters are available for purchase and are great ways to make sure that not only your garage door, but the entirety of your garage will be ready for those dreaded winter months.

Winterizing your garage door is not a huge feat to be performed, but it might take a bit of help. Hopefully, this brief article has given you some insight into how you can go about performing such a phenomenon either on your own or with the help of a professional. For more information, try clicking here or contacting your local garage door professional.