Garage Door - Air & Bug Sealing 

I will never put in uninsulated garage doors again. I installed Clopay "Classic Steel" 16x7 door with no windows with 18.4 R-factor and what a difference it made! My door faces west and the hot Texas Panhandle sun would heat up the garage in the afternoon to a mini oven before with the old insulated steel doors. After I installed the doors, I can go out in the garage in the afternoon and do some actual work in the garage as long as I haven't opened the door all day. I'm 100% believer in insulated doors!

"Toyota came out with some great ideas, I'm not affiliated with them or anything but they did send me a free car"

Hi Matt! I just finished watching about your garage door sealing. One thing not to forget about that exhaust for the garage most fumes lay low to the ground reason for that you must step down into a garage from a living space, and so if you install the fans at a higher elevation you're going to cause the fumes to pull up before it leaves your house. You got to install that fan low to the ground in order to take all the fumes and exhaust out of your garage wall. So, that fan reduces your air sealing quality by putting that fan in, as you may know, those dampers don't close tight and you lose your air conditioning you lose your heating in your garage just a thought. Thank you for having such a great Channel I built two houses myself and I learned a lot of techniques while I was building my second one on the lake at Lake Hopatcong New Jersey. I Incorporated some tips of yours and it saveed me a lot of time and effort! Take care!

I just bent my rails like these expensive ones. Garage is tighter now. Thanks for the tip!

I replaced the original wood garage door on my home about 20 years ago with an insulated steel door, and I think it has made a big difference. I will say, whoever installed this door did a great job because the door is still surprisingly weather resistant. I do like the idea of the new door tracks you showed, that is a neat idea.

I remember that 70s app my dad carried on him for when we left the garage door open, but we called it a leather belt! Never forgot to close it again.

Insulated doors are great 99.9% of the time. However, if you have heated garage and it is really cold out side the door can deform due to thermal dynamics. The outside metal shrinks and inside metal will expand (or not shrink), thus creating gap at the top as it bows inward. Outside temp zero farinhiet, inside 72F when i experienced this. I used an opposing squeeze camp and a board to push the top and close the gap. I have not figured out a more permanent solution as of yet. Just thought I'd share this experince. Best to all.

I can confirm that an insulated door does make a significant and noticeable difference to the comfort and quiet of a garage, even in a temperate climate.

I'm right there with you Matt. My garage doubles as my workshop. It has full insulation (same as house), Clopay R18 doors, and a 24K mini split. I have adjusted the garage door tracks numerous times and now have it air tight and perfect. My only trouble spots are those notorious critter corners where the door, frame, and concrete intersect. I've got those gaps down to about pencil-sized hole and can probably live with that. Here's a tip: run the vinyl flap molding all the way down until it touches the concrete.....dont' cut it short. BTW, the Clopay 3-layer insulated doors are fantastic and well worth the cost if you spend as much time in the garage as I do. On a hot 100 degree summer day, the outside of the doors are scalding hot......but the inside is barely warm.

Haas is vender that makes the best garage doors on the market, (my opinion). I installed 2 steel back sandwich doors on my home, and noticed a huge difference in temps throughout the year. The insulted doors will help maintain whatever the temperature is in the garage. And they are a very durable door, they do not dent as easy and you won't have to worry about the vinyl/foam insulation tearing or puncturing.

I have been looking for a good way to seal my garage door for some time now, but didn't really know where to begin. This is brilliant.

Good stuff. You can use VOC sensors to trigger the exhaust. It'll help with your efficiency goals and also trigger based on actual air quality instead of just motion and false positives of motion. Thanks for your videos as always.

This video was packed with ideas! Really something for everyone. I have the same garage doors that i insulated with a foil faced 1/2" foam board. Foil facing toward the outside. I noticed a pretty big difference.

I replaced the seal on the underneath side of my garage door when we bought our house in 2016. I still had a large gap right in the middle of the 16' door. I put a "storm seal" or "weather seal" on the garage floor that the door sits on when closed. Made a HUGE difference! Glued it down with poly liquid nails and never looked back. Best $50 I could have spent!

I have a shop with commercial 10’ door and I got the uninsulated and then bought blue 1/2 poly foam and cut out and filled each pocket very tightly. Actually angled the tops and bottoms of each piece to slide in the groves. I put 2 pieces for every square, so I get a full inch of R value. It helps a TON as I keep my shop temperature controlled. It just looks ugly with the blue squares, but I’ll fix it eventually. Lol.

Really liked the follow up on the seal, something for other folks to look out for if they choose to use the product. It's not a bad thing that we have to change the way "we've always done it" to make things better. I think the company may use the feedback to make some design changes or recommendations to the end installer to correct the possible issue. Nice work, Matt!

We were out of power for days due to the Texas Snowpocalypse ... having a battery backup for the garage door was just wonderful. Used it a dozen times (had to make many trips for supplies, fuel, etc... and leaving the only AWD car I have in the snow and ice didn't make sense).

I am in Dallas and installed an insulated garage door years ago. I have a window unit that cools my garage during the worst of the Summer and the insulated door makes a BIG difference.

Side mount is the way to go! Super quiet, super sleek. Love the myQ app especially during the construction process to allow me to know everything is safe while I’m not there. In my new construction garage we have 2- R10 insulated garage doors 18’x9’. ZipR9 on walls separating garage and living space. Motion sensor exhaust fans. Living in a cold climate with no heat and no cavity wall insulation yet the garage stays at 56° or higher even on the cold nights. It’s also a 1300sqft garage with 11’ ceilings. A warm garage is always nice to pull into or for those house projects

When I was stationed in Germany a couple years ago, our garage had a really nice door made by Hörmann. It was quiet (my wife's favorite characteristic), sealed well, looked good, and had good functionality. They're available here (manufactured in Illinois) and worth considering if you haven't already decided on a door.

I stuff foam pipe insulation inside the bottom seal on my garage door. Makes a better seal from the added rigidity and compression.

When I replaced our garage doors (insulated) I had the track radius increased. It not only made the garage door quieter as the curve was increased for a smoother ride but it raised the mounting height of the opener and upper tracks significantly! Wow does the garage feel much larger!!!

Last 3 homes I built for myself had insulated garage doors. Much quieter. Also specified extended life spring which is guaranteed for three times the up/down cycles.

Around Chicago an insulated garage door is a must if plan on spending more than a few seconds in your garage in the winter.

I loved the "real time" updates at the end.

been waiting for a video of this type of upgrade to common garage door flashing. thank you Matt and Co.

I installed the thermotrak system last year in my front and rear garage doors. Living in Minnesota we get all of the crazy temperatures and wind.. these tracks and new seal have helped immensely with keeping the space heated in the winter and cool in the summer.. highly recommend them

I had my original uninsulated 2 car wide garage door replaced with an Amarr brand insulated door and the difference was noticeable. What made even more difference was to apply dark window tint to the small windows in the garage door. The difference was pretty amazing. My garage door faces south east and that morning and noon sun would bake the inside of the garage. The dark tint easily lowered temps by 20 degrees.

The clopay insulated doors are excellent. I like them. In Miami they also carry the hurricane wind rating, which is crucial since they can get very heavy with both the insulation and wind ratings. Cheers!

Fellow Pittsburgher now living in NW Wyoming just outside Yellowstone. Strong westerly winds here most of the time and my garage doors face west. Installed Clopay insulated doors that are also “wind rated.” Very happy so far. Also have 2 Chamberlain openers with My-Q. Installed mini split in garage for heating and cooling after watching your videos. Thanks for all your advice-I used much of it in my new build.

'figure out how to get the garage door down'... you grab the handle for the manual disconnect and lower the door. Then re-engage it and fix it later at a more convenient time.

We live in Southern Az. My garage is 26x22 with 9ft ceiling fully insulated. It stays nice and comfortable. We have a Wayne Dalton 8300 door. It was 23° this morning and it was 69° in the garage. No heating or cool installed. I like the threma track and might have to look into getting them. Thanks for your show.

Here's a thought if you're concerned about garage air into the house. For the _CEILING_ of the garage (on your remodel there's no storage space) use some of the ZIP sheathing+drywall. That should prevent any air-leaks between the garage and the boys bedroom(s). . . I don't know what that "smart" exhaust fan system costs, but I installed an exhaust fan (16" designed for a barn) in _MY_ garage for undr $100.00 (discounting labor since I did it myself). Adding a motion sensing controller to the circuit powering that fan shouldn't cost more than another $50.00.

We added a commercial exhaust fan in our 3 car garage. When you pull 2 or 3 vehicles into the garage in the summer time the temp rises well over 100 degrees. Even though the ceiling is insulated, it still raise the temp in the bonus room above the garage. The exhaust fan solved all these issues. We run the exhaust fan 24 hours a day all summer long and it works great. All garages should have exhaust fans.

Matt, when you install the horizontal track, on the new house, try using follow the roofline incline track. Combined with the 8500 Chamberlain side mount operator, this will completely open up the ceiling space .

Central NY here. Insulated door made a huge difference in temperature and comfort verses old wooden garage door with glass windows. Still not sealed perfectly, but that's why I'm watching this video!

We have insulated garage doors from the mfr, there is a huge difference in thermal control. They are like R11. We live in Florida.

Live just south of Chicago and installed an insulated door. Mine came from Sears they had the highest Rvalue door at 19.5 that was 7 years ago. with new insulation in the walls and ceiling the garage rarely dips below 35 during our deep freeze -40F it got to 26F

I just came for the comment roast session 😂

I cut a 2-3" deep channel along the threshold for my door to sit down into. No more wind, no more leaves, no more bugs!

Go direct drive on the new garage with a high lift track for the sloped ceiling. You will love it!

You will love the side mount Liftmasters with automatic dead bolt locks. very quiet and totally secure with the dead bolt locking

I love my insulated door. Much quieter and warmer in the winter.

When I add a new bottom seal rubber I take a foam tube that would go around a 3/4" water pipe to stop freezing or dripping. then cut it in half length wise making it a semi circle. I then taped enough strips together to go the length of the door, and pulled it through the bottom rubber bottom tube. This way when the door comes to rest on the concrete or floor gasket it will seal tight and not collapse. I've used that on several doors and it works great.

"You can hit this with anything: your bike, your car door, *your shin, your ankle*, and it isn't going anywhere"

Thank you for that little update at the end. It's always sketchy when people advertise products and never mention them again. It's more comforting to know how to OVER KILL IT right the first time.

WAIT..... you have a non insulated garage door? I surely would have never guessed that

I live where it is 110-115 in the summer here in Northern California. I have an insulated garage door. It faces west so it gets that hot afternoon sun. It makes a world of difference. California requires a battery back up on replacing because of Wild fires.

As soon as I watched this video, I ordered the Genie battery backup for my garage door. No more worrying about the power going out. Looking at the ThermoTraks now ...

Insulated door? YES. Worth it. I'm in Maine. It gets really cold here for four months and I chose the insulated door for the garage because it's heated by in-floor radiant. I like the extra weather stripping ideas in this video!

I like the idea of a camera automatically filming the delivery guy instead of letting them into your house for delivery. But it would be much safer to build or buy a separate storage box on the side of the house they can access instead. Because you’re still giving a stranger a good look inside your home.

Hey Matt thanks for the info on S Tracks. I am a big Garage guy. I have epoxied the floor, installed base molding and the best thing is the Liftmaster 8500 jack shaft opener with the MyQ interface. You should consider the 8500 for your house especially for applications where there is living space above the garage. This is a much quieter install. Keep up the good work.

You can't say you're not affiliated, then immediately say you're given the stuff for free. Goods have value. You're being paid

I’m a garage door tech in the west texas area and our company uses CHI Doors with Liftmaster operators and I would highly recommend the CHI insulated doors. They’re great!

A big thing that I hate with most garages is not having a lot of extra space on either sides. I know you had limits with your new one keeping the slab, but I know if I build anything new it will have 4-5ft at least on both sides for storage shelves.

Back in 1987/88 my custom built over sized heated garage became my home cabinet/fabrication shop. To reduce noise transmission, and for thermal stability I installed Double Metal garage door sections with 11/2"foam cores inside. Outside you could hear a bit of the router noise, but none of the compressor, table saw, duct collection, chop saw etc. sounds. I called it my shop. My peers all called it the operating room. Yes, the doors and seals are very important. cheers.

I went with the green hinge system that pretty much does what those tracks do but by using springs on the hinges that push them tight.

I ran a 3/8" rubber weather strip on the door to sandwich the exterior trim weather strip that has worked really for the past few years . I also self leveled the concrete apron that doors sit on to give the gasket a smooth level surface to seal against . At high noon I have no light shining through anywhere with the doors shut.

What I learned today: make RU-vid videos and companies will send you free stuff...

My insulated garage door doesn't make a huge difference, but the strength is what I was after. I get high winds. All my neighbors had their doors taco-in during a wind storm. Didn't phase mine at all.

One of do overs on our house, Matt, would be to have extra wide 9’ garage doors. The 8’ wide doors are just too narrow for most cars these days. You have to be really careful pulling in or out and the proximity alarms go crazy.

Hey Matt. I'm in the Atlanta market and had occasion to replace my garage doors a while back. I went with insulated and it makes a HUGE difference. It is usually 20-30 degrees warmer in the garage than outside on even the coldest days. Also, when I replaced the bottom seal, I inserted two full lengths of 1/2" back rod to prevent the seal from getting completely smashed. I presume you are supposed to set the limiter so it doesn't do that, but I am only able to seal out daylight (air) when I really run it down hard. Never had any issue with the standard weather seal on the sides. Thank for the great videos.

Highly recommend the side Mount garage door opener! Clean install and frees up a ton of space overhead. I used the Liftmaster 8500 but I’m sure there are others that might be better.

Garage door sensor install: I like how your installer coiled the low voltage cable into a springlike configuration, it keeps it neat and allows the slack one need for service. This is an old technique used by the phone company in the early days. (6:05)

If the manufacturers are giving you product and you’re installing and talking about the product on your show, it is most definitely a paid advertisement 🙄🤣

We have 3 insulated doors in my shop. 2 of them over 20 feet wide. They helped greatly when we added ac to the shop.

Would love a vid on the updates you made to your current house and how they’re holding up 15 years later.

I've used the Wayne Dalton insulated doors before. One thing I notice with more air tight homes, is when you open the house to garage door, the garage door will move. So that upgraded garage door track looks like it would come in handy.

Just about any of the major door manufacturers make a 2: insulated "sandwich" door which is a 2" polystyrene (base models) or olyurethane (high end) sandwiched between a steel outside and a steel inside, Higher end have thermal breaks between front and back. I have 25 years in the industry and have installed many brands, Clopay is my personal favorite.

On my last house I replaced the double solid garage door with an aluminum clad insulated roll up door. I loved it. I now have a large garage with four single doors. I'm replacing all of them with insulated roll up. I also want to put one side mount motor on a door.

Well we just put foam boards in the door and we have an ac split, easily gets colder than inside the house now down here in Florida. (we set it to about 72 F when we are working hard in there)

Thank you. I have a CHI insulated door and its been great, seals very tight and well insulated. Mine were around an R-14 and I think they go to an R-17 or higher. It was a big upgrade from a wooden garage door.

I have had success with adding foam insulation into the frame of the door itself. making the uninsulated... insulated.

I live in the PNW, switched to an insulated door about 10 years ago. It made what I consider a significant savings in my winter heating bill. For your existing door go to the home center and get foam board and use that to insulate your door.

I’m not affiliated with any of these companies and they aren’t paying. They just sent me a bunch of free stuff.

Lift Master Garage Door Openers are silent during operation and a great product! Kevlar belts are fantastic...

If I didn't have to spend so much to match your upgrades, I would really love this video. Good job and good ideas.

"Again, no affiliation with these guys, this is not a paid advertisement ...but they did ship me these expensive things for FREE..." LOL.

On an HVAC podcast I listen to they just did the whole episode on CO. They specifically talked about extra, especially garage type, intake or exhaust fans. In short, the tighter the house, the more you should be concerned with changing the, esp. negative, pressure balance. They wound up their story by saying your equipment and locations should be actually-tested in-use with a CO tester and monitoring installed. He said a lot of the assumptions, even many that are taught, may or may not stand up to testing in specific applications. CO is odorless, colorless, tasteless, and must be tested tomdetect. You may, MAY, smell and notice aldehydes as byproducts of combustion, but that's a maybe and you cannot depend on it!

Haha! "A couple staples later..." I really like the Chamberlin MyQ with the belt drive. Same comment as IG (LumberJohn), I used the R-6.5 Clopay garage door a few years ago. It has been great, and it was the best mix between cost and insulation, and it kills a lot of road noise.

The last thing any car needs is a warm humid environment. No issue with any of your proposals but keep the humidity under control as low corrosion levels are one big advantage of a drafty garage.

So worth it. Trying to seal up garage doors with large door stripping for commercial usage is a fight and never as good as it should be. I’m I. The northeast and this video just got saved

My garage door was not insulated so I added 1.5" Styrofoam sheets cut to fit inside the garage pannels. It helped a lot and made about a 10 degree difference in the garage temperature.

I live in South Florida and a insulated garage door was a must. A side benefit, it added a whole level of quiet both from the out side but the sound of the door closing is much more quiet

You and your family deserve good things. You're a hard worker.

Yah, LiftMaster makes a nice opener. My neighbor recently replaced his 'hung in the center, ugly as sin' openers with new LiftMaster units that are mounted high on the wall next to the door. Now he has a clear expanse of ceiling.

Definitely not enough staples!

I love the concept of the adhesive weatherstrips on the sides of the doors. I will have to look into installing them on my own garage doors. The tracks are a cool concept also, but if you have quality HD adjustable tracks and hardware like the ones which came with our doors you don't need anything better. Heavy gauge tracks & hardware are a must in order to have tight fitting weatherproof doors. In 2011 we added a 28'X48' 2 car garage-shop to our home. Like you I wanted an area I can work in comfortably. The walls are 2X6 with blown in cellulose insulation & 16" of cellulose blown in the attic, so it is very well insulated & vented with ridge vent. We have a 36" Therma-Tru Fibergass walk door at both ends of the garage & went with (2) 8'X10' Ideal garage doors with windows at the top of them. They have full 2 inch "Intellicore" polyurethane insulation with an 18.4 R value & heavy gauge steel construction with lifetime paint warranty. Something I did to ensure a better seal at the bottom of the doors was to shove a 10' length of Styrofoam tubing (used to insulate copper water lines) inside the bottom weatherstrip. Both doors are extremely weather tight, water, & bug proof. Ideal is a division of Clopay & are made in America. Another weather stripping system you may want to check out is call Snirt Stopper. Their system looks amazing. www.stopthesnirt.com/

I always install exhaust fans in garages in our new builds. Removing fumes is one benefit, but here in the PNW especially, pulling into the garage with a rain-soaked car with a warm engine is a recipe for disaster (mold) since all new builds are drywall finish inside. If you want a climate controlled garage, get a make up air intake with powered damper to open when the exhaust fan runs.

In texas a insulated door keeps the heat from the car engines in the garage during the summer. Also heat from hot water heaters heats it up. If you seal it too well then you need a fresh air vent for the hit water heater. Nice in winter to keep garage warm.

I just installed the side mount Chamberlain. You'll love how quiet it is, and how much space overhead it saves.

The lift master with the camera and the my IQ app is awesome for a garage door opener and thank you for showing the upgrades on the weatherstripping for the garage you couldn’t of made this video any sooner because I was just working that issue today thank you again Matt

My family's homes have had problems with rats and other pest creatures coming in for a long time. (During my college years, there was some kinda animal(s) living in our attic, and I'd wake up, sometimes in the morning, sometimes late at night to sounds that sounded like something the size of a cat scrambling around up there or in the walls. And this went on for years until I started having nightmares about such animals coming through our walls. We also had pigeons that roosted outside the master bathroom window.) Now that I'm in charge of remodeling my family's homes, animal exclusion is something I'm paranoid about and have done more than a reasonable amount of research on. Screens, hardware cloth mesh, steel/copper wools impregnated with foams or elastomeric stretch fillers, bird spikes, you name it. Current product I'm interested in are Xcluder's fill fabrics and door bottoms. They have heavy-duty steel wool, more abrasive than a brillo scouring pad, made of stainless steel, stuffed into equally heavy-duty rubber, in door bottoms (regular and garage). They also have those automatic door bottoms, and they make commercial products as well. Most of their product line is focused on sealing rodentproof gaps that usually are targets for weatherproofing. Looking at these for closing and sealing all the various door gaps, particularly on our garage and side doors. Check out their stuff: buyxcluder.com/solutions/residential.html

I upgraded to a battery backup when I replaced my overhead garage door and opener. It's paid for itself several times already. We chose To replace the door with a foam insulated, double thickness steel door with insulating glass lites. Now, even without heat, our garage never gets below freezing in the harshest of Indiana winters.

You forgot to mention that with an "airtight" garage you got to have a supply of fresh air, othervise the exhaust fan will not exhaust anything.

I use the taunami garage floor seal which installs on the floor under where the garage door closes on. It keeps all kinds of stuff out of your garage.

The scheduled garage door close at night is great! Its saved me from leaving my garage door open over night several times. Also really like the quietness of the belt driven door openers versus the chain drive openers.

@Matt Risinger Hello. Thanks for the video. Looks like I am a few years late to reply. Just saw this video. Anyway I just moved into my Newley built home back in September 2023. We since had the brand new basic metal single panel 2 car garage door removed and replaced with the same looking door but it’s insulated. It’s metal on both sides. The nice thing it did was provided better sound proofing. We also removed our ceiling mounted garage door motor and went with a side mount jack opener. Also very nice. The bedroom above the garage area no longer has to has to hear the loud chain and loud door noises. The heavier door does not rattle all over inside the tracks. What we did see that was a negative. Within a couple days after the install. When we went into the garage and opened the door. We saw water dripping from the inside of the door. When we went to close the door water was squirting from all around the window panels. Yes we have windows across the top of the door all the way across. Anyway we were shocked about this. When we looked at our humidity and temp gauge in the garage. The humidity was around 80%. Since we have a more sealed in garage door. The moisture was building up significantly in the garage. This went away with the use of a dehumidifier. We do not have a MiniSplit in our garage. This water and humidity build up went away. We are now down around 40. Of course the days it rains is when the dehumidifier runs. Since it’s winter the cold air sucks moisture out or dries things out. So the dehumidifier barely runs. The reason this all happened is because the air gets trapped more inside the garage. What will really be hard is come summer. When the humidity will always be high. We live in South Carolina where it’s humid. We do have some small openings around the bottom of the door where the outside brick and the door trim meet. So that lets air or humidity into the garage. We do have a large ceiling fan on the ceiling in the garage. We have no idea what we will experience come summer. Hopefully we don’t find that the heat will also get trapped inside the garage now that we have an insulated door. We totally didn’t think this part out or expect this. We for sure will need to run a dehumidifier to control the humidity. We just hope that we can also somehow keep the heat from building up or being worse than it would have been with a basic metal non insulated door. I know that many of you would say install a MiniSplit. But we just do not want to have to do that.

With all the smart solutions I would opt for a sidewinder garage opener versus an overhead one. Especially with bedrooms over the garage you want a silent opener.

One thing too consider , depending on your door is to remove the plastic handle on the pull rope (keep the rope) for the door release. Criminals could push on the top section of the door and slide a metal hook at the top to open the door. If the plastic handle is gone they have nothing to catch.