Garage Door Seals Complete Your Project
64Okay, you have your garage door properly insulated now. I hope that the rest of your garage door insulation project went well. You went to Home Depot or maybe online and did one of two things:
- You purchased a preconfigured garage door insulation kit (hopefully made specifically for your garage door).
- You ran down to Lowe's and put together your own kit from available parts.
Either way, I hope that you did not forget one of the most important parts of this project. I am speaking of course of your garage door threshold seal. This is a flexible piece of rubber, or rubber tubing, commonly called a garage door bottom seal that provides the interface between the lower edge of your garage door and your garage floor.
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There are a few reasons why this particular part of the garage door insulation project is important. Number one on our hit parade is your electric bill. Stop and think about it -- even if your garage is not usually heated, it will almost always be warmer than the outside air.
Given this, you would have to expect that any gap at the bottom of your garage door is an opportunity for the outside to become the inside. Cold air will rush in and through that gap and run across your feet while you are trying to finish your woodworking project. If you happen to be under your car changing oil, it is going to run right across your body and remind you guess it is winter.
It may be that you live in the Northeast or in certain parts of the Southwest where rainstorms are often accompanied by high winds. If this is the case, I am sure you've had the experience of leaving a door open or partly open and forgetting it just before storm. Then you have some mopping to do. Your garage door weather seal will keep these storms from driving moisture into your garage along with cold damp air.
The last reason to get your garage door seal in place is your pets. No, I'm not talking about your dog or cat. I'm going about the new passage are going to get if you leave a gap between your garage door bottom and your garage floor. The size and variety of your new roommates will be directly proportional to the size of the opening that you leave.
Well given all the above, I'm sure you can understand that you need garage door seals, but which ones? Will the quickest answer is to go ahead and raise your garage door partway up, and take a look at what the manufacturer provided. Normally, what you're going to find is one of two types of door seals it:
- A tubular rubber garage door bottom seal
- A flat rubber strip, like a common door threshold seal and
If you've got the flat rubber strip, I strongly recommend that you take a look at replacing it, or augmenting it with the other kind of door seal. The reason is that, while the rubber strip may indeed keep out wind and rain, it will never provide as secure a seal against the elements, and especially temperature differences as a tubular seal.
