Garage Door Sealed Against Snowy Weather
Just like the proverbial post office “motto”, your garage door has to brave snow, sleet, rain and hail. No matter what the outdoor conditions, your garage door needs to be able to withstand everything from winter blizzards to summer monsoons. But to ensure that your garage door has what it takes to be safe from the elements, you’ll need to check the following weatherproofing materials are up to par in order to ensure that your garage door can take the rain, wind and sun. Use this guide to weatherproofing your garage door and ensure that your home is safe from the many weather conditions that Mother Nature may throw at it.
Weather-stripping is mission-critical to maintaining your garage’s weather proofing. The law of increasing entropy, the most fundamental law of physics, states that everything transforms from a state of order to disorder. Your weather-stripping is no different. When it goes bad, which it eventually will, your garage is no longer weather-proof and you’ve got a problem.
According to Jim Norman of Overhead Door Company of Central Jersey, “The quality of the materials used and the ongoing weather conditions will determine how long your garage door weather-stripping will last. Typically, a vinyl or plastic weather-stripping will endure for around ten years or more. Cheaper weather-stripping can decay in just a few years and will need to be replaced.”
Look for torn, ragged or crumbling weather-stripping. If problems like these are present, be sure to call a professional garage door mechanic to replace the weather-stripping immediately.
Bottom Seal
Most garage door bottom seals are attached to the garage door itself. Be sure to check for elasticity, shrinkage and wear on your garage door threshold every six months or so. If this rubber threshold is damaged, it can easily cause moisture or other adverse weather conditions to enter the garage and do damage to your home. The bottom seal will also go a long way towards preventing mice and other critters from gaining entry to your home.
In some cases, an in-floor threshold will help cure a garage from air and moisture leaks. These simple to install weather-stripping materials can be placed by the homeowner or by a professional garage door installer.
Insulation
Rain & Sunshine Take Toll on Garage Doors
It’s no secret: that a well-insulated garage door is less prone to outdoor elements like cold and heat. But just because you can retrofit your garage door with new insulation, doesn’t mean it’s going to do the trick. Only a well-built, insulated door panel will work to keep out the elements. A retrofit insulation job on an existing un-insulated garage door won’t properly seal the door against weather problems like humidity and air leaks. Additionally the added weight of the insulation will throw your door out of balance. While your garage door opener may appear to handle this additional weight, in reality you are on borrowed time. The opener is designed to OPEN your door, not to lift dead weight. And if you should ever need to operate your door in an emergency you can easily find yourself in truly dire straights. See our previous blog on garage door insulation and our blog on wind-proofing your garage door.
A pre-insulated garage door panel has a much higher R-value than kits and doesn’t have the air leaks that a retrofitted insulation job can have.
Window Tinting
Clear glass garage windows can turn your garage in a perfect green house (not a good thing). Tinting your windows will play an important role in keeping the sunlight and heat from baking your garage and the precious tools and cars therein. Unfortunately, garage doors windows don’t properly block the sun’s rays, so you may need to have them tinted. Tinted garage windows can also help with security by preventing would-be burglars from seeing your garaged cars and can also block undesirables from determining whether you’re at home. Window tinting is one easy, do it yourself project. You can use a stick on film available from many auto stores or you may find a spray on tint. The film has the advantage of being easily removed.
By the way, the US Post office actually has no official motto. The phrase “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor dark of night” is actually a translation from Herodotus, “the father of history” who was describing the ancient Persian system of Couriers. It is inscribed on the James Farley Post Office in New York. So I guess “history ain’t what it used to be.”, which is a further misquote of perhaps the world greatest mis-quoter, a certain former Yankees Catcher who currently calls Monclair, New Jersey, home.
