Insulate steel garage door?

It would help. That thin metal is passing a lot of heat. Good in the winter if the sun is directly on it, bad in the winter with no sun as heat will escape.

depending on your climate: the insulating r-value will determine if it is helpful. if undesirable heat is entering the home from an attached garage, increase the insulation in the connecting wall. the material you are looking for should be a fire-retardant material. a temperature- operated exhaust fan like an attic fan might be more effective. structure and existing insulation and the garage's use are items to review.

I don't think it would help considering the orientation of your home.

You're dealing with radiant heating, so a radiant barrier insulation will work the best for you. That 1/4 inch foil insulation worked for us with a metal door that faced directly east. By noon, we couldn't stand near the door. After installing the radiant barrier foil insulation, we could stand right next to the door. The outside was a different story.

We did it, it worked for us and made the garage a lot nicer place to work. It also helped in the winter time.

I had a similar problem mhere in Canada - very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. Compoundng the fact, my family room directly adjoins the garage so it was influenced as well.

I insulated and it made a huge difference. FWIW, I also addressed the air infiltration problem around the doors which made a larger impact in the winter.

Also, I originally used a mastic type of tube compound to tag the insultaion on, but eventually it popped off because of the temperature shifts. I ended using straps and also the aluminum heating duct tape which worked well. I simply used the syrofoam sheets cut and notched on my tablesaw to fit in the door panels.

Presumably you would open the garage door or otherwise ventilate the garage once it gets hotter inside than out. Otherwise you would be holding heat in more efficiently in the evening.

My guess is that you would do better to rig an attic exhaust fan with inside and outside temperature sensors.

What's happening is that the sun is hitting the sheet metal door and turning the door into a radiant heater. If you place your hand on the interior of the door, it gets more than hot enough to burn your hand. The door is heating up the interior space.

That would not solve this specific problem. For a similar situation, I used a low-expanding spray foam to fill each area. I then attached 1/4" plywood to the interior frame. It cut the interior heat gain by a good 50F. Instead of 130F+, the garage now doesn't go above 85F.

Call the manufacturer of your doors. They may have retro fit insulation. My 10 x10 shop doors were less than $100 each. Vinyl backed insulation that fit perfectly and came with trim pieces to hold it in place.

--Andy Asberry--

------Texas-----

Yes, I did it for a friend of mine Worked well

Look in the yellow pages and call some real Insulation places (Not Lowes or Home Depot)

Thats what I did and got some panels that are made specifically for that purpose and are designed to slide right in.. Inside face of the Foam is covered with some type of tuff vinyl to protect it from "dings" in the garage They tell me it helps a lot keeping the temps down in there.

Thanks for all the help. For the price, the styro inserts couldn't hurt so I tried them. I added some insulating foil to the inside for some extra deflection. We'll see what happens.....

Wasting your time & money. If it really gets 145 degrees in there, then you have bigger issues than the garage doors. You need to insulate the whole thing along with the doors. Some attic ventelation would help too. My garage has R-19 in the walls and R-38 in the celing. The doors are insulated too. So long as the hot cars are kept out, it won't get hotter than 85 degrees in there.

Not hardly. Have you ever touched the inside of a sheet metal garage door exposed to full sun? They become a big radiant heater. And if the rest of the garage is well insulated, the heat is trapped and very efficiently retained.

I had the same situation as the OP, and once the doors were insulated the interior temp dropped from an average 135F to 85F.

Not really.

Commented on above. Big radiant heaters + well insulated garage = massive heat build up.

I have no attic. There are bedrooms directly above the garage and a garage door entrance straight into the living room basically. It's not hard to get that hot in my garage when the ambiant temp outside is

i put some board type styrafoam in my metal garage door and it cooled it down alot. got it in big sheets at home depot.