How to Decide if an Insulated Steel Garage Door is Right

How to Decide if an Insulated Steel Garage Door is Right

Garage doors come in a selection of metals, from aluminum to steel.  Many garage door manufacturers make and sell metal garage doors that are not insulated.  This creates a product for the low-cost garage door market.  For homes located in temperately mild climates, metal garage doors that are not insulated usually work just fine.  But for homes located in areas where temperatures change a lot or tend toward either hot or cold, insulated garage doors are a better option.  

To insulate or not to insulate is fairly simple to figure out.  If the home will improve in energy efficiency with an insulated door, then it is likely the best choice.  More complex of a decision to make is what kind of material should the garage door be made of?

Wood is a natural insulator, though there are man-made garage door insulations that are often considered to work better at keeping temperature transference to a minimum.  Wood needs a bit of maintenance and regular resealing in order to maintain the look and quality of the door.  Homeowners who do not want to have to maintain wood garage doors look to metal options.

Aluminum garage doors makes for an inexpensive garage door, and insulated aluminum garage doors are available on the consumer market.  As a metal, aluminum needs minimal care and maintenance in order to keep the garage doors functioning.  But aluminum is very light weight as far as metals go.  Residences in particularly windy regions would be well advised to avoid light weight garage doors, lest the wind rip the doors right off the building.  Of course, this is a bit of an extreme, and the majority of homes can use aluminum garage doors without issue.

Equally easy to maintain are steel garage doors.  Steel garage doors are easily cleaned a few times a year with mild detergent, and the garage door service that performed the installation can show the homeowner where and how to oil the mechanisms. Because they are heavier than aluminum, many homeowners feel that insulated steel garage doors provide better security than their light weight counterparts.  The weight and strength of steel also means that insulated steel garage doors are more ding and dent resistant than those made of other materials.  While most homeowners hope that no cars will driven through the garage doors anyway, garage doors take a lot more wear and tear than many people think.  Even errantly flying baseballs can dent a garage door, and a door that is resistant to this sort of impact will not only look better longer, it is also less likely to sustain damage that creates issues with regular functioning.

Insulated steel garage doors offer energy efficiency, easy maintenance, security, strength, and durability.  They are usually less expensive than wood garage doors, though they often cannot be customized to the extent that wood garage doors can.  Many insulated steel garage doors are priced higher than aluminum doors, which makes them in the mid range of garage door prices.  In the end, insulated steel garage doors are usually a winning bet.