Insulating Garage Saves Money on Utilities

If your home is typical of most homes across America, chances are you have a garage. The majority of homes throughout the U.S. either have a detached garage or an attached garage. A garage is a great place to park car and store additional items, but it can be extremely cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. Chances are high that your garage is not insulated in the same manner that your home is and this leads to the wild fluctuations in temperature that your garage will experience throughout the year.

Insulating your garage is an important step to increase the comfort level when you are either working on a car in the garage, or just doing some day to day tasks in your garage. If your garage happens to be attached to your home, insulating it can actually reduce your heating and cooling costs for your home. As an attached garage heats up in the summer or chills off in the winter, the hot or cold temperatures pass into the home causing increased usage of your A/C unit or your furnace. If you garage is detached, insulating it increasing the level of comfort within your garage and can make a heater or A/C unit installed in the garage work more efficiently.

The first step when insulating your garage is to insulate the exterior walls. This is an easy task that requires little more than some fiberglass batt insulation, a razor blade to cut it, and a staple gun to secure. Begin by measuring the length required for your insulation. The insulation is place between the wall studs. Cut the insulation to length, staple it in and you are done.

Next up is insulating your garage door. The typical thin steel door allows heat and cold directly into your garage. Fortunately, insulating your garage door is as simple as buying a garage door insulation kit. The typical steel door has slots that easily allow for insulation to be installed. The insulation used on a garage door is typically a polystyrene material and simply slides into place.

Finally we move on to the ceiling or attic of the garage. If your garage does not have an existing ceiling, you will have to install one in order to insulation this area. Once the ceiling is installed, you have a few insulating choices. You can go with the fiberglass batts as used in the walls, or you can use a blown in insulation. Blown in insulation offers the advantage of easy install, but the choice is up to you.

Now that your garage is insulating, you can enjoy working in it year round. The comfort of your garage is much improved and it will no longer be sweltering hot or frigidly cold.