Internal garage door

[JMN2]

A week without no post - let's pump it up.

How have you with an integral garage and internal door, say to the utility room, solved the door insulation? Are there any good products especially for the bottom of the door, to keep the draft out and perhaps even mice?

Also a security issue I wonder, up and over garage door with a lock not as secure as a the front door's, internal door into the house might be easily forcibly opened unless it had a proper lock too?

I think a non-question really but the forum was looking quite dead. And I have a rodent phobia.

[csearle]

Not really an answer, but what I have seen done is a wall built right across the garage just behind the garage door, in such a way that the garage door can still be opened. The garage door then becomes a kind of outside cupboard door (for bikes etc.) and the rest of the garage can be insulated and made into a utility room, den, home-cinema etc.

Cheers,
Chris

[ten0rman]

I use my garage as a workshop - oops, mustn't say workshop as councils don't like it, so how about a practical hobby room. I have some machinery plus lots of stores etc. The front garage door was a nicely battered up and over, but is now a roller door. And it faces southwest. And it gets darned draughty in winter. At the back there was an el cheapo single door to the outside world. Now, there is a porch with a 5-lever lock to the outside world, a 5 lever lock to the garage, and a lock to BS whatever to the house. That house door is aluminium made by a well known company with a mountain for a name and as such it prevents cold air, damp, rodents etc from getting in. It's all pretty secure - I think.

Now, the garage roof, ain't that good - it sometimes leaks down the adjacent house wall so the draught going through is helpful towards drying it out. In fact, when I built the porch I deliberately made it draughty for this very reason, ie to help keep it dry. In any case, in bad weather, it's a useful place to remove wet gear before entering the house.

So, no I don't bother about insulation - if it's too bad, then I don't go in to work. Otherwise, I can call on - now sit down please - up to 4kw of electric heat to warm it up. The expensive machinery is fitted with some tiny self regulated heaters which is sufficient to prevent condensation in cold weather, hence no rusting. A storage shelf for chucks etc has a repurposed aquarium heating mat under the metalwork, again sufficient to prevent condensation and rusting. Also, the machinery and chuck storage is covered by cloths to assist in keeping heat loss down. All of which means that the machinery never has that bone-chilling numbing effect that big lumps of metal can have in winter.

I don't bother too much about damp - the roller door does have a flexible seal at the bottom, but rain still manages to get under it, but it only penetrates a few inches. Actually, thinking about it, I wonder if it might be seeping around the ends of the individual slats and running down inside the guide. Hm, food for thought there.

Rodents? Never seen any. Anyway, there's no food there.

Regards,

ten0rman

[AF62]

How have you with an integral garage and internal door, say to the utility room, solved the door insulation? Are there any good products especially for the bottom of the door, to keep the draft out and perhaps even mice?

For the bottom of the door I fitted one of these - http://www.screwfix.com/p/stormguard-ga ... 2-5m/37019 The door fits quite snuggly now and it stops the rain and leaves blowing underneath.

As for the insulation, solved is probably a strong term, but I improved the insulation by fixing some 25mm polystyrene sheet to the up and over door. I cut the sheet up to fit into the 'squares' made by the bracing struts on the back of the door to hold, cutting each slightly large to hold it in. It makes the door quite a lot heavier, but not too heavy to open and close.

Beforehand in the winter the (internal) garage didn't quite get down to freezing, but it could be damn cold. Now it rarely drops below 10c.

Also a security issue I wonder, up and over garage door with a lock not as secure as a the front door's, internal door into the house might be easily forcibly opened unless it had a proper lock too?

Although the lock is a weak spot (it is easy for the bad guys to simply snap the lock, as I know to my cost), if you beef up the lock the door itself is not that strong. If you have internal access as you do, then a quick and easy solution is a couple of bolts fitted vertically on the frame on the top of the door. When the bolts are dropped you can't open the door as it needs to go back into the garage. Not full protection as the bad guys can just bend up the corners of the door, but better than nothing.

[JMN2]

Thank you for these, they've given me some food for thought how to proceed. That Screwfix Stormguard seems like a way to go, and then something similar to the INTERNAL garage door leading to the utility room. Bolt idea is also very good.

And someone else already posted a very useful question on upvc window locks.

[sg31]

To stop water/leaves/rodents getting into my garage I glued a piece of 50mm x 50mm timber to the garage floor directly behind the closed up and over door. Rodents can enter through a gap as small as 6mm so it needs to be closer to the door than that.

I used all weather no more nails as an adhesive, tantalised timber, so it doesn't rot and a bead of sealant between the floor and timber to make it watertight.

in the last 2 years it's worked perfectly.

[kiloran]

To stop water/leaves/rodents getting into my garage I glued a piece of 50mm x 50mm timber to the garage floor directly behind the closed up and over door. Rodents can enter through a gap as small as 6mm so it needs to be closer to the door than that.

I used all weather no more nails as an adhesive, tantalised timber, so it doesn't rot and a bead of sealant between the floor and timber to make it watertight.

in the last 2 years it's worked perfectly.

Tantalise...Verb
to make someone feel excited or attracted by an offer or a suggestion of something that is, in fact, unlikely to happen

Hmm... what did you say or do to that timber?
--kiloran

[sg31]

To stop water/leaves/rodents getting into my garage I glued a piece of 50mm x 50mm timber to the garage floor directly behind the closed up and over door. Rodents can enter through a gap as small as 6mm so it needs to be closer to the door than that.

I used all weather no more nails as an adhesive, tantalised timber, so it doesn't rot and a bead of sealant between the floor and timber to make it watertight.

in the last 2 years it's worked perfectly.

Tantalise...Verb
to make someone feel excited or attracted by an offer or a suggestion of something that is, in fact, unlikely to happen

Hmm... what did you say or do to that timber?
--kiloran

Tanalised. The spell checker having fun? Tanalised, no. tantalised, yes.

My fault, I should proof read more carefully.

[Cindal]

This is the way to go. New garage door that is insulated and airtight. The make very good aluminum doors that are insulated as well. No way to ever get a s***ty door as airtight - I've tried and failed.

I have a s***ty door that came with a small amount of white styfoam insulation and while I should have replaced it because that would have been much easier I've spent way to much time insulating it - but it is kind of fun. Over the top of the oem vinyl backed styrofoam I added 1/2 of reflective foam cut to size and glued in with insulation glue. I taped it as best I could but because of moisture building up at the seams not all of the tape has held - still it does create a seal albeit imperfect. I used rubber seals with glue backing between all the sections - they are easy to install with the door halfway open and they make a huge difference.

Lastly I am currently putting reflective fiberglass over the top of it all to give it a chance at meeting firecode and to cover the seams. It is not airtight at the edges of course but the glass lays down pretty good and I'll add some expansion insulation to tighten it up the best I can. I'm using self taping sheet metal screws with big rubber washers on them plus tape to make sure I don't have a problem with this stuff falling off. It is r6.7 when properly installed so I assume I'll grab at least a portion of that on top of the foamboard on top of the styrofoam + walls blown full of cellulose + attic insulated to between r-30 and r-40 depending on the spot = pretty darn warm in my attached garage even without running the heater.
/img]

[Raptor]

I had some major building work done last year and a door knocked through to the garage. The specs for the door where amazing and it had to be draught proof ( strange how Grenfell affected the local council) and be self closing. The only draught I ended up with was through the keyhole and, fortunately, I had one of those flappy things (technical term ) that you have to push aside to get the key in, problem solved.

The draught proof tape had to have a fire resistance spec as well like this tape.

Good luck.

BTW My boiler is in the garage so keeps the car nice and cosy. double electric up and over doors. I have had installed a proper double glazed door to the garden and a double glazed widow to give more light. Probably as secure as the house. Also got the alarm people to install a wireless door alarm just in case.