Your garage door is the most significant access point to your home, which means that if there is a faulty seal, your house is at risk of exposure to the elements and pests like rodents and insects. Sealing your garage door can save energy, reduce heating and cooling costs, protect your garage from water damage, and keep pests at bay. While garage doors come with weather seals, they wear out over time and need replacement. Weatherstripping your garage door ensures that nothing can get into your home.
What is Garage Door Weatherstripping?
Weatherstripping is a seal that improves energy efficiency and protects homes from air leaks around moving components like windows, doors, and garage doors. The weatherstrip on the bottom of the garage door creates an airtight seal against the garage floor, keeping the garage cool in summer and warm in winter and preventing water and pests from entering your home.
Sealing Garage Door Benefits
The benefits of garage door weather seals are numerous and extend from lowering your energy costs to protecting your home from damage:
- Offers Protection From Water and Flooding: Water damage can happen quickly, so weatherstripping your garage doors can protect your home and possessions from damage caused by rain and condensation.
- Decreases Energy Bills and Increases Insulation: Weatherstripping your garage doors prevents drafts from entering your home and makes it easier to heat or cool your garage when necessary, reducing energy bills.
- Keeps Insects and Rodents Out: Sealing your garage door ensures no pests can enter your home.
- Decreases Damage to Your Garage Door: Weatherstripping protects your garage door from structural damage and prolongs its lifespan.
Do You Need a Professional to Seal Your Garage Door?
Sealing garage doors with precise measurements and high-quality materials is crucial, as even a minor difference in the sizes can put your garage at risk of water damage, drafts, and vermin. Professionals can assess your garage door and create a comprehensive plan to seal it with the best materials for your garage.
How Long Does Weatherstripping Last?
Weatherstripping lasts an average of two years with normal wear and tear, but this depends on your location, climate, and weather conditions. Signs that indicate it is time to replace the weatherstripping include visible distortions, the seal no longer bouncing back into place, water entering your garage, and pieces of the weatherstripping breaking off.
Signs of Poor Garage Door Weather Stripping
A solid garage door lets you feel confident in knowing it will keep your car safe from burglars – and safe from Mother Nature too. Though these doors come with weather stripping on the bottom and sides, the stripping can crack or peel over time. Even if you don’t notice the weather stripping itself, other clues, including the ones discussed below, will appear in your garage to alert you that it’s time to have a Henderson garage repair service replace this vital component of your garage doors.
Rusting Metal
Many modern garage doors use stainless steel or aluminum because these metals are lightweight but strong. Manufacturers often add a coating or sealant to the surface that keeps the metal from coming into contact with the elements that cause rust. If your door does not have this coating or if the coating has peeled off and your weather stripping fails, you might notice some garage door rust. A lack of weather stripping can also allow your tools and other metal kept in the garage to rust because of the higher than normal moisture levels allowed in.
Feeling Drafts
If you feel breezes or drafts in your garage that you’ve never before noticed, you should check the state of the weather stripping. This is because the primary job of weather stripping, as the name of the product implies, is preventing certain aspect of the weather from entering the space. When weather stripping begins to deteriorate or fail, the gaps that open up can allow drafts to form. These drafts can themselves leave other clues such as dust or dirt gathering in corners that never used to get dirty quickly.
Puddles of Water
Visible puddles of water or standing water in a garage is another sign that your weather stripping failed. Any strips around the edges that have cracked or broken off will allow water to seep through during rainstorms or sometimes when your sprinkler system runs. That water will typically pool in puddles around the door. Garage repair techs can easily replace the old weather stripping on your doors whenever any of these signs tell you the old weather stripping needs to be replaced.
Contact Precision Overhead Garage Door Service to Seal Your Garage Doors
If you notice your weatherstripping is not as effective as it once was, contact Precision Overhead Garage Door Service to apply new weatherstripping to your garage door. This will create a durable seal that can fend off anything that tries to enter your garage while lowering your energy usage.
