I have a wood garage door from the 1970s. I have noticed gaps near each side on the bottom where light and air comes through. How do I fix this? I use my garage for a shop and keep it heated and cooled so the air it lets in is money down the drain for me. I cannot afford a new garage door.
Maybe close it onto some beanbags?
Have you tried replacing the rubber weather stripping along the bottom of the door? Strips are available in different thicknesses to help accomodate less than smooth floors.
Rubber is alright for a slide down door,
but if it is swinging when it makes contanct with the floor the rubber might grip on the floor and stop it from closing (or opening.).
You could use rubber on smooth floor, but its hard to adjust its shape if it grips on the rough floor too much.
But if you nailed on wood, you could file down the wood to be just right.
The door meets the floor in the middle just not at the ends about 1 foot on each end. Kind of like the door is “smiling”
Is this a tilt-up door?
Adding some plywood to the corners on the inside is probably the easiest patch for now. I’ve never met an old wood tilt-up door that wasn’t trying to fall apart.
I’d suggest some metal plate instead of wood. It will keep mice from chewing through the door. They like to go to the corners and do that. Of course if you have mice around, they’re already in.
Any details you can give will help. Like gotpasswords asks, we don’t even know if this is a tilt-up door, or a sliding door. If you can post links to some pictures, that would help a lot also.
Sounds like your door is sagging as they tend to do as they age. You’ve ruled out buying a new door, so on to plan B and C. I’m guessing that your door is typical of those I see around here. There are probably four horizontal sections, and I will guess that the worst sag is in the bottom one or two sections. You can rebuild a section but that means removing it from the rest, and then you’ve got to worry about the springs, and it becomes a hassle. And a bit dangerous.
The easiest approach would be to shim out the problem areas by attaching some thin plywood to cover the gaps.
Since you’re worried about energy loss, you should address the entire door. The door is essentially one big uninsulated wall. Any home improvement store will carry all sorts of insulating materials that would work on a garage door. In particular I’m thinking of large sheets of rigid pink foam, which you could cut to fit each horizontal section and attach with construction adhesive, nails or screws. It would add insignificantly to the weight.
I’ve never tried that, but I see no reason why it would not work.
Umm, fire code? Rigid foam panels are combustible and must be covered by a suitable fire-resistant material (e.g., drywall) if you have any fire codes in your area at all. The protective layer would definitely add a lot of weight. (Note that foil doesn’t cut it. Foam panels that come covered with foil are that way for waterproofing, not fire proofing.)
They make insulation kits for garage doors. Don’t know the details, but they do use foam, maybe not polystyrene though.
I’ve actually done this. I didn’t need adhesive or nails or screws, I was able to just cut the pieces to size, and they sort of snapped into place. The metal framing of the door sections was open on the side facing where the foam boards go. For the OP’s older door, if it’s wood, he might need a different approach.
Fire codes require the fire block between the garage and the house, because there’s a lot that can catch fire in a garage. In my garage, they drywalled over the access to the attic above the garage for that reason. I’d think a code requiring drywalling over the foam boards in the garage would be redundant, but I’m willing to be proved wrong.
As I understand the problem, when closed the door touches the floor in the middle but has a gap on each side. If the gaps are less then 1", this is an easy fix and can be done without removing the door if you have a circular saw. Also purchase a new rubber bottom seal.
With the door closed, draw a straight line from the very top of the bottom left gap to the right gap. This line should parallel your floor and you will use the circular saw to cut along this line.
Raise the door about halfway and brace it there. Remove the bottom rubber seal and nails and cut the door along your line. You may have to use a handsaw to complete the cut at each side because the door roller rails may prevent you from using the circular saw to complete the cut.
Install the new bottom seal and you’re done.
Another method to draw your bottom line is using a drafting compass. With the door closed, place the pointed edge of the compass on the floor below the highest gap and adjust the width of the pencil side to the top of the gap. While keeping the pointed edge on the floor, move the compass to the opposite side so as to draw a pencil line on the door. This will scribe a line on the door to match the contour of the floor.
He said the gap was a foot, not an inch. Which seems awfully large, but we still don’t know for certain what kind of door it is.
I believe he said the gap was 1’ from the side.
I see now. That does make more sense.
What Dereknocue67 said. Provided that won’t then leave a gap along the top!
Good point! If it does, you may want to cut a piece of wood the same length and width as the top of the door and glue it in place at the top to make up for any difference..
I did some checking around. There are fiberglass and reflective types that presumably meet codes. I tried looking up the specs on several foam types, including the manuf.'s web site. None of those mention fireproof or meeting code. I don’t see how they are getting away with this. Some (not many) are encased in vinyl laminate or some such. Which would help a little bit, but since these panels have to be cut to fit, any such covering is impaired.
Some areas might be laxer on firecodes in non-living spaces, so there might be a legitimate market in some places for the foam types, but I wouldn’t risk my house on it (or getting full restitution from an insurance company looking to avoid paying out).
I checked my local code, to the extent I could, and found wording like below in a couple of places:
My attached garage isn’t my building interior, and there is wallboard between it and the house. So it would meet code.
Is there any area you’re aware of that does treat attached garages as part of the building interior for fire code purposes?