Garage doors make up a large portion of your home, and by that logic, it shelters an extensive area of your entire space. While garage doors come with bottom seals to keep water and other debris out, the seal can be susceptible to wear and tear that may need garage door service. If you notice any water that comes in the garage, more dirt heaping through, or even pest droppings proliferating the garage area (yikes!), chances are your weather seal needs maintenance.
And in even more severe cases of worn-out sealing, you will begin to see some cracks or gaping parts under the concrete floor or driveway apron – these may not be covered with just a standard seal. Understandably, this leaves homeowners wondering how best to fix whatever issue they find in their weather seal.
How to Check the Weatherseal for Damage
So how exactly does weather-seal work? Garage doors have weather-seals in thin strips of insulation material placed on the bottom of the garage doorway and the side margins. And there are also thin insulation strips placed between each panel that can help the whole garage door be airtight.
While weather-sealing may not be the most glamorous part of garage door maintenance, it’s an essential step to protecting your garage room. Seals keep indoors safe from damaging elements like rain, snow, hail, and wind. Your weather seal can also keep dirt at bay.
You can perform a cursory check on your weather seal at least once or twice a year. If you notice any of the following, you may need to repair the seal:
- There are cracks or noticeable signs of wear and tear
- You can feel draft coming through the closed garage door
- Water seeps through around the garage door
- The metal around or on the garage doors are beginning to rust
While you can perform some DIY-ing on fixing some parts of the weather seal, you’d want a professional garage door repair company to do the job right if you need gasket replacement, adjustment, or other repairs.
How to Weather Seal for Garage Door Maintenance
If you are one of these homeowners concerned about your garage doors’ seal and you want to make sure all of them are correctly installed, here are some ways to seal your garage doors.
Bottom Seal for Garage Doors
This is a long strip of rubber or vinyl material placed at the bottom edge of the garage door. The material will span the length of your garage doors, and it is flexible enough to squeeze when the door closes. A well-placed bottom seal protects the floor from any unwanted water, dirt, draft, or critters from entering through that space.
One way to know if you need to replace the bottom seal is if you can already see some light pass through even if the door’s closed. A simple strip bottom seal with angled edges can do the job for homeowners who have wooden garage doors. These are installed by nailing them securely on the doors.
Metal garage doors work a bit differently. An aluminum channel right on the bottom of the doors is where a U-shaped gasket, called a T-style or astragal seal is placed for metal garage doors. The U-shaped gasket can come in different sizes, adjusted according to the height of seal you need. Therefore, it’s a helpful mechanism for garages with large gaps made by cracked or uneven floors.
Threshold Seal for Garage Doors
This one works pretty much like the weather seal, only instead of being attached to the doors, the threshold seal is attached on the garage floor. You can install a threshold seal on its own, or use it alongside your garage door bottom seal to add that extra layer of protection.
Usually made of vinyl, the main job of a threshold seal is to keep water out the driveway where there’s a slope. They can also fill in any open spaces or gaps below a door – like the bottom seal, quite useful for any garage doorways with cracked floors.
One thing to remember is because the threshold seal can block the water from flowing in the garage, it can also keep the water from draining out. This might be an issue for you if you tend to hose out your garage area.
Weatherstripping for Garage Doors
This one is made of rubber or vinyl, and placed around the sides of the garage door. The primary function is to prevent draft and rainwater from entering the garage on its edges. This type of weather seal is attached to the molding on the door jamb and nearly touches the front face of the door.
You can do a simple DIY of this by buying rolls of weatherstripping at your local supplies store. You can cut the rolls to measure into specific lengths using a utility knife, then secure the stripping tight using nails or screws. Make sure that the side flange is pressing against the doors to achieve a complete seal.
Get Professionals for Your Weather Seals
Hiring a professional will always be the best option when you need assistance with your garage door repair, including maintaining your weather seal in check. Keeping your garage area free from outside elements protects your vehicle and other valuables you keep in there, plus it helps control your energy consumption! Consider hiring our garage door maintenance experts for your weather seal needs. Feel free to contact us today to learn more about our garage door service!