If the house had a previous owner...the warranty might not transfer to the second owner anyways. If you want to do it right, swap those panels out for insulated panels...relatively easy job.

You could always consider a more powerful opener. What size opener is there now?

Warranty is new and was part of agreement to purchase the property. While the act of swapping out panels wouldn't be hard, I am looking for the cheapest method to fix the issue, storing extra panels I already own vs replacing all of them and eating the cost is the decision I'm debating.

Heat rises, you may want to keep the top half insulated if you choose to remove some.

You could also attach a cord or two to the top of the door, which stretch across the garage to a pulley. Then the rope drops down and holds a counter weight.

It only needs to help the door lift up the first half of the lift.

Specs say 120V, 6A, 60Hz, .5HP. While a more powerful opener would indeed solve the issue, it seems more expensive and more difficult to do that rather than dealing with the panels directly.

True, I guess if you aren't worried about the benefit of the insulation, then take some off and reduce the weight.

Unless the insulation is excessive for your climate zone it will be providing value constantly, especially as the cost per therm of heating or cooling continues to rise. I’d leave the insulation in place and get a better opener if/when the current one fails.

(Edit) And start saving note for the replacement.

No just put all of the insulation in one corner?

Doing it yourself is seriously super cheap if you're willing to DIY it a bit instead of using pre-cut-for-a-garage-door kits. I have a small one-car garage and by cutting a foam insulation panel myself and installing it with foil tape I did mine for like $30-40.

The trick was doing each section with two pieces, side by side. Each one scored and snapped horizontally so I could insert it slightly folded and when I pressed it in it locked into place against the top and bottom of the panel. On my door there's a small void one one side of each panel, so I slid one piece into that, then inserted another next to it.

It looks great. It works great. Makes the whole garage quieter, even. Dampens rattles when the door is moving. Weighs maybe a pound or two.

Edit: If you're looking to keep a garage warm, it's also well worth checking and possibly replacing seals. It's not very hard to replace the bottom seal, maybe even install a strip on the ground below it. It's also generally not hard to replace the exterior seals on the top and sides. I've done all of the above and having my garage well-sealed has worked wonders on its temperature and keeping out traffic/city noise.

Honestly taking out half of it is probably not too different from taking out all of it. A single layer of thin steel like a garage door provides basically zero insulation. In a lot of ways you might as well have a window open.

Is there insulation in the ceiling of the garage ? If there isn't then whatever temperature it is in your garage that will be the temp of the floors in the living space above and that will make the insulation on the doors that much more important. How cold/hot does it get where you are ?

Does it need to be evenly distributed ? For heat/cooling retention to be even across the entire door, yes. If you don't care if some parts of the door are less well insulated than others then no.

If your only concern is removing weight from the door then yes, you can remove some/all of the insulation but you need to keep it distributed so that there isn't a lot of difference in the weight of one side of the door vs the other (vertical does not matter as much as horizontal as you don't want one side of the door lagging behind/ahead when the door is being opened/closed).

I’m surprised they didn’t suggest a spring upgrade. Being a garage door company they should know the opener doesn’t really lift the weight of the door. The springs should hold the door in a neutral position so that the opener doesn’t have to do much but yeah it should still match the requirements for that door weight

I would get the correct spring set up and opener or I would replace the insulation with lighter weight insulation or take it off completely

Whatever you do you will have to readjust your spring tension which should be checked yearly or so anyway

Or really, just stack it all up in a neat pile near the door. That's how insulation works right ?

It's like the opposite of a campfire I think?

Counterweights do not work on garage doors. They don't 'weigh' anything when rolled up because they're horizontal.

The whole point of springs is that they vary the return force in proportion to how far the door is lowered. They are engineered balanced systems.

what does the current insulation look like? foam board? styrofoam?

Since you have living space above the garage, I would strongly suggest you keep the insulation installed. There is a reason the previous own installed it, and that is most likely inadequate insulation between the garage and living space. You will have increased comfort and reduced energy bills by keeping the insulation.

The actual question you need answered is whether the spring is designed to work with that door. Garage doors are engineered systems that carefully balance the spring force to equalize the door weight as it is lowered. A well designed system does not need a powerful opener. If the last owner replaced those panels, it is not balanced and needs to be corrected.

Tightening the spring is a stop-gap measure, which hopefully they explained to you. It will help the motor work when the door is mostly lowered, but it will in turn cause too much return force when it is raised. There is no balance. You can install a more powerful motor to try to brute force it, but even that will get more wear and tear than it should, leading to more noise and reduced service life.

Furthermore, motors are cheap. It makes zero sense to replace panels at around ~$200 each, when you can replace the motor for less than a single panel. Not only that, you're paying more to downgrade your garage. It's .. not sensical. I don't know what set you on that path, but you really should reconsider.

What you need to do is find a legit garage company that will come out to spec and replace the spring with the correct gauge and number of turns. If, when properly balanced, you still need a bit more oomph on the opener, that's trivial to do. That can be a DIY job because changing that isn't dangerous. Changing the spring should be done by a pro, though, and if they're out there anyway, they should give you a good deal on swapping the motor.

You have not been advised well. That may be due to their incompetence, or your misunderstanding, but consider finding another garage door service.

If you release the opener latch, is the door heavy? You should be able to open with one arm without the opener attached.

Just replace the opener when it breaks and get a more powerful one?

Just moved in last couple weeks so unknown. Given the 1.5 inch insulation panels maybe not?

Looks like Styrofoam

I can open with 1 hand so I think it's the opener just not very strong.

Seems to be what's likely to happen.

styrofoam is already insanely light. It's the lightest possible insulation there is for a garage door. It sounds like your springs are incorrect size range for the weight of the garage door, and springs can't be overtightened, they need to be replaced with a proper spring. Do you own a bathroom scale? Disconnect your garage door opener and set the scale under the door and see how much weight is on the door, it should be 8-10 lbs.

If you are going to remove 1/2 the insulation, you might as well remove it all. With 1/2 the door unprotected, insulating the other 1/2 is pointless. The only way that would make any sense is to remove half the thickness from every panel, and leave none uncovered. I find it very difficult to believe that the extra weight added by the styrofoam is enough to make any difference to the garage door opener. When the door springs are properly adjusted to the door WITHOUT any styrofoam insulation, you should be able to disconnect it from the mechanical opener, and open and close the door with one hand. After that the garage door opener should be able to open and close it without even straining. And adding styrofoam after that won't add enough weight to upset that equation. Just trying to upgrade to a bigger motor is just asking for unnecessary problems, IMHO.

Get that statement from the service company in writing! Then, go back to the original homeowner with the agreement that you have and make a formal demand. BUT KEEP READING!

For an overhead door, the spring setup counterbalances the weight of the unit. Spring sets are color-coded based upon the loads that they can handle. AND most importantly, this is why all of us everywhere only need to buy ONE particular garage door opener to handle ANY wood or fiberglass or steel or composite garage door of any width or thickness!

THEREFORE, don't remove ANY insulation until formal action is corroborated! The CORRECT fix should "simply" be a spring adjustment or upgrade! If you take it upon yourself to do anything else, ESPECIALLY before asserting a formal demand, then all remedies and expenses could now be yours alone to bear!

[EDIT] Just read through some of the other comments and your notes, here, especially on the insulation type, which is NOT going to be out of line for an overhead door! To doublecheck the "balance" for yourself:

That opener should have a pull-cord disconnect near the door attachment when everything is closed. Disengage it and then try to lift the door for yourself. If it feels like the effort is going to require more than ten pounds of heft; or, if the door travels poorly or binds up within it's tracks, then you'll know for certain that it's a spring or service issue and NOT an insulation issue...

[removed]

It only needs to be distributed evenly if you don't want your door to bounce around. You will need to have the garage door company come back and re-adjust the springs again after removing the insulation. If you remove the insulation and don't pay for a company to readjust your door will be "hot" and shoot up whole being hard to close.

> most importantly, this is why all of us everywhere only need to buy ONE particular garage door opener to handle ANY wood or fiberglass or steel or composite garage door of any width or thickness!

Then why do openers range from 1/2hp up to over 5hp?

Meh, if it were me, I'd just leave it as is then and when that opener eventually fails, just replace it with a 1 hp one. Openers are cheap and very easy to replace (if you stick with the same make and drive assembly that is.. (ie: chain vs. belt)).

​

Also, if you can lift the door with one hand, but when you release it it wants to fall to the ground, the door weight and spring tension is not balanced and you'll need to get the spring replaced with something more adequate for the weight of the door.

Also curious why you had a garage door company out there in the first place. What prompted that? That's not a normal thing for a home inspection. Who called them and why?

Good old cheapest method

That’s interesting, makes a lot of sense, thanks for the info.

R4 insulation is 1/4W per m^2 per deg C of temp difference. Adding a second layer makes it R8, 1/8W per m^2 per deg C of temp difference.

OK so say you have two sq m, one is R4 the other is double-thick R8. The total leakage is 1/4+1/8 =0.375W per deg.

Let's say that instead we split the second 1 sq m sheet from the thick half into two equal pieces and distribute them to make two R6 panels, the total leakage is 1/6+1/6=0.333W

The problem is the metal alone: Low carbon steel has a thermal conductivity of 54 (W/m K). 24ga (thick high quality door) is 5.695mm=0.005695m for an R-value of 1.0546296296296296296296296296296e-4. (I THINK I have this right).

So bare steel being an R-value of "close to zero" is worse than it sounds. Heat transfer is reciprocal, so 0 would mean "infinite". In reality the steel surface does get hot but heat transfer into the room is limited to just radiation and conduction into adjacent air (air at the door surface will get very hot, but it doesn't circulate rapidly).

So, two R4 panels on top of 24ga steel is 0.5W per deg C.

Heat transfer through 1 panel of steel beside one panel of R8:

1/1.054e-4 + 1/8 = 9482 + 0.125 = 9482.125

Like I say, in reality the leakage of heat through steel has other limits, but the basic math direction is that an unprotected sq meter is so high compared to simple R4 that only that one unprotected sq meter will matter.

The leakage through the insulated half is already almost nothing, relatively speaking, compared to the exposed panel... or many of them. So doubling the insulation value to halve the leakage across the insulated only halves the leakage on the part that was too low to matter to begin with, and there's tons of heat flowing across the uninsulated portion.

Get a better garage door opener. Insulation is expensive and keeping your garage at the right temp is of great value. You want that insulation.

Short answer: Durability

Long answer: Look VERY carefully at those listings! And maybe post what you're seeing here? AC drives have a direct mathematical conversion. DC units can only be "approximated" or identified as a "horsepower equivalent" - with different manufacturers handling their own ratings differently...

Marketing mostly

100 percent. I used to work for a garage door company, and on occasion we had to replace springs that break

(NOTE: a modern garage door spring breaking is NOT DANGEROUS, it wont randomly fly off and break anything. Look above your garage door, there should be a rod with a spring or multiple springs wrapped around it. If you still have an old style which are fairly rare now, then the springs will stretch freely and are dangerous: you should get an upgrade).

Anyway, we were able to disengage the springs, use a scale to weigh the combined total of door sections, and use balance tables to find the correct size spring or springs, and number of rotations. Any decent company should be able to do that and get you new springs. I would recommend that instead of removing insulation (because a non insulated panel keeps out little more cold than the wind) but also because if that door was improperly balanced the whole time, you could be looking at strain on the opener or other parts of the door hardware.

[deleted]

Garage door springs have to be re-adjusted when insulation is added. The weight of the door changes too much.

The only way to adjust that tension is with a special (expensive) tool. Sounds like they did the DIY part but didn't hire the tech to tweak the spring.

If it’s styrofoam we are talking a couple pounds. If that’s going to stress the door and opener then they are garbage. There is a process to insulate non insulated doors, granted it’s no where near as good as a real insulated door, there are kits and it’s a thing.

If the company though holding the warranty hostage over it then reality didn’t really matter but what the service provider wants. I assume they want to sell you something.

It’s a bit more nuanced. Your average modern garage door isn’t going to have much weight difference. The difference will mostly be related to hight and width but that weight is offset by the spring. A properly installed 7x8 door should open with a similar effort as a 7x16. One could argue that there maybe be a little more mass to get the door movement started but over all it should be the same amount of effort. Higher hp units generally aren’t required unless specified by the door manufacturer due to something unique about it. Just like why would you buy a 2 hp garbage disposal when a 1/4 works about the same in 95% off applications. Sure a higher hp opener will do better and last longer on a larger door but the only real difference it might encounter is the starting inertia.

Don’t believe me? Pop the string lock on two garage doors, a single and a double and feel the difference it takes to open both. But I’m referring to modern aluminum doors, things can get a little strange with old wooden doors etc.

I got an insulated garage door for free, it was a 16x16, older style and heavier. I installed it on my equipment storage shed so tractors could get in and out. The springs were huuuuuuuge, two on either side about 7ft each. Guess what I opened it with? A 1/2 horse residential opener I got off Craigslist used/broken for free. Fixed it (bad sensor wire) and it worked for years until I moved. You could tell it was pissed of initially but once the door started moving you could hear it idle.

The other consideration is duty cycle. When it is 90 outside, you leave the door open or shut until you are done. Open and close it 6-8 times in close succession and it goes into overheat shutdown and flashes the lights with that error code until it cools. If I used a 2hp opener it would be able to open and close many more times before it’s over heats. You’re going to say yeah it is overheating because it’s working harder. Well… more nuanced. It’s having to run for a longer time between open and close, 16 ft door so longer run times. And yeah there is still mass in the door that takes effort to get started but once in motion it’s not much different then a small door. I would argue if you looked at a current meter that it would be very similar other then the initial start.

That 16x16 door was so well balanced I could open it and close it with my pinky. It have it sit 1/2 open without the garage opener all day long and before I installed the opener my children (4-7) at the time would open it by them selves, lift and jump push to get it to go all the way up so they could pull out the atv or power wheels.

I also had on the same building a 10x10 same story 1/2 hp opener no problem, that door was brand new and a lot lighter though still two decent sized springs.

Are you referring to the old style where there is a spring on each side without any rod? I have this style and always am concerned when I'm in the garage with the door closed. Should I be prioritizing updating it?

I'd be inclined to use thinner, lighter modern insulation, AND have a reputable company come out and make sure the springs are appropriate for the load.

Check Green Hinge Systems to help keep the door sealed. Won’t solve your current opener problem but helps seal the door better so it leaks less air.

Make sure a safety cable is installed then worry about something else.

Yup! Easy to instal a safety cable, that will keep them in place if it ever snaps. Worth replacing if you’re doing home improvement projects, but not dangerous or anything as long as you get cables

A lot of garage doors are insulated with styrofoam panels which are just glued on to the door so they are very lightweight and can easily be replaced by homeowners.

Styrofoam panels are available at nearly any hardware store and the job would probably cost less than $500 - $800 and a weekend depending on the size of your doors(s.) You’d just need a few simple tools and adhesive and you could do it yourself. I’m sure there’s a YouTube video on how to do it.

All of this sounds wrong. What kind of insulation is that heavy?

>am looking for the cheapest method

Removing the installation may seem cheap up front but it will not be in the long run. Your energy use will go up, it's just a matter of how much.

The spring on a modern garage door won't go flying when it breaks, but the door falling is still dangerous

>Get a better garage door opener

Why? The one she has is working.

> Whatever you do you will have to readjust your spring tension which should be checked yearly or so anyway

WARNING: These springs can and will cause serious injury. While it's possible to DIY this, these springs have enough force to lift a heavy steel garage door. Be very careful to learn what to do, and not do if you're going to work on this.

I don't imagine anyone is getting any warranty work done by garage door opener companies.

If it's a matter of stripping the good insulation, probably getting a dumpster for it, and rebuying and installing LESS effective insulation- or, alternately just replace the opener... well then just replace the opener and enjoy the good insulation

Well every comment here is close. I currently fix and install garage doors and openers.

If it's Styrofoam insulation then you are probably fine but if it's actual wall insulation then it's probably going to be an issue. Every bit of weight counts but it's ok to add extra tension to springs if a bit of extra weight is added. If you remove weight then they have to come back and remove the extra tension anyway.

If you can manually lift the door without much struggle then it will probably take 5-10 years before the opener breaks it's sprocket or grind the gears away. If the opener is 15 years or older then just leave it since that's when they start having issues anyway. Good springs last 6-8 years.

Expensive? They are just a pair of rods.

And TIL that you can adjust a garage door spring with just two cheap rods.

When we had the insulation/tension thing done, the guy had a huge (like size of his arm) wrench-looking specialized tool to adjust the springs. Maybe he had the limited-edition Porsche and not the used Hyundai.

What's the manufacturer of your door?

How about using the working opener until it no longer works? Why trash a working opener? Because some guy said it won't be warranteed? Who cares?

No idea. And we moved.

Overheard doors did the work, but they are just a chain that works on a few (all?) brands.

As a former garage door technician, I can confirm the comments above. A spring upgrade would have been plausible however several factors to bear in mind when it comes to springs 7 foot doors require 7 full spring rotations and an extra 1/4 turn for good measure in order for the door to raise all the way. 8 foot door, 8 rotations (so on and so forth) your garage door opener has force limit settings on it, most modern ones are automatic, and older models will have two turn dials that symbolize opening force and closing force, if it’s turn dials, check to see their current positioning (max or min) if both dials are set to max this will indefinitely shorten the life span of the motor as it’s basically being told that it can open/close as hard as it wants without repercussions. Not only is this bad for your motor but it also means if the spring breaks and or your door closes while someone is in the way (providing it doesn’t trigger the safety sensors that should be installed on the vertical tracks of the door) the opener won’t stop, it’ll keep closing crushing anything in its path. Resulting in harm to a person or objects beneath it. Likewise if your spring is broken and the door weighs far more than the opener is intended to pull, it’ll keep trying to open the door inevitably burning the motor out itself. Spring upgrades are not only costly but going back to my statement at the top, higher spring ft/lb torque ratings mean that if the door is too light with the upgraded springs at 7, 8, etc rotations. Those springs are useless. Overwinding the springs can also shorten the lifetime of the springs themselves. I would have the garage door company come back, take the insulation off and revert the spring tension to how it should be. Otherwise the costs long term would cost you the same as an R35 properly insulated garage door + new hardware.

If you’re going to do substantial work anyway, why not just wait til the current opener fails, and replace it with a stronger one that’s meant to lift the amount of weight that it’s lifting?

Mostly it’s bullshit numbers. A 1.5hp motor should draw around 14 amps on 110v. That’s pretty much maxing out what you should have on a household circuit. Manufacturers just like to make up things like “developed” or “max/rated hp” or other stupid terms that don’t actually mean anything but make their products seem more robust. Look at the current draw on the opener. The more it draws, the more powerful it will be.

Home inspectors are idiots with zero trade experience.

unless your garage is heated, there is no need for insulation on the door at all.

There probably is. Most FROG (finished room over garage) are badly designed and built. They don't usually have very good insulation. Therefore, having better insulation and airtightness in the garage pays back.

You can get specific poly insulation for garage doors. It's cheap and light. Shop around for something designed for the job rather than a DIY bodge which it sounds like you have.

And a garage door opener is not expensive, why would it need to be warrantied?

this is more of a case of more info needed then something cut and dry.. the facts are, the best way to keep a room over a garage warmer is to add heat to the garage, which in alot of places , can only be done with electric heat, which is very costly, or by spray foaming or having blown in insulation installed in teh garage ceiling, The reason rooms over garages are cold is because the heat move downwards. So limiting the heat transfer that way, is FAR more cost effective then trying to keep the garage a few degrees warmer., which is all treating the door will do.

Also, a lot of people like to use the garage as additional space.
I do agree on the best way to improve the room is to insulate between the garage and the room, but that's a much bigger job.
I have my garage door insulated to also reduce heat gain in the summer. The door is South facing so heats up really badly in the summer. Some people just like the garage to be more usable space year round, so insulating the door may well be useful for lots of reasons.

To the top! This guy gets it.

OP said he had to replace one sooner or later.

I think BOTH are wrong, actually!

The opener is not intended to "lift" the door's weight.

The door's weight is supposed to be counterbalanced by the spring. It needs to be, otherwise you're stressing the opener, and more problematic, it's excessive force to open manually, and may crash down hard when you try to close it manually.

So, it sounds like he needs a stronger spring, if the guy tried to tighten it but couldn't hit the target offset

When we bought my current house, we had two major emergency fixes to make.

Reseat a toilet leaking around the flange and....

...put safety cables in the garage springs.

My dad said "do the toilet; it's going to take longer and the water damage is a bigger issue than springs that haven't broken yet and probably won't anytime soon."

He was right, reseating that toilet took forever and we ran out of time. We left the house via the garage door, and as it was coming down THWANGGGGG.

Motherfucking spring let go and danced all over the garage. Thank God we weren't inside. Replaced all the springs, added safety cables, and no problems in the 5 years since.

The spring breaks because it is cyclically loaded. Every cycle makes a small crack open a little bit more. The final straw that breaks it is going to be when it is wound the most - which is in the down position when the door is closed. So, a falling door is unlikely going to occur.

Spring upgrade or a bigger motor 🤷🏼‍♂️ imo that would be the perfect solution 😆

Glad I read this thread. I just rebuilt my garage doors bottom panel with a 2x6x14 pressure treated bottom, a 2x4 top and 2x4 verticals with wood panels. The panel weighs twice the original and the spring are just off of being able to hold the weight. I was thinking about ripping it apart and using lighter materials. Instead I will have the springs replaced. I'm sure theyre at least a 15 yrs old anyhow. In addition they're attached to a 2x6 nailed to a joist. Doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling seeing it.

Ask them to install a new spring to compensate for the garage door's new weight. They'll have to bring a lever arm specifically for measuring the weight of the door, weigh it, and then make or order the spring. They aren't trying to screw you.

The springs on garage doors are supposed to be compensating 100% for the door weight. Additional door weight is only stressing the garage door opener and will cause it to fail much earlier than normal.

[removed]

Don’t fuck with the springs.

If you half the insulation, it won't half the insulation rating, it will be more like 30%.

But thats if the door already has some nonzero insulation rating. In in-wall insulation just a 4mm gap is about 10% loss in insulation rating.

Uneven partial insulation will result in uneven heat transfer. Uneven zero insulation will make the rest of insulation basically pointless. If your window is open wide then it doesn't matter how good your wall insulation is. Diminishing returns vs exponential loss.

As far as the weight distribution, yes the weight needs to be evenly distributed. If not, then the door can shift in the rails and start binding. Worst case it gets stuck and something breaks.

Untrue, mine broke when it was being closed, midway up. Loud and a little scary. Probably 25 years old, something that should have been replaced.

Worst case, if the springs can't be replaced with stronger ones, get some weights, a couple of pulleys and paracord, and use it to create counterweights.

​

First, I would not attempt adjusting the springs yourself if you don't know what you're doing. It's very dangerouus, those springs are under a lot of pressure. I'm surprised you didn't ask the inspector or the garage door guy. But to answer your question, I would remove some of the current insulation as long as you could even it out, otherwise just replace it altogether with lighter insulation.

well, maybe the spring should have come first...more deadly and quicker...??? But a leaking toilet.....pretty serious too. Hind sight....

If anyone has old, dangerous, obsolete style side springs (usually accompanied with a half rotten old wood garage door), please upgrade today. Even with safety gadgets attached to the springs, if one breaks the force can rip those safety gadgets out also and instantly ruin your life if you are nearby. I was fortunate. The projectiles missed my head by about a foot. Felt the air and heard it, too fast to see it.

Garage door repair guy here.

No opener is built to lift an out of balance door, the proper springs should be installed to balance the door.

Honestly and truly I hate when people insulate their own doors, it really doesn't really make much of a difference as far as heating/cooling

If I can ask, do you have any recommendations on styrofoam vs those reflective air gap insulation options on garage doors? I live in North Texas and have been contemplating adding some form of cheapish DIY insulation to my garage as it can get very chilly in the winter. Appreciate any advice a professional can offer.

Hollow steel door? I would imagine Styrofoam is best. I have seen what I think is the reflective stuff but I can't imagine it making that much of a difference with how thin it is.