How I Keep My Garage at 70°F Year Round transcript

My garage stays at a very comfortable 70° all year round thanks to four simple changes that I made. The first of which is absolutely free. If you were to complete all four stages of what I'm about to show you, it will cost you less than $3,000. And if you have a standard twocar garage, you're talking about adding an additional $450 ft of usable living space to your home. The best part is step four you can do for starting at around $7 or $800.

And that one by itself is going to make a huge difference in your garage space. If you dread the thought of going out to work in your garage in the middle of winter or the middle of summer, this video is for you. Let's jump in to phase one. First up, you've got to seal that garage door. Drafts from outside or even from inside escaping are probably the number one culprit for the temperature change in your garage. The first thing we want to look at with this is these brackets right here.

Now, you'll notice the horizontal slot in these. These slots allow you to adjust exactly how close your garage door is to the exterior wall. If you've got too much of a gap there, you're letting all kinds of air in and out of your garage. Easy fix here. Loosen up these bolts, slide it in till it's tight, but not super tight. We actually want to leave about a 1/8 in gap there. And that should be covered by the seal on the exterior.

But once you've got a 1/8 in gap, or even tighter if you don't have a seal, then you're ready to tighten down those nuts and bolts. and you'll see a lot less air movement just by doing this one thing alone. Some garage door tracks don't actually have nuts and bolts to hold these in place. In that case, these little step drill bits are your best friend. These don't cost too much. You can pick them up at Harbor Freight or you can order them online.

And by the way, I've got links to everything you're going to see here in the description below if you want to check these out. And you can use these to just drill out the rivets and replace them with your own nuts and bolts. These are called green hinges. Now, these are pretty popular because what they do is they actually use a spring-loaded mechanism to push the door away from the rollers and the pins. That helps form a nice tight seal pushing your garage towards the exterior.

Now, they do have a little give, so if it's a super windy day, for example, they can move. They cost between about 113 to 140 bucks. If you're interested in learning more, there's a great video from In Jason's Garage that you can check out that goes over all the details for that, and I'll be sure to put links to that in the description below. I haven't used it on mine because I went a different route. Instead, I chose to go with Thermotra.

Now, Thermotra is a set of tracks that has a custom little bend at every single section where the wheel lands when the garage door is closed. Now, these do cost about 275 bucks, but I contacted them after I purchased and installed them, and they agreed to give all of our viewers 10% off, bringing that price down to under 250 bucks. So, you can use code learn to DIY10 off in order to get that 10% off in your shopping cart.

Do you need to spend 250 bucks on these? No, they're not crucial or critical, but I found that they work super well and I've had mine in for almost 2 years now. Now, I just want to emphasize none of the garage products that you're going to see in this video are sponsoring this, and I did not get any of them for free. I literally bought everything that you're going to see here myself. I will put links to everything in the description below if you want to check those out.

We can't talk about sealing your garage door without talking about the exterior seals as well as the bottom seal that runs along the bottom of the garage door. If that exterior door seal looks good, everything's nice and flat, and it's making full contact with the garage door, you're probably all set with that. Nothing to worry about there. Next, you can check out the bottom seal. If it looks like it's uneven or you see light coming through underneath, then it's probably time to replace that.

It's important to note that there are two types of seals that you can use along the bottom of your garage door. The kind that comes with most garage doors is kind of a T-shape. I actually highly recommend that you stick with that kind, and most garage door technicians will agree. There's another kind that has a dual loop, and that tends to be kind of a magnet for rodents to chew through, and it causes some other issues with being able to shut your door flushly as well.

So, up to you, but I highly recommend just kind of sticking with the original. Now, when you install that, make sure that you leave a little extra room on the right side and the left side because during the installation process, it's not uncommon for the garage door seal to actually stretch. Then you go out a few days later and you find that there's a 1 or 2 in gap on either side. That can be really frustrating. So, cut it a little long, install it that way, wait a week or so, and then trim it to size at that point.

Once you've got the inside taken care of, it's time to take a look at the seals on the outside. Now, many homes don't actually come with an exterior seal, and if yours doesn't, now is the time to take care of that. So, this stuff right here is a dual vinyl seal. Comes in 7 foot and 9 ft lengths. When I bought my Thermotra, they actually came with this optional black light seal and weather seal piece right here. So, this is actually super helpful because not only does it create a double seal, but it blocks out all of the light from coming in when I want it dark in here, and then also blocks the light from getting out at night, which is kind of nice.

It's got a nice flexible edge and then a hard thin piece that fits right underneath the dual vinyl seal just like this. So, makes it a really nice combination. The installation for these is super simple. There's a adhesive strip right on here that you can peel off and stick right into place. And then if you need to, of course, you can use brad nails or anything else to get that initial layer up. And the important thing here is that you create a good direct seal with the outside of the garage door.

And that might mean that it has to move a little bit in or out depending on what position it is along the edge of the garage door. So with that, once you've got your first piece installed, then you're ready to put on your outer layer, the double vinyl here. And this stuff is also really nice to work with. The reason that seal underneath is so important is because if you don't, you're going to have light leakage like you see here.

This is before I put the second piece underneath. And there's definitely a lot of light leakage happening. And that happens both inside and outside. Whenever I get deep into a project, I know myself enough to know that one of the first things that I cut out of my life is exercise and healthy eating. One of the things that helps me a ton with this is today's sponsor, which is Factor. Now, I've actually purchased Factor for our family before, and I can attest that everything they make is honestly super delicious, and it's going to give me all of the protein that I want, which is something I'm focusing on right now.

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Now, this offer is only valid for new Factor customers with the code and qualifying autorenewing subscription purchase. A big thanks to Factor for sponsoring today's video. And now back to getting this garage in tip-top shape. Now, it's time for phase two, which is insulating the garage door itself. Now, most garage doors are made out of a really thin gauge steel or aluminum. And with that, they transmit heat and cold from the outside super easily inside your garage.

So, there's an easy fix for that. Not long ago, I actually tested out six different types of garage door installations to see which one was the best bang for your buck. And when it came to price, ease of installation, looks, as well as the R value, I found that foamular NGX was the way to go. Now, in that video, I tested out 1-in thick foam NGX at an R5 value. Now, what I did instead is I installed this stuff right here, which is foamer NGX at a R seven.5 value because this is 1 and 1/2 in thick.

Easy to install, easy to work with, and it turned out absolutely great. Now, it does give you a nice pinkish purplish door. So, maybe you're not into that. So, you do have the option, of course, to paint it. Now, in my case, I also used spray foam all along the inside of the metal casings to make sure that those were insulated as well. And then I finished the whole thing off with some foil tape. and then painted the entire thing.

One thing I want to throw out there is that it is recommended that you actually cover these panels with a super thin gauge metal like some sheet metal or some aluminum panels because when you do that, it provides some extra flammability resistance for your garage door. Just for reference, this 16 ft by 8 ft tall garage door cost me a little under $200, including the tape, the foam, the rigid foam, and the paint and everything.

So, it's not that expensive to do and it makes a huge difference in the temperature inside your garage. Now, if you like me are thinking, why not just get an insulated garage door? I'll tell you why. I researched this pretty thoroughly before I did any of the things that you see here. Guess how much this door would cost to buy pre-insulated. 2500 bucks or more. The very cheapest ones I could find, $2,500. That is a chunk of change.

So instead, spending a couple hundred bucks and an afternoon doing this felt like the obvious option. Anytime you add any weight to your garage door, you have to check something, and that is the springs. Your garage door springs serve a very specific purpose. They should be balanced in such a way that if you were to disengage the garage door from the track and lift it up and get it about halfway, it should be able to stay open just at halfway all by itself.

It should also be relatively easy to lift the garage door cuz the springs should be doing most of the work, not your garage door motor. So, if you do end up having to replace your garage door springs, which you should definitely check out, then it's not as expensive or as difficult again as most people think. You can check out this video that I created right up here where I explain exactly how to do the whole thing completely safely and it costs less than $150.

Now, that's going to add life to your garage door motor. It's going to counterbalance the new weight that you've added to the garage door and it's just going to help your whole system perform better for years to come. So, don't skip on that one. This is one I totally recommend that you at least check out. Not a whole lot of work and definitely something you can learn a lot about and do safely. Now, we're ready for phase three, which is insulating your garage walls and or ceiling.

Now, this one is one where I think you might actually get more bang for your buck by insulating the attic and ceiling area than the walls, but don't quote me on that. I just know it gets incredibly hot up there in the summers and super freezing in the winters. And when you're up there in the summer, if you've ever been up in the attic space, you are just dripping sweat everywhere. But let's talk about how cheap it can be to insulate it.

I think most people have the wrong numbers in their head around all of this. So, in my garage, what I first started by doing is I ripped out all of the drywall, which is pretty easy to do and kind of fun. It's kind of like one of those, you know, destruction rooms, but it's your garage and you get to do it for free. So, you rip out all that stuff, get a drill or an impact driver, remove all the screws, and then you're good kind of with a clean slate ready to go there.

Then, you can purchase some R13 pink fiberglass insulation. Now, this stuff comes in the rolls. So, you can do the 15-in wide if you have studs that are 16 in on center, assuming those are 2x4s like mine, or you can even go with our 15 or greater if you have 2x six's. It's really actually pretty inexpensive to go with these rolls. It's about the cheapest way you can do it. But the cool thing is once you put that in, I would recommend that you don't actually put drywall up again.

Instead, just go with 1/2-in OSB instead. That's going to give you the option to, like I mentioned before, hang anything anywhere. If you want to put up some shelves, easy to do. If you want to put up some of those hooks that you screw in, I'd still recommend using studs whenever you can for something heavy, but this allows you to put all kinds of little things just anywhere you need to in the garage. And if you don't like the look of it, just paint it just like you would with drywall.

Now, with that, guess how much it costs to insulate everything, put up OSB, all that kind of stuff on a standard two-car garage. It's 800 bucks. $800 is a very affordable price to give you all of that extra comfort and space, especially if you've already done some of the other things that we talked about here. So, in my mind, totally worth it. Now, let's say you want to do the ceiling either separately or on its own or in addition to everything that we just talked about.

That actually is only going to add at a minimum about 300 bucks to do it. Cuz here's the thing. If you go to Home Depot and you want to do the blownin insulation, if you buy 10 bags of this stuff, then you're actually going to get the blownin insulation machine. You can rent that absolutely free. That's going to cost you about 560 bucks. And in my mind, you're going to get way more insulation, way better R value by doing those 10 bags, even though it does cost more for sure than if you were to use the bat insulation, the pink fiberglass, which is going to be about 300 bucks.

So, I would recommend taking that step up because I think that's where we lose most of our heat and most of our cold is in the attic space. Now, you might notice that in my garage, I've got a lot of white all over the walls. I've got white everywhere. In fact, all of my machinery is painted white, too. That's just part of the theme we're doing because I film my videos out here. But all of this white that you see around me is actually called Trusscore, and it's a PVC product that makes everything look really nice.

It's also completely washable. It's water resistant, all that kind of stuff. So, that is an option if you wanted to look at something like that, but obviously not required at all. Not only that, but because this is also my recording studio and because I want the ability to be able to run my machinery out here at 3:00 in the morning without waking up my family, I opted to go with rockwool insulation, which has better acoustic properties than fiberglass.

Now, it does cost about twice as much, but in my mind, that was worth it to make this a very isolated space in terms of noise. So, just to recap, we're talking about 800 bucks to insulate your garage walls, maybe another 300 to 600 to do the attic space, and you're talking anywhere from 1,100 to maybe 1,500 bucks to insulate your entire garage. And this is something you can knock out in a few weekends, and it will make a huge difference.

It's not easy. It's not a super fast thing that you're going to knock out in an afternoon, but I think it is 100% worth it. Just a quick heads up, I'm actually currently giving away our power drill feature guide that's recently been updated absolutely free in our rap community. So, if you want to join like-minded DIYers, head on over to the link in the description or use the QR code here to check out our DIY community there.

Totally free and you get the $5 guide for nothing. Now, phase four and the last piece of puzzle to making this 70° paradise out in the garage is the mini split. That thing pumps out heat all winter and freezing air all summer. As I alluded to at the beginning of the video, if you did none of the other phases 1 through three and you just skip straight to step four, I think you would actually be thrilled with what a difference that makes in your garage.

Now, if you know, for example, that you're going to be working in the garage on a Saturday in July, then just turn the mini split on on Friday night and you'll wake up to a garage that you can actually handle working in. You can buy mini splits that have the pre-charged lines, but you're going to pay about twice as much for those as you would if you just buy a mini split like this one by toot that has a pre-charged condenser.

What that means is that the coolant is already in the unit and all you have to do is install the thing like normal, connect the lines, and then let the coolant loose into those lines. You have to use some gauges and a vacuum pump. Those cost about $108 and it takes about another 30 minutes to do it this way, but it saves you hundreds if not thousands of dollars versus the pre-charged line types. Now, no matter which way you go, the process is going to take a full day, and it's a pretty intensive effort, but I've done two of these at my house, one here in the garage and one in my original shop.

And boy, is it worth it. A 9,000 BTU minit is going to cost you under $700. It's Wi-Fi controlled. It has a remote. And it can even be powered by your existing 120 volt power supply. It's also rated for up to 450 square feet, which is about the size of a twocar garage. Now, if you prefer to, you can do what I did and upgrade to a 12,000 BTU unit for only about $1,000. Now, these units will require that you vacuum the lines, but the vacuum pump and gauges, like I mentioned, cost 108 bucks.

They take 30 minutes, and it is way cheaper than buying the units with the pre-charged lines. So once again, I have entire videos walking you through the whole process that you can check out right up there in the top corner. So how much does it cost to do everything? I'm talking garage door installation, proper seals, the garage wall and ceiling insulation, and the mini split. Well, for most people, it's going to be less than $2,500.

Now, I know 2500 bucks isn't nothing and times are tough right now, but if you have 450 additional square feet of usable living space in your home, that's pretty awesome. I actually have my computer desk and everything set up out here because it's comfortable all the time and in my mind, 100% worth it. So, here's my question for you. Which one would you do first? Would you start with a mini split and then worry about the other things later?

Would you start with the garage door installation? Would you do the walls or maybe even just the ceiling? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Now, just a reminder, everything that I talked about here is linked in the description. And then you can also check out my next video that I'm working on, which is how to make sure that when you open and close your garage door that it's not all squealy and super annoying.

So, you can check that video out right over here. I'm Niels with Learn Tody. Thanks for watching.