diy Archives • Homeowner FAQs

How to Prepare Your House to Sell

Posted on August 1, 2020 | by | Leave a Comment

If you are preparing to sell your house, then you probably know that taking care of a few basic maintenance concerns and making it look great are keys to selling it at a better price. What you might not have heard about, though, are the directed strategies that pay off best and how to put them into place for your sale.

Below, we highlight a few of the key home improvements that may pay off when you are trying to raise the value of your home before you put it on the market. While every house has a maximum reasonable asking price that is mostly determined by its size, location, and architecture, these strategies will get you as close to that number as you can get without overspending.

1. Make Simple Upgrades

Full remodels tend to be more expensive than they are worth for sellers, regardless of which room you do them in. They are great ways to make a home your own, but when you want to sell, you really need to be concerned with the cost-to-value ratio, and the only value that matters is the final sale price. Here are the cost-effective upgrades that you might want to try out in your home:

Add a Fresh Coat of Paint

Prioritize rooms with walls that show a little wear or damage, and keep your color choices light, inviting, and relatively neutral. Just don’t be boring or flashy, keep things in the middle.
Repair damage with fills, plasters, and other bonding agents.

Whether it is wood, porcelain, drywall, or whatever, you do not want cracks, chips, divots, and other signs of wear showing up. For woodwork, many hardware stores carry blending touch-up pens that can be a huge help.
Reglaze damaged countertops, tubs, and sinks.

This one is easy to lose money on if you do not really need it, but it is better to spend a few hundred dollars reglazing a chipping or peeling formica countertop than it is to lose thousands because show features are damaged. If you have questions about whether this option is right for your home, talk to your realtor about it.
Consider simple fixture replacement.

New cabinet handles, faucet features, and other basic fixtures can often be purchased and installed cheaply as DIY projects. A few simple swaps for tarnished, over-painted, or just out-of-date fixtures and your new additions make the room look up-to-date without investing in a full remodel.

2. Depersonalize Your Space

The hardest step for most homeowners is coming to terms with the need to cut back on their personal clutter.

Your house is your refuge, and even when it’s time to sell, it can be difficult to transition into treating it like a space for other people, but you really need to do that if you are going to get the most out of your sale. Think in terms of how a professional might come and stage your home before a showing. These steps will help you to make your home showroom-ready, and they can also help your move be easier in the long run.

Declutter Everything.

Box up items that really do not need to be around the house, like old photo albums and keepsakes that are mostly out for display, take down most of your old family photos, and try for a minimalist approach to wall decor. You do want a few pictures or paintings for accent pieces, but it can be hard for a buyer to see the house behind your stuff if it is too full.
Tidy Up Your Storage Space

Even if you normally organize your tools or books with piles that are mostly the same size and color, your buyers are looking to see what is possible in a space, so storing some items and arranging others to showcase the best uses of your cabinets and other built-in storage areas will help prospective buyers see that.
Trim Your Furniture to a Tasteful Minimum

You want each room to have the pieces that are necessary to say it is completely furnished, but most of us like to over-furnish our rooms as part of our personal decorating style. Pulling that back makes it easier to see the room for itself, and it also helps you to stage it in a way that takes advantage of natural light.
Clean Up After Your Pets

If possible, get them out of the house, even if it is just during the days when the house is being shown. Having strange animals around can be off-putting to some people, and you never know who is going to be allergic.

Having some of your family’s extra belongings in storage, including that extra furniture, makes moving simpler because it gets everything that is not essential out of your way until you are ready for it.

3. Clean the House from Top to Bottom

A deep and thorough home cleaning is actually a house improvement, because it rolls back some of the wear and tear that can become damage in the long-term if it is not taken care of. This can include the growth of mold or mildew, especially in the bathroom and window sills, air purity issues that come from allergen buildups in the carpet, and moisture that can lead to problems with your basement and crawl spaces. Take these steps to get a solid deep cleaning, so that buyers see your home in the best possible light.

Remove all the stains

From hard water buildup to soap scum, rings around the drop sink, and rust marks in the basement, you will want to get rid of any signs of regular wear from your home’s fixtures. There are a variety of products, including natural alternatives, that will help with everything from rust stains to limescale. Inventory the sites in your house that need to be treated, and hit them systematically until you see no signs of the deposits.
Shampoo Carpets and Rugs

Even if they are not permanent installations in the home, a deep cleaning on all the rugs and carpets helps purify your home air quality and takes years off the appearance of the rugs. Sometimes, it can even rescue a carpet that looks like it needs to be replaced.

If you follow through with these basic upgrades and house improvement strategies, then it should be easy to maximize your home’s resale value for today’s market. Just remember, the key is to find low-cost solutions. Anything that involves major remodeling should wait for your next house.

How to Clean Up a Broken CFL Bulb

Posted on July 11, 2017 | by | 1 Comment

Using compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs in your house is a great way to use less energy, save a little bit of money on your utility bills and help protect the environment.

However, breaking one of these bulbs, as simple as it may seem, can create a dangerous situation. Because of the trace amounts of mercury inside the bulb, it’s important that you take proper precautions if you ever find yourself having to clean up a broken one.

Is a Broken CFL Bulb Dangerous?

Yes, it can be a potential safety concern. The tiny shards of glass that come from the broken bulb can easily cut open your skin.

But, that’s probably not why you’re reading this. I’m willing to guess that you’re concerned about the small amounts of mercury inside of a CFL bulb, and, perhaps, what it’s going to do to your indoor air quality. This is a valid concern.

Is There Mercury In CFL Bulbs?

Yes. It’s true that CFL bulbs have mercury inside them. And yes, if one of these bulbs break open inside your home, your indoor air quality could deteriorate if you don’t take proper precautions.

However, this scenario is much like many other emergency-like situations that homeowners often face. When something goes wrong, you take action before it gets worse. It’s simple.

Let’s look at the science:

Study from 2008: CFL bulbs tested contained about 3-5 mg of mercury, but the energy savings of each bulb prevents about 4.5 mg of mercury from being emitted into the air by power plants. Interestingly, this study also found that CFL bulbs contain about 1% of the mercury as old thermostats (500 mg).
Study from 2011: CFL bulbs tested only contained 0.1 to 3.6 mg of mercury, and would take up to ten weeks to emit vapors that would be considered hazardous to human health.
Study from 2012: Concluded that young infants were at the highest risk, and clean-up within the first four hours after a bulb breaks is “critical.” The study also noted that the temperature and ventilation of the room play a big role in whether the air is safe to breathe.

So, yes… A broken CFL bulb can be dangerous, especially for younger kids. But the danger can be minimized if you act quickly and follow a proper cleanup process.

For more information about the dangers of mercury, please visit the EPA’s website.

How to Clean Up Broken CFL Bulb

Cleaning up a broken CFL bulb isn’t a difficult or harrowing task. It’s a rather simple process that doesn’t require a professional and can be completed within a few minutes. However, because CFL bulbs contain mercury, the process for cleaning it up is a bit more complicated than simply picking up glass.

Below, we have explained the process you should follow if you break a CFL bulb, as well as some general tips that every homeowner should know before they start.

Gather Your Materials:

Cardboard, heavy-duty paper or plastic scoop.
Tape, damp paper towels, or cleaning wipes.
Plastic bag or glass jar with lid.

Procedure for Clean-Up:

First, use your cardboard or stiff paper to scoop-up the large pieces of the broken CFL glass.
Next, use tape or damp paper towels to help remove the smaller shards of glass.
Continue previous step until you feel confident that all glass shards have been removed.
Wipe area with disinfectant wipes.
Put all materials into your bag or glass jar, and seal completely.
Dispose immediately.

Note: A glass jar with a tight fitting metal lid is the best item to dispose of the broken shards of glass because it keeps the mercury vapor sealed inside.

If one is not available, a sealable plastic bag, such as a large ziploc bag, will suffice. However, if you go this route, try to handle it as little as possible. You may also want to wear disposable gloves or gloves you don’t mind throwing away in order to prevent the glass shards from cutting your hands.

General Tips Every Homeowner Should Know

Know that you have a better understanding of how to clean up a broken CFL bulb, let’s take a closer look at a few other factors that will help protect you from the mercury inside.

1) Shut Off Central AC

The first step is to turn off your air conditioner, heater, fans or any other appliance that circulates air throughout your home.

The goal with this first step is to prevent the air in the “zone” with the broken bulb from spreading throughout your home. If the area has been exposed to elemental mercury, than it is important that you prevent the air from dissipating to other areas of your home.

2) Air Out & Ventilate Room

Now that you’ve shut off all air conditioners in the room, open the windows and allow the room to “air out” a bit. As noted in the studies above, a well-ventilated room is an important step to limit your exposure.

It would be wise to instruct all people and pets to leave the room immediately, taking precautions to avoid the area where the bulb was broken. Once everyone has left the room, you should open windows, doors and vents to the outside, but not into the house. Use this time to gather your materials.

3) Clean Up Within Four Hours

Allowing the mercury to sit, undisturbed, in a room with no ventilation is extremely unsafe and will quickly degrade the indoor air quality of your home. If you’re using an air conditioner, no matter what kind it may be, turn it off.

As the study above concluded, the first four hours are the most important. Try to clean it up within that time frame.

You have absolutely nothing to gain by waiting.

4) Safely Collect & Seal Debris

After you’ve gathered what you need, re-enter the room where the CFL bulb was broken. Leave the windows, vents and doors to the outside open in order to continue to let the mercury vapor dissipate.

Scoop up the larger pieces of glass from the floor. Place the shards into the glass jar or ziploc bag. Use the tape to pick up the smaller pieces of glass. Make sure that all glass is removed from the hard surface or carpet.

Once the glass has been picked up and placed in the jar, use the damp paper towels to clean the affected area. Disposable disinfectant towels will also be good for this purpose. All of these wet wipes should be placed inside the jar or ziploc bag. If you wear disposable gloves while cleaning up the mess, those too should be discarded inside the container

Once this has all be completed, tightly seal the jar or ziploc bag.

5) Remove From Home Immediately

Now that the broken bulb has been picked up, remove it from the house immediately. This is especially important if you used a plastic bag. This is because the plastic may not completely contain the mercury vapor inside. If not, it may then leak out into the air inside your home.

6) Never Use a Vacuum Cleaner. Ever.

Trying to vacuum up the glass from a broken bulb will only further fan the mercury vapor into the air. This is exactly what you want to avoid. Contain, not circulate.

Of course, depending on the type of floors that the broken bulb is on, this is easier said than done. Below, we have listed out some tips for cleanup based on the type of flooring.

Hardwood & Tiled Floors — It would be avoid the vacuum cleaner entirely. Stick with using a steam mop, swiffer or wet wipes to clean up the tiny shards of glass.
Carpets & Rugs — On a carpeted area, it can be difficult to find all the smaller pieces of glass from a broken bulb. Vacuuming can help, but it should be done with windows open and entry ways into the rest of the house closed.

No matter what type of flooring you have, once you completed the cleanup process listed above and picked up as much of the broken bulb as possible, you will be able to then — and only then — use the vacuum cleaner.

Note: If you decide to use the vacuum cleaner, it would be wise to use the hose attachment, keep the area well-ventilated and dispose of the bag / empty the canister as soon as possible. You don’t want CFL debris sitting inside your vacuum cleaner for an extended period of time.

7) Always Wash Your Hands Immediately After

Even if you wear gloves when you clean up the broken bulb, there is no guarantee that mercury didn’t get onto your hands. After cleaning up the shards of glass and throwing all the debris away in the best possible way, thoroughly wash your hands with soap and hot water.

This will help remove any small pieces of glass that may be lingering on your hands. It will also give you more peace of mind about residual mercury.

8) Dispose Hazardous Waste Correctly

Check your local regulations for the best way to properly dispose of broken CFL’s. Some municipalities may require you to dispose of the hazardous waste in different manners. Some simply allow you to throw it out with your garbage.

Of course, you could always toss it out and know one would ever know. But, you don’t want to inadvertently contaminate another area of our community. So, be a good neighbor, follow the law and dispose accordingly.

Summary

Cleanup of any broken CFL bulbs should be prompt and precise. Shut off your air conditioner to prevent circulation of air. Open windows to ventilate air in the area. Never, ever use a vacuum cleaner. And, seal the broken shards in bag or jar and remove from your home as soon as possible.

How to Test the Quality of Your Drinking Water

Posted on May 20, 2017 | by | 1 Comment

Topics Covered

How Does Water Become Contaminated?
Is My Drinking Water Safe?
When Should I Get My Water Tested?
How Do I Find Out What’s in My Water?
How Can I Remove Contaminants?

The majority of homeowners in the United States get their drinking water from public water treatment facilities, and we tend to accept without question that the water that flows from our taps is clean and safe to drink.

But is it?

Americans use thousands of different chemicals every day. Unbeknownst to us, many of these substances ends up in our lakes, rivers and aquifers. These may include pesticides, pharmaceuticals, solvents, weed killers, cleaning agents, you name it — all of these contaminants eventually finds its way into our water supply.

How Does Our Water Become Contaminated?

The contaminants that degrade the water quality come from a number of sources. Some of it gets there from people dumping it down their toilets, while other chemicals show up thanks to runoff from farms or mining, leaching from landfills, or improper storage and disposal at manufacturing plants. In addition to the chemicals, many of our waterways are filled with harmful bacteria, such as E. coli.

Some of these contaminants get removed during sewage treatment procedures, but others find their way into the waterways around our homes. It’s up to our water treatment facilities to properly process the water, removing all toxins to make it safe for us to drink before piping it to our homes.

Is Your Drinking Water Safe?

The Environmental Protection Agency regulates a number of harmful substances, such as uranium, lead, and arsenic. For each of these, the EPA sets a Maximum Contaminant Level indicating at what concentration these chemicals and minerals can exist in our drinking water before it is considered unsafe to drink.

Each summer, the EPA issues a report for most municipal water systems in the country. These Consumer Confidence Reports (CCR) can be searched on the EPA’s website.

In the CCR, at minimum you can expect to find the following information:

The source of your drinking water.
A discussion of the general risks of contamination.
A list of regulated contaminants and their levels in the water at the time of testing.
Possible health risks from these contaminants found in excess of EPA standards.
What your local water treatment facility is doing to correct any problems.

The Downside of the EPA’s Annual Water Quality Report

While these reports are a great resource that provide a high-level overview of what’s in the pipes in your home, they cannot reliably provide a complete picture of your water quality.

For the reports, water is tested only once or twice a year and contaminant levels are averaged out across 12 months. Contamination can occur outside of testing periods, or there can be occasional spikes in certain contaminants that exceed EPA regulations, and these issues may not be captured in the report. Furthermore, it’s possible for your water to become contaminated after it leaves the treatment facility.

Contaminants Not Measured by the EPA

As another point of concern, just a few of the chemicals that can be found in our drinking water are measured or regulated by the EPA. Independent water testing laboratories confirm a wide variety of contaminants that may be found in our water supplies. In water samples taken from across the country, these labs have discovered measurable quantities of contaminants as varied as antidepressant medications, artificial hormones and gasoline additives.

The EPA doesn’t regulate most of these chemicals in our drinking water. Although most will only occur in trace amounts, there’s no way to know what the chemical cocktail might be doing to our health. Most of these unmeasured contaminants have no taste or color and pass through our water and into our bodies undetected. While many of these substances may be harmless in and of themselves, there are few studies to suggest what these different chemicals might do in combination with others.

When Should You Get Your Water Tested?

The EPA recommends you test your water annually to get a sense for what you may be drinking and if there are changes over time. In addition to yearly water tests, some of the things that should prompt you to test your tap water immediately include:

Recurring stomach or digestive issues: This may be a sign of bacterial contamination.
Cloudy, frothy, discolored or smelly water: This can be caused by a number of contaminants.
Living in an older home: Aging plumbing may leach copper and lead into the drinking water.
Red or rust-colored stains on your sink or clothing: This is a sign that your water has high levels of iron or other minerals.
Nearby coal, gas or agricultural activities, especially fracking: These industrial areas may lead to pesticides, herbicides or solvents leaching into your water.
Living close to landfills, gas stations, industrial plants, dry cleaners: Many substances can leach into the ground and, possibly, contaminate local water supplies.

For a more comprehensive list, the EPA offers this handy chart (PDF) that can help you determine when you might want to test your water, with symptoms that can occur with certain contaminants.

How to Find Out What’s in Your Water

If you’re experiencing any signs that indicate something could be in your water, or if you want to test your water for your own peace of mind, you have a few options to choose from. The cost and accuracy will vary, so it’s important to do some research on your options prior to investing.

Sending Samples to a Testing Lab

There are many professional water testing labs that can provide extensive testing on water samples you provide. They send you a kit and instructions on how to collect water samples, and then you send the samples to the lab for evaluation.

Generally you can choose which kinds of tests these labs will perform, from testing for common contaminants to specialized tests for radon, uranium or other substances depending on your location and personal concerns.

These labs provide tests for tap water from both water from city treatment plants and well water, so they’re a good option for the majority of homeowners. The least expensive tests run about $50 and the most extensive ones can cost over $400, so it’s a good idea to know what you’re looking for before purchasing a test kit.

Is a DIY Water Testing Kit Worth the Cost?

Those costs may seem exorbitant, and you do have other options. There are inexpensive home testing kits you can purchase from home improvement stores and online merchants. These kits purport to test for bacteria, lead, pesticides, chlorine, nitrates and nitrites, and can also tell you the hardness and pH of your water.

These kits may seem like a great way to check your water quality and identify potential problems, but they cannot test for all contaminants, including fluoride and glyphosate. They are also far less reliable than laboratory tests, so the results should be taken with a grain of salt.

Do These Types of Kits Even Work?

Good Housekeeping performed a review of different do-it-yourself home water testing kits. Their results showed that most of the common tests inaccurately measured levels of certain contaminants, while entirely missing others. Even worse, many of these tests have given false positives that may cause you to take expensive preventative action when no such need exists.

So, what should you do?

If you’re just curious about your water but have no serious concerns, trying out a DIY kit may be a good place to start. However, if you have any concerns about your water quality, or you have anyone with health issues, small children, or elderly family members, you should probably consider a professional testing lab.

Just be careful: There are some labs out there that offer “free” water testing, but those usually are fronts for companies that want to try to sell you expensive filtration solutions you don’t need. You can find some of these “free” options available near many Home Depot locations.

If you have evidence of contaminants in your water, you can report it to the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline, 1-800-426-4791.

How Can You Remove Contaminants?

For some contaminants, it’s easy to remove them with a filter that attaches directly to your faucet or by using a water pitcher filter.

These filters are inexpensive and easy to maintain, using activated charcoal as their primary filtration medium. They are perfect for removing chlorine (commonly added to disinfect municipal water). Depending on the manufacturer and freshness of the filter, they can also remove trace amounts of minerals such as zinc, lead, copper, and asbestos, as well as some bacteria or other biological contaminants.

Removing Lead from Drinking Water

Because of the significant health problems associated with consuming any levels of lead, if you’re concerned about the lead content in your water, be sure to do your homework. Most pitchers and faucet filters are not certified to remove lead from drinking water.

Furthermore, a number of other contaminants cannot be removed with inexpensive filtration solutions. For safe removal of lead, pesticides, glyphosate, fluoride, and many other contaminants, a reverse osmosis filter might be the best solution. For many homeowners, the best choice will be a reverse osmosis filtration system that is installed directly under the kitchen sink, but you can also install a “whole-house” unit that works for the water in the entire home.

What is Reverse Osmosis?

Reverse osmosis is the process many bottlers use to produce ‘purified’ water, and this type of filtration will remove the majority of contaminants from your water. The downsides of these units include a high initial setup cost and a higher consumption of water as part of the filtration, which will increase utility bills.

Hopefully now that you’re armed with all of this information about water quality and filtration, you will be able to make an informed decision about when and why to get your water tested, as well as have some solutions if you find out you do have unwanted substances in your drinking water.

How to Insulate Your Garage (And Why Every Homeowner Should)

Posted on March 19, 2017 | by | 12 Comments

Topics Covered

Why You Should Insulate Your Garage
Areas You Can Add Insulation
Types of Garage Door Insulation
Are Garage Door Insulation Kits Worth It?
Do-It-Yourself Garage Door Insulation

No matter what the weather is like outside, the temperature of your garage will typically follow the same temperature pattern. For the average homeowner, the garage is an area where temperature control can be a bit of a challenge.

The garage is well-known to be plagued by constant temperature fluctuations. Not only do these fluctuations have the potential to damage all the items you store in side, but it can wreak havok on your energy bills. Depending on the layout of your home, a poorly-insulated garage can ever have an affect on the temperature inside your home, especially within any rooms with a connecting wall to the garage.

So, what’s a homeowner to do? An easy solution is to add insulation to the garage door. Here’s why every homeowner should invest in this (relatively) cheap project.

Why You Should Insulate Your Garage

The most notable benefit of adding insulation in your garage is the ability to have better comfortable over the temperature. However, there are many other benefits you can expect from this easy DIY improvement.

One important benefit is the amount of energy you can potentially save. This can equate to a dramatic slash in your bills long after the insulation has been installed.

Another lesser-known benefit is that it can help create a sound-proof environment, keeping sounds out or in, depending on your situation. For example, if you live on a busy street, garage insulation can help quiet the loud noise of traffic. Or, perhaps, you are using your garage as a workshop or to learn to play the drums, insulation will help prevent that noise pollution from becoming an annoyance to your neighbors.

Areas You Can Add Insulation

Within your garage, you have three main areas in which you can add insulation. While it would be ideal to sure all three areas are properly insulated, it’s not always going to be feasible, as least not for the average homeowner.

1) Garage Door:

The easiest and cheapest area is to add insulation on your garage door. You can buy different types of insulation or buy a garage door insulation kit that has everything you need. Either way you go, this DIY project should only take a few hours to complete, and will save you thousands of dollars over the course of its lifetime.

As the main barrier to the exterior, adding insulation on your garage door is strongly recommended for every homeowner. This is especially true for anyone that has an interior wall connected to the garage.

2) Garage Walls:

Adding insulation to your garage walls is going to be a little more complex of a project. Likely, this is one area you shouldn’t need to be concerned about as homes, by law, are built with insulation in the walls. This is primarily due to the fire hazards associated with garages. Specifically, the type of combustible materials stored in the area, as well as the fact that most garages do not have a smoke detector.

Regardless, insulating the walls in your garage is something you should consider, especially when your home has an interior wall connected to it.

3) The Ceiling

The often forgotten about area in your garage, the ceiling is an incredibly important area to have insulation. If you have a bedroom directly above the garage, that room will experience the wrath of the weather outside if your garage does not have proper insulation.

Of course, adding insulation inside a ceiling is a very complex project that your average homeowner will be hesitant to embark on. You would need to consider the air flow and whether condensation may build up, which could lead to mold. This is definitely a job for a professional.

While installing insulation in the ceiling of your garage will certainly slash your energy bills and add comfort to the room above, it’s going to be significantly more expensive and time-consuming to complete and you may never fully see a return on your investment.

Types of Garage Door Insulation

Before you attempt this project, you should have a pretty good understanding of the different types of garage insulation available to you. While each of them will help you regulate the temperature and create a favorable environment within your garage, they do come with their own set of pros and cons.

1) Foam Boards:

Relatively cheap and easy to work with, foam boards are a stiff, firm insulation option that is a great choice for your garage door. Usually made from polystyrene, foam board insulation is easy to install, extremely lightweight and durable enough to handle extreme environments.

Available in large panels, foam board insulation is the easiest material for your average homeowner to work with. All you need is a measuring tape, box cutter, and an adhesive to adhere the board to the garage door. Out of all garage insulation options, this is the one that most homeowners will be interested in.

Ideal For: Installing on garage doors.

2) Batt Insulation:

Another cheap option that is easy to work with, batt insulation is going to be a great choice to install inside the walls and directly between studs. This type of insulation is typically made from fiberglass and available in precut sizes. It’s not the best choice for insulating your garage door, but can still be strategically used in this area.

Ideal For: Behind drywall, inside walls and ceilings.

3) Loose & Blown-In Insulation:

Often used within attics or between walls, this type of insulation is loose and, as the name suggests, blown into place. You can find this available in a variety of materials and is relatively cheap to buy and install. Because of the nature of how it is applied, you can fill the small crawlspaces, corners and crevices within your attic.

However, for your garage, this type of insulation may prove somewhat difficult to use.

Ideal For: Attics, crawlspaces and wall cavities.

4) Insulating Foam Sealant:

Another insulation option is spray foam, also called insulating foam sealant. This type of insulation is available in different forms. You can buy large quantities that work great for attics, or a small can of spray foam that work great at sealing the flow of air around windows or doors. For the purpose of insulating your garage door, we will only discuss insulating foam sealants available in small cans.

While a can of foam sealant is relatively cheap, these aren’t going to be the cheapest option for insulating a garage. These are best used to seal the flow of air around the edges of your garage door, or any other area that is hard to reach.

Ideal For: Small cracks, crevices and hard-to-reach areas.

Are Garage Door Insulation Kits Worth It?

This largely depends on your situation, the size of your garage door and how much time you’re willing to put into completing the project. For most homeowners, a garage door insulation kit is going to be the easiest option.

Featuring fiberglass or polystyrene panels, these kits will generally come with enough pre-cut panels to cover a garage door with a width of 9 ft. Equipped with pretty much everything you need, you can buy a garage insulation kit at a variety of retailers, including Home Depot, Lowes or Amazon. The cost of an insulation kit will range from about $70 to $100.

The Downside of Pre-Packaged Insulation Kits

The downside of buying a pre-made insulation kit is that they are all designed for the same size garage door in mind. This may leave you too much, or not enough, insulation to complete the project.

While this is an easy problem to resolve, nobody wants to pay for something that they don’t need. Or, be forced to make a second trip to the hardware store because you discovered at the tail-end of the insulation process that you don’t have enough materials to complete the job.

Do-It-Yourself Garage Door Insulation

While a garage door insulation kit is certainly a convenient option, you can often get better results by simply building our own kit. This is an easy DIY project that shouldn’t take more than a day.

It entails separately buying all the materials you’d find in a garage insulation kit, and then replicating your own insulation and putting in a little bit of work on your own. Customizing the insulation to fit your garage door ensures that you get maximum coverage, leading to increased savings and comfort.

How to Install Insulation on Your Garage Door

Below are some general tips you can follow to help you install insulation on your garage door.

Materials You Will Need:

Foam insulation panels
Box cutter or razor blade
Adhesive or glue

Installation Instructions:

Measure Door & Calculate Material Needs — First, measure your garage door and calculate how much insulation you will need. Measure the dimensions of each panel on your garage door. Typically, these panels will be the same size, making it easy to calculate how much insulation you will need.
Buy Materials — Next, head over to Lowes, Home Depot or your preferred hardware store and purchase the required insulation. While you’re there, you will also want to pick up some adhesive to glue the foam insulation to the garage door. Also, a box cutter, if you don’t already have one.
Cut Foam Insulation to Size — Now that you know the dimensions for each panel on your garage door, cut the foam insulation to size. Repeat this step until you have cut enough insulation to cover the entire door.
Adhere Insulation to Garage Door — Open your adhesive and start adhering your cut insulation to the door. If needed, you can use a little bit of masking or duct tape to help you hold each foam panel in place as the glue dries.
Let Dry — Allow plenty of time to completely dry. The amount of time may differ depending on the type of adhesive you use. Generally, a few hours will be sufficient, but it may be wise to wait a full day to allow the adhesive to bond.
*Optional: Apply Foam Sealant &mash; To really put the final touches on this project, you can use a can of foam sealant to help fill in any small gaps. This could include between the foam panels on the garage door, or even the small openings along the wall just inside the garage.

Please Note: The DIY option may cost a bit more in materials and time, but it’s well worth it in the long run.

Tag: diy