How Not Replacing Your Garage Door Can Cost You More

Your garage door is great, eh? It just keeps on working, up and down a couple times a day, every day, year-round, and it’s like you never have to think about it. Every homeowner knows that, when it comes to maintaining the house, “there’s always something”. But that something never seems to be the door on the garage.

We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the incredible dependability of your garage door might be costing you money. Intentionally or not, most homeowners live by to old adages: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. While these are good guidelines for a lot of the maintenance around the house, they don’t apply very well to garage doors for a number of reasons.

While your garage opens and closes to let your car, or anything else, in or out of the garage, it’s a mistake to think that’s the only function of the door. In addition to its everyday operation, garage doors also help insulate your home, protect your house and belongings and they are usually the largest, single element of the appearance of your home.

To tie those functions into the ‘squeaky wheel’ and ‘if it ain’t broke’ guidelines for home maintenance, none of them squeak and it’s difficult to tell if they are broken.

And that’s where keeping your old garage door, even one that opens and closes faithfully every time you need it to can actually be costing you a lot of money. Here’s how:

1. Higher Heating and Air Conditioning Costs

Attached garages can have a huge effect on the cost of heating and cooling your home, especially if your old door isn’t well-insulated and properly sealed. Many homeowners treat the garage as being ‘outside’. So, if it’s freezing in the winter and stifling hot in the summer, it’s no different than any other part of your home with an outside wall.

Except, by having an insulated door, and insulating any outside walls in your garage, you can significantly reduce your HVAC costs and increase the comfort of your home, especially in areas of the home that are above or beside the garage.

And it’s not just energy costs you’ll be saving. Insulating your garage door and walls means less heat entering your home in summer and less cold entering in winter, which means your furnace and air conditioner have less work to do and will last longer before needing to be repaired or replaced.

2. Less Curb Appeal

Most people don’t realize how much of an effect their garage doors have on the overall appearance of their home. In many cases, the garage door can account for over 30% of the visible area of a home. That means, even if you spend lots of money to improve the exterior appearance of your house and your landscaping, if the design of your garage door isn’t up to date, or it simply looks shabby, your home will look that way too.

If you want to get a better idea of just how much a difference a new door can make to the look of your home, upload a picture of the front of your home to the Haas Create page at HaasDoor.com, which is the website for one of our top-quality garage door suppliers. Once your picture is uploaded you can highlight the area where your garage doors appear and substitute any number of new doors to see how they look on your home.

3. Compromised Home Security

Even if you have a garage door opener and a security keypad, older systems can be very easy for a burglar to get through – and garages doors are one of their favorite ways of getting into a house. If you don’t have a door opener, the simple lock on your door does little or nothing to protect everything you keep in your garage, everything in your home, and your family’s personal safety too.

There are lots of other ways a new garage door can save you money and improve the enjoyment of your home. Call us at 905-472-9178 to learn more.