high performance garage doors?

[mrFinpgh]

I'm building a house with an eye towards high performance, if not quite passive house standards. and one of the decisions is what to do about the garage. The plan is to have a 2 car attached garage that I will use as a shop. I'm very excited to leave the basement. The garage will have 9' ceilings, which will be great in terms of vertical storage.

The issue is, I'm going to be storing my tools out there all year.  I'm thinking to put a small minisplit in, but the garage door has me a little stumped.

The architect proposed a Clopay Avante - looks slick and very modern but zero thermal performance. I would spend as much heating the garage as I'll probably spend heating the rest of the house - if not more. Clopay does have some other doors with pretty good R value, but as I investigated that, it occurred to me that I'm going to still have to deal with an overhead door and losing some ceiling real estate when the door is open.

A thought I had was to try and build some carriage style doors, but to build them in the manner that a passive house door might be built (tons of insulation, thermally broken where possible, double or triple rabbets with gaskets in each, actuated sweep). To me, this would be ambitious but also would meet my goals of 1) pursuing a higher performance standard  2) doing something bespoke and 3) contributing my own efforts to the process where I am able to.

Anyone ever tried this, or thought through a potential design approach?  Any considerations about the utility of carriage doors in a modern 18' wide garage opening?  Am I overestimating the loss of utility from an overhead door?

Thanks,
Adam

 

[Bob D.]

Nine foot ceilings seems like an odd height.

Mine is 10.5 and I wouldn't want it any lower.

 

[bruegf]

I have a 10' high double wide insulated overhead door (don't remember the brand) in my 24x50 12' wall pole barn.  I easily heat the entire barn with 18000btu ceiling mounted shop heater.  I usually keep the temp at 52 degrees and it only runs me about $20/month during the winter to heat at that temp.

I did go overboard with insulating it.  Starting at the outside of the wall I have the steel sheeting, then typar house wrap, then the girts providing an airspace, then radiant barrier followed by another 1" air space, then 4" of styrofoam sheets with all joints on the inner most layer taped as well as taped to the posts, followed by the air space provided by another set of girts, then 5/8 osb, and finally 1/2 drywall.

For the ceiling I have 1/2" foil sided styrofoam to provide a vapor barrier as well as a thermal break with all joints taped and then 5/8 drywall.  In addition I have r49 cellulose in the attic.

I also put 2' wide 2" styrofoam vertically into the ground under the skirt board and 2' wide 2" styrofoam horizontally around the inside of the skirtboard under the concrete.

Even without any kind of air handling system I've never had the interior temp go above 74 degrees in the summer even after multiple days of 90+ degrees.

Based on my experience I think a standard insulated door will not be as bad as you think as long as you don't have massive air leaks.

Fred

 

[Vondawg]

You’ve explained it all well so I doubt you have NOT thought of some of the things I’d bring up, like objects/cars/snow having to be moved to open carriage style doors. How about something like Marc (Wood Whisperer) did and seal up one door (he built a temporary wall) and only uses one, that way a lot less air leak to deal with, he’s in CO. with simular winters as we have. I’ve pretty successfully sealed/weatherstripped, my insulated garage doors so that I can work in there but admittedly my shop is connected and where most work is done . Will be interesting to see what you finally do….and like Fred said, I think you’ll be surprised how well you can seal up and not spend crazy money heating

 

[afish]

Im thinking something like those vinyl roll up doors.  Use one on the exterior as a wind break in combination with a good insulated door.  Heres a quick link I found for one, no affiliation.  Also, not sure what you are doing for dust collection but if you dont keep the dust collector within the same envelope you will be extracting that conditioned air faster than you can supply it.  So you will need to make sure you have some good filters. 

 

[Steve1]

You can readily get garage doors with up to about R14 insulation. 

I think you will have a hard time building something with better thermal performance.  Then you have to figure out how to hook up a door opener to your doors.

But, of course, a garage door will never be particularly air tight.

 

[thoufer]

If you wanted to stick with Clopay I would talk with your Architect about their Gallery line.. R-values start at 6.5 and go to 18.4.  I'm currently spec'ing out Clopay garage doors (12'x10') for a post frame build.  The gallery are nice but are probably a small fortune in the size i need.

 

 

[FestitaMakool]

Depending on the layout in yours to become garage.
- Have you thought about a sliding door?
I don’t know the availability, but brands like Crawford and Hörmann (Hoermann) make sliding garage doors. These are insulated too.

I had in my old garage. These two photos are showing a little in the background.
They are folding just like a top mount, only tilted to hang instead.

View attachment 1

View attachment 2

 

[Bob D.]

Depending on the layout in yours to become garage.
- Have you thought about a sliding door?
I don’t know the availability, but brands like Crawford and Hörmann (Hoermann) make sliding garage doors. These are insulated too.

I had in my old garage. These two photos are showing a little in the background.
They are folding just like a top mount, only tilted to hang instead.

View attachment 1

View attachment 2

Those are interesting. Could build a false wall in front of it when it's open to gain the wall space back.

It appears there is a track at ground level. What happens in the Winter with ice and snow. Does it cause problems with the bottom track When you open the door it drags all that moisture inside. Do you need to do periodic maintenance to keep the track clean.