Best Garage Door Insulation Kits: Top Picks for Weatherproofing

The best garage door insulation panels are made by Matador. This company has a reputation for creating user-friendly and high-quality products. As you can see from the Matador garage door insulation kit reviews, this product is incredibly popular with first-time users and repeat customers alike. 

The feature that sets this product apart from its competition is how it is installed. The Matador garage door insulation kit simply needs to be cut to size and then relies on the door rails to keep it in place. This gives the polystyrene door panels a clean finish with minimal effort. The laminated exterior is also very easy to clean, and the finish is highly impact-resistant. 

Despite having the best garage door insulation kit reviews, the Matador insulation has surprising negative features. This insulation actually has the lowest R-value compared to the other options on this list. The product also only covers a small surface area, so multiple car garages would require a lot of product to complete.

The most cost-effective option for insulating your garage is the Reach Barrier. This product is a radiant barrier that benefits from being lightweight and easy to customize. The garage door insulation kit comes with eight pre-cut insulation panels that can be trimmed with just a utility knife and straight edge.

The Reach Barrier's most notable feature is its price. It can insulate a steel garage door at a fraction of the cost of its competitors. The outer layer is made of a unique reflective polyethylene material that can block up to 95 percent of reflecting heat. The reflective barrier and bubble layer adhere to the door with five sticky pads that come included with the kit.

Despite being the best garage door insulation for heat and cold weather, the Reach Barrier may not be the right choice for you. The surface of the door panels cannot be painted, so depending on how you like the look of the material, that could be a big drawback. Also, because of the trimming that is required, it can be a messier installation compared to others.

Owens is one of the most well-known names when it comes to insulation. The Owens Corning insulation kit is a popular product because of its effective weatherproofing and ease of installation. This is also the only product on our list that provides soundproofing to your garage door. 

The Owens Corning insulation has an R-8 rating, which is one of the highest grades any insulation can have. The garage door insulation kit can handle both warm and cold seasons while saving you money on heating (or cooling) costs. The fiberglass sections are easy to install, only requiring basic tools to get the job done. 

This excellent insulation product does have a few faults. This insulation kit is the only one on our list that requires a garage door to have some form of insulation already before it can be used. Some users say there are not enough clips included with the purchase, and sometimes the tape will not hold on very hot days. 

It might sound like a marketing gimmick, but it’s true: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration doesn’t just engineer super-powerful construction materials, it also sells them to the public. Insulation is literally a matter of life and death on the space shuttle, so you can be sure this product has been rigorously tested.

This NASA garage door insulation kit is made of reflective white foam, and measures 16 feet by 8 feet, though it also fits 16 x 7 doors. With an R-value of 8, it just takes a small layer to cut way down on heat transfer in and out of your garage. It’s also easy to mount. If you install it the way the manufacturer recommends—leaving a gap between the insulation and the door—it’ll be even more effective.

The downside is that the tape is exceedingly strong. This wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t such a pain to clean every surface and align the material just right. But it is a pain, so we don’t like that you can’t easily remove the tape to try again. This also makes uninstalling this kit more difficult than it needs to be.

Cellofoam’s garage door insulation kit is a trade-off in many ways from the higher-end products offered by sources like NASA. It has a lower R-value, meaning you’ll need a thicker layer to effectively insulate your garage. Each panel only applies to a single-car garage door, so you’ll have to buy two to cover a two-car garage.

Yet there are plenty of features to recommend Cellofoam, and we’re not just talking about the lower price. These eight styrofoam panels are easy to install. In some garages, they fit so well you won’t need adhesive. In others, they might not fit immediately but are a cinch to cut down to size. We also like that they look great, and are easy to clean.

Other than the low R-value and the price of getting two for a double garage, we take issue with the results of cutting this insulation down: It’s easy to do, but you’ll get styrofoam bits absolutely everywhere, so bring a broom and dustpan.

This insulation is the reflective foil kind that will make your garage look like a Star Trek set, but it’s worth it (also, that might be a feature for some people). With an R-value of 8.5, it’s one of the most efficient insulators on our list, while also covering a two-car garage for a very budget-friendly price.

The product includes four rolls of 2-foot by 18-foot insulation, along with detailed instructions for installation. It keeps heat inside in the winter, and outside in the summer, well enough that the temperature in your garage will always be about 20 degrees closer to the average than the temperature outside.

Of course, there are some drawbacks. The big one is customer service: It can be hard to get in contact with Ant Enterprises if you have a problem. Like with some other kits, the tape only really works once, so you have to be extremely diligent with your cleaning and measuring if you want this kit to work for you.

When we checked out SmartGARAGE’s reflective door insulation kit, we were wary: Double-sided reflective sheets like this one are often much more effective in the summer than the winter, and we were hoping for a true all-season product.

Luckily, this insulation kit gave us nothing to worry about. Its outer layers are made of pure aluminum rather than mylar, which combines with an internal layer of polyethylene foam to block heat transfer at any temperature. All of these materials are non-toxic and recyclable, and serve to block humidity and sound while they control heat.

This kit ships with four rolls, enough to cover most two-car garages, and includes enough double-sided tape to mount the entire kit. The price is a little high, but it doesn’t take long to pay for itself in electric bill savings.

The true caveat with SmartGARAGE’s insulation kit is that it’s not very sturdy. While installing this, it’s easy to tear or damage the rolls, which is aggravating since there’s no extra insulation in the package. If you have a five-row garage, or if you damage one roll and need a replacement, you’ll have to buy a whole new kit.

For a change of pace, here’s a different kind of garage door insulator: a weather strip you attach to the bottom of your door, in order to keep the elements out of the leakiest part of the mechanism. Panady’s garage door seal, made out of PVC rubber, is 20 feet long but can be cut down to fit smaller garages.

There’s a ton of reasons we like this insulation. First and foremost, it truly is universal, so if you’re wondering whether it fits your garage door, the answer is yes. Second, it actually works. While it doesn’t cover the entire door like the other insulation kits on this list, you’ll still notice your garage becoming a lot more comfortable (and your electric bill getting correspondingly lower).

In addition to regulating temperature, Panady’s weather strip is waterproof, debris-resistant, and easy to install. On top of everything else, it’s also easy to recycle.

As enthusiastic as we are, there’s a limit to what a weather strip this small can do to insulate your garage. It leaves a lot of areas uninsulated, doing nothing to help with sunlight baking the garage door itself. Also, the required adhesive isn’t included.

For those of you looking for a cheap, low-hassle solution for garage weatherproofing, here’s an alternative weather strip—one that’s almost as effective as Panady’s, but one we don’t like quite as much.

First, the positives. This rubber strip is nearly 0.7-inch thick and handily repels all solid and liquid debris while keeping heat and humidity manageable as well. Installation is a simple two-step process, though the glue isn’t included. Once it’s down, you’ll be able to use this weather strip for years; the rubber is highly durable and hardly ever warps or cracks.

There are two reasons we aren’t quite as enamored with this seal as we could be. The top edge is too hard to form a proper seal with the garage door—we prefer a bit more moldability. Also, the adhesive surface doesn’t grip that well. While the material itself won’t degrade, you might notice it sliding around a lot.

To finish up, we’d like to share another less-conventional choice. Reflectix Bubble Pack insulation is a universal insulation product, designed to work not only on garage doors but also walls, attics, car floors, and anywhere else heat transfer is a problem.

The outer layers of Reflectix Bubble Pack is aluminized polyester, also known as mylar or “shock blanket” material. Combined with the airier inner layer, these space blankets give Reflectix an R-value of about 6—fantastic for the price.

It’s not ideal for construction applications, but you’re here to keep your garage liveable, not build an attic. For that purpose, Reflectix works great. When fully applied, you’ll notice your garage remains between 10 and 20 degrees cooler in the summer.

You’ll have to carefully measure and cut this in order for it to fit your garage door, and of course you’re on your own for adhesive. The biggest drawback of Reflectix Bubble Pack, though, is that it’s a hot-weather material only. This insulation cools best when it can do so by reflecting sunlight; unfortunately, it’s not nearly as good at keeping heat inside.