Cool in the Summer: Thermodynamics and your Insulated Garage Door

Having an insulated garage door will keep your garage warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It’s not magic. It’s all down to the laws of thermodynamics which you may remember from your schooldays as the laws that describe the transfer of energy. Originally, they were drafted to explain how heat moved in steam engines. Gradually physicists realised these laws described all movement of heat everywhere in the Universe (including through your garage door).

First Law of Thermodynamics

The first law is concerned with the conversion of heat into work in a closed system such as a steam engine. Ultimately, it evolved into the law of the conservation of energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed it just changes its state. That’s why your garage gets warmer (heat is a form of energy) when you are working in there – especially if you are using power tools.

Second Law of Thermodynamics

Heat always flows from a hotter place to a colder place. Hot things get colder until eventually everything is the same temperature (literally everything – this is known as the heat death of the Universe). This is the law that explains how an insulated garage door can keep your garage warm in the winter and cool in the summer. In winter, the heat from your artificially heated interior of your garage wants to flow outside. In summer, the tropical heatwave outside wants to get in. An insulated garage door slows down the passage of heat transfer whichever direction it is going in.

If you would like to improve your garage door’s resistance to the flow of heat described by the second law of thermodynamics, then check out our range of insulated sectional garage doors from Garador. The pressed metal panels conceal insulating foam that will keep the heat where you want it.

To see our doors in action, drop by our showroom on the Sweet Briar Industrial Estate in Norwich.

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