Does walking out to your garage make you feel creepy crawly, like you don’t know if you’ll move a toy and find a spider, squirrel, a family of mice, or all of the above? Or maybe you’ve been noticing water creeping into your garage after a big rain? Been right there with ya. Your garage space is the ideal home for pests- dark, warm, and safe. Today we’re going to reclaim our garage space by replacing the seals around the garage door and solve (hopefully most of) those creepy crawly problems and water woes.
Replace the garage door bottom seal
Check the weatherstripping on your garage door where the door meets the floor of your garage… Is it cracked, peeling, torn, or just all around junky?
Did you know that most garage door bottom seals can be replaced? Check to see if the weatherstripping can slide out of the retainer track. If so, pay attention to shape of the track and top of the weatherstripping. The two most common retainer track types are U-shaped and O-shaped. U-shaped retainers have two tracks side by side and the weatherstripping and O-shaped, sometimes called P-bulb, have a single track that hold a loop style weatherstripping.
Slide the weatherstripping out the the track and slide a new weatherstripping of the same type into place. Some common issues you can run into are damaged track or debris keeping the weatherstrip stuck in place. You can use a flat head screw driver to open up bent areas of the track and spray soapy water onto the track to get things moving!
Worst case scenario, if your retainer track is beyond repair or won’t let the weatherstrip go, you can replace the retainer track all together. Once you have a track that will work, detach the old track by removing the screws from the underside of the track (you may have to trim away the weatherstripping to see them).
SHOP | U-shaped weatherstrip | O-shaped/P-bulb weatherstrip
Replace the top and side garage door seals
Does light peek through the sides and top of your garage door when it’s closed? Consider replacing the top and side seals! My favorite weatherstripping for this job is a PVC (waterproof material) door stop moulding with an attached strip of vinyl. They typically come in 7 to 9 foot sections.
Measure the width and height of the outside garage door opening. You will need three or four sections of door stop seals, depending on the width of your garage. Pick up a package of white exterior rated trim nails.
Trim the moulding to length with a hacksaw or miter saw, cutting the vinyl section with scissors or a utility knife. Start with the top seal. Push the vinyl weatherstrip against the closed garage door at a 45 degree angle and hammer in the trim nails to attach. Do the same for the sides.
SHOP | Top and side garage door seals
The best thing you can do to keep pests at bay is sealing up your garage. Even so, you will get little visitors every now and then. Keep up with your pest control and keep as much clutter off of the floor as possible!
Check out these videos on sealing your garage on my Instagram!
If you looking for more garage-related projects, check out these!
Thanks for stopping by!