Vents in O.H. Garage Door?
 

Our garage door faces West. Have put in insulation panels , that definitely help reduce heating.
I have seen several garage doors that have bottom vents.
Do these actually provide any benefits to helping keep the garage cooler??
Thanks in advance.

Not unless the air off the hot driveway is cooler than the air in the garage.

The vents are required if the house has gas.

Those small vents in the bottom of the garage door are virtually worthless for keeping the garage cooler. Don't waste your money.

:oops: Could you please give a link for this (IMHO)misinformation? :ohdear:

Off topic - Probably thinking of a requirement in some areas for a garage to have a fresh air source of you have a natural gas water heater or furnace in the garages.

Well, quite easy to cut hole and install vents With pop rivets providing you have skill and tools. Do they make garage cooler? I doubt it but it does help air circulation i would imagine? Garage going to be hot regardless I doubt you notice any temperature drop? I am one of few that can actually park car in tiny garage. I use fan up at ceiling with my hood open on hot days to move hot car air around and out garage door otherwise it sets in that and cooks till the temperature of hot engine and transmission cool down. Some A/C their garages with mini spits. For me fan works just fine. Lucky for me my garage door don’t face sun so I don’t get heat transfer in afternoons.

Get ahold of Shade Brothers and put up some outside screen shades. Facing west it’s the best thing we’ve done. Big difference on the doors and the temp of the garage. We also insulated the doors.

I had Solar Guys put in a garage exhaust fan into the attic and they also put in low vents.
I think it actually keeps the garage cooler than outside because it's always in the shade.
Cost was relatively minimal and I've had them for 12 years and I think they're great. Just my opinion. I have electric heat, so the gas was not a factor, just a cooler garage (and attic)

Vents in the garage door just let in the hot humid air... don't bother.

Our home has gas but our garage door does not have any vents.

The vents are usually installed when an exhaust fan is placed in the garage ceiling. The fan pulls air in through the vents and exhausts into the attic. Air for the fan operation needs to come from somewhere, either those vents or an open window. Not all garages have windows, thus the vents.

As for the effectiveness of the ceiling fan, your milage will vary.

Not even close. Myself and thousands of others south of 44 that have gas don’t have vents. What’s in the garage that has gas that needs vents? Remember, a garage is nowhere airtight so air will come in anyway.

As for vents in the bottom of the garage door, you know you will let hot air in to the garage so you will need to have some way to get that hot air out. Some put in a vent in the garage ceiling, hot air rises, then it will exit thru the roof vents

Any vent or fan installed in the garage ceiling must vent either directly to the outside or have a fire damper that will close in the even of a fire. You cannot vent air into the attic without a fire damper.

I've lived where those vents in the garage door were there to let flood water out. (Houses were higher off the ground but the garages were at ground level.)

If you have pull down attic stairs, wedge them open with a piece of wood. They also make an Alexa controlled window fan made for our single hung windows. That's what I do. Your mileage may vary....

Screen shades
 

Curious about how you install screen shades over a garage door?

Door vents
 

They were useful when the older electric carts were being charged and the smell was unbearable.

Useless and ugly

Doing that will compromise the fire safety code that requires a separation between the garage and the attic. If a fire starts in the garage, the smoke will migrate to the attic and spread to the rest of the house. House fires are more likely to start in the garage.

hot air rises so how can vents on the bottom of the door help out?

Sorry, but not true.

Why would one pass this incorrect information on???

My garage door faces East, and it got horribly hot in the summer, even without bringing in a hot car. I installed TWO forms of insulation in the door: foam panels purchased at Lowe’s and foil-backed bubble wrap with a white front. (I ordered the second on line, then found out about the first and thought it might be better, and ended up with two systems, so I used them.)

Installation was made much harder by the many steel beams that secure the door in case of a hurricane. Those all have to be removed. An electric screw gun didn’t work well for that, but an electric impact wrench worked very well. The bubble wrap probably doesn’t help much, but it covers the entire backs of all of the steel garage door panels. The project took me three days, working three or four hours a day.

Before, if I touched the steel door on the inside at 10 am, it just about burned me. Now, it feels slightly warm. I would estimate that the garage is a good 20 degrees cooler now in the summer. In mid summer, that might still be 95°, but that’s better than 115°. In my first home in The Villages, I had a big garage to attic fan installed with two air vents in the door. But that fan drew quite a bit of electricity, and it was sucking in hot air from near the concrete outside the door. Without the door being insulated, it wasn’t much help. Even with just using the screen door while the garage door was open, the garage might still be 95° if the outdoor temp was 95° and the fan was on.

Now, in my new home in The Villages, my washer and dryer are in the garage, but it’s bearable, as I only need to be out there one or two minutes at a time. If I need to do some woodworking in the garage, I do it about 8 am, in the shade, with the garage door open.

Ugly vents
 

Vented gargae door are not the best looking addition for sure. They provide little to no help for the unattractive look. I'm surprised the powers that be allow them when you go to "Kiss the ring" to get approval for changes to the exterior. Good luck and stay cool.

I agree and the bad part is they all seem to rust which means the repaint becomes progressively worse. They are ugly and not needed.

Coupled with a thermost controlled ceiling fan (ours is from the Solar Guys), the vents help our garage stay cooler. Our garage faces south.

Well, OP, there you have it. Lots of misinformation and speculation in 27 posts. You will not get the correct answer here.

Not true. We have gas, no vents. Nobody in our entire villa neighborhood in Fenney has vents.

Garage “cooling”
 

1. Without installing some form of additional cooling device; typically a mini split, achieving anything less than outside ambient air temperature in the garage is not possible.
2. Since my garage is south facing I put in the following items:
A. Radiant barrier in attic over garage.
B. 3/4” decking in attic over garage.
C. Radiant barrier covers in attic over attic access panels.
D. Radiant barrier on inside of garage doors.
E. Two vents, one low on golf cart garage door and one high on main garage door.
F. One ceiling fan in garage.
3. Garage temperature is always within 5 degrees of outside ambient air temperature.

Same here

We had solar guys in stall our fan about a year ago. It'll keep the garage at ambient temp...which is about 95 and humid in the summer vs. 110-115 before. It'll also keep the attic down around 105....vs. the 130-150 we were hitting without it. Insulated door kept the inside surface at around 100...down from up to 150 on some days!

It's not air conditioning but it does make a significant difference. They cut and installed the vents. I think they look perfectly fine.

Joe

I put the vents on the bottom of my doors as well as Owens Cornings insulation and an attic fan with a ceiling vent. The insulation really helps with the daytime heat from the sun beating on the doors as well as any outside noise, the vents help cool it off at the end of the day as when the attic get's hot the fan runs well after sundown and it pulls cool evening air into the garage as the fan blows the higher hot air out leaving the garage nice and cool. For the few dollars the vents cost it was well worth in my opinion.

Seems like a lot of stuff and expense for 5 degrees.

Depends on what year house was built and what county? Mine has vent to attic close to gas furnace and gas water heater.