# What Does Garage Door R-Value Mean?

The best selling garage doors will boast their R-Value. The R-value is a measure of thermal resistance used in the building and construction industry. Under uniform conditions, it is the ratio of the temperature difference across an insulator and the heat flux (heat transfer per unit area) through it or $R = \Delta T/\dot Q_A$. The R-value being discussed is the unit thermal resistance. This is used for a unit value of any particular material. It is expressed as the thickness of the material divided by the thermal conductivity. For the thermal resistance of an entire section of material, instead of the unit resistance, divide the unit thermal resistance by the area of the material.

For example, if you have the unit thermal resistance of a wall, divide by the cross-sectional area of the depth of the wall to compute the thermal resistance. The unit thermal conductance of a material is denoted as C and is the reciprocal of the unit thermal resistance. This can also be called the unit surface conductance and denoted by h. The bigger the number, the better the building insulation’s effectiveness. AREN’T YOU GLAD YOU ASKED!!!!

What does this mean to the average home owner looking for a quality garage door. Here’s the break down. There are several factors that would make R-Value more or less significant. How often you use the garage door, what you use the garage space for, and how well the actual garage is insulated. As a professional Garage Door Dealer its our job to survey and assess the over-all importance of purchasing a garage door with R-Value.  Don’t stress, it will be the one of the easier decisions in the whole process because it will save you money over time.

Christie Overhead Door located in Staten Island, NY has been providing residential and commercial garage doors, automatic garage door openers,  gate automation services and garage door repairs in Brooklyn, New Jersey and Long Island since 1945.

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