What Type of Door Should Go between House and Garage?

Do you have a hard time finding the door to place between garage and house? A lot of people have a question in mind that what type of door between garage and home is best? They fail to find a single answer to this question. So, we have put the things together to assist you in making a choice. Some people prefer to use a regular door with a simple key lock which gives an open invitation to burglars into the house. The garages have flammable liquids, running engines, chemicals, and fumes. So, you need to look beyond a simple key lock door. The door should be eminent and must not be detrimental in any sense.

What type of door should you use between house and garage? The 20 minute fire-rated door should is the best possible choice. That because the 20 minute fire rated door takes longer than the specified limit to burn. However, Using the fire-rated door is not mandatory; you can take advantage of the building code exemptions and look for other cheaper options.

What to Look for in a Door that Goes between House and Garage?

First of all, you need to follow the building codes of your state. Specific features are considered to rate the door and nominate it as a “fire-rated” door, one of those features include – the self-closing hinge. Buy a self-closing hinges door to garner the maximum benefits. However, the self-closing hinges are not mandatory; you can skip this feature on your desire. The primary purpose of self-closing hinges is to keep the door closed unless you need to open it.

So, what should be the actual choice? In my honest opinion, a 20 minute fire rated door is an ideal choice, but it can be expensive for some folks. Alternatively, you can use a 1-3/8” solid core wood door which is cheaper than a fire-rated door. But, most of the doors are not 1-3/8” thick at the panels. The doors with panel won’t meet the requirement of 1-3/8” thickness; therefore, you can opt for a basic flat door which is 1-3/8” thick.

There are three types of the door that can go between house and garage which are:

• A solid wood door 1-3/8” thick
• Honeycomb core steel door 1-3/8” thick
• 20 minute fire-rated door

A 20 minute fire-rated door can make your life a lot easier!! Take a look at some salient features of a fire-rated door.

Salient features a door between garage and house should have

What a fire rated door brings to its users and what makes the door more secure, let’s take a look.

• A fire door weighs around 45kg
• A fire door should have rack bolts to protect your house better
• Five lever mortice lock
• The frame sides sealed with the foam keeps the smoke and fumes from entering the house.
• 3 Self-closing hinges
• The door should be covered with the burglar alarm
• Install pad bolts to make the door more secure
• The fire rated doors are pretty heavy, and they can protect your house with burglars. When buying a fire-rated door, avoid the door with a fake woodgrain.

The garage contains flammable liquids like – degreaser, gasoline, thinner etc. The flammable liquids are ignitable by a spark; also, the fumes generated by a running car can be injurious if allowed to flow into the home. The self-closing door can hinder the flow of harmful fumes into the house. If the door meets other safety requirements, then it may be satisfactory to use without the self-closing hinges. However, it also depends on the code adopted by your town. So, you must abide by the IRC safety standards.

I can’t find the tag, what to do now?

Well, a fire rated door is ideal to go between your garage and house. But, some people get stuck at finding the sticker. They neither see the “fire-rated door” sticker on the hinge side nor the door jamb. If you are in such a situation, here is my suggestion.

A 20 minute fire-rated door comes with a tag, if there is no tag on the door anywhere means it has no rating. Sometimes the label is on the top of the door; consider checking the top of the door.  Check the sides of the door. Very often, the sticker has been painted over by the painter. The painter removes the tag to paint the door and then put it back. It leaves uncertainty in the ratings because we don’t know if the tag is original or was taken from a fire-rated door and attached on a non-rated door.