With energy prices at eye-watering levels, many homeowners are actively trying to reduce the amount of gas and electricity they use.
From January 2024 the average annual bill is set to rise by £94, Ofgem recently announced, and if you're considering replacing or upgrading your garage door to an electric garage door, running costs are an important consideration.
So, just how much does an electric garage door cost to run? The answer is might surprise you. Just £3 a year.
Electric garage door running costs: The maths
To work out how much an electric garage door costs we've taken into account the following:
- Motor power usage on 4x 1 minute cycles per day
- Receiver power usage on 24 hour standby
- Receiver power when in use during 4x 1 minute cycles per day
At Garolla we have four different motors which are used to raise and lower our four different doors, which you can explore on our product pages.
These motors use a different wattage when in operation, but even if you opened and closed your garage door four times a day, every day for a year, this would only cost £2.42 on our biggest Titan doors.
And you would get change from a £2 coin when operating our Transform door.
All of our garage doors are powered by a receiver which is on a 24 hour standby until you press the button on your remote control fob. This standby mode uses such little energy - 0.2 watts - that it costs around 50p a year. That's the price of two Freddo bars.
In comparison, leaving your television on standby mode costs around £12 a year, according to research from uSwitch. And you can double or treble that if you have more than one television in your house.
Finally, the receiver uses a fraction more power when in operation - one whole watt. If you open and close your door four times a day, every day for a year, this will cost you less than 1p across 52 weeks.
Here are the total running costs for our four roller garage doors...
| Garolla garage door | Motor | Wattage | Weekly operating cost | Annual operating cost | Total cost per year |
| Transform | 40nM | 300 | £0.037 | £1.97 | £2.44 |
| Transform Pro | 50nM | 310 | £0.039 | £2.03 | £2.50 |
| Titan | 70nM | 350 | £0.044 | £2.29 | £2.77 |
Source: We used the Sust-it energy calculator to work out the approximate running costs. Energy prices vary.
Can insulated electric garage doors help you reduce energy consumption?
If your garage is connected to your home, then this space can be a significant source of energy loss. This is particularly true if you have an up and over garage door which has gaps around the edges, or if you have another type of garage door which isn't insulated.
Insulated garage doors are designed to reduce heat transferring from inside your garage to outside, and cold air entering your garage. If you have an internal door from your garage to your home, then you'll want your garage to maintain a consistent, comfortable temperature.
Garolla roller garage doors are constructed from twin-walled aluminium and insulated with high-density polyurethane foam. They run inside an insulated fixed side guide system which prevents draughts from getting into the garage, while a heavy duty rubber strip removes any gaps at the bottom of your garage door.
With energy prices rocketing, protecting your garage with an insulated garage door - which costs less than £3 a year to run - is a no-brainer.
Get in touch with Garolla today to discuss your garage door upgrade and to book your free, no obligation survey.