Quote:
Originally Posted by roadrnnr
just wondering if this is done in here to reduce heat in the garage?
I have a small courtyard villa
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I live in a courtyard villa. If your garage door is hit by sunlight, insulating the garage door helps a lot. (I have two layers on mine—styrofoam panels and reflective foam and bubbles. I did it myself last winter. It was a lot of work, as the hurricane bracing has to be removed to install the insulation.
Yes, insulating your attic over the garage will help a lot, too. I had SolarGuys install an attic fan. They did a great job, but it didn’t help much, it uses a lot of electricity, and it’s pretty expensive. The problem is that if it’s 90° in the shade and humid, that fan is pulling 90° humid air into your garage, and it won’t feel cool, even if it is getting rid of air that is even hotter than that.
Once you’ve insulated your attic and garage door, what is next. Well, if you take your car out somewhere in the daytime, when you drive it back into your garage, it is going to radiate heat like a hot iron or a wood stove. So, instead of parking in the garage, park it in the driveway, then pull it into your garage an hour after sunset. That will help a lot.
The temp here at night at this time of year drops down to the mid to low 70s. If your garage door is open all night, your hot concrete slab in the garage and the car and Sheetrock and everything will cool down. Then close the door at dawn, and it will be a lot cooler all day than it would have been otherwise. But I definitely do not recommend that. For a year I used a sliding screen on my garage door and left the main door open. That kept things cooler at all times. Then an expensive bicycle was stolen in the night. No more screen door.
Essentially, having a cooler garage is like having a cooler house if you don’t have air conditioning. In much of the country, people open their windows at night and use a whole house fan in the attic to expel the warm air and suck in the cooler air. Then at dawn they close all the windows and curtains and blinds to keep things cooler. That works, to some extent, but around here, that air that gets sucked in is very humid, and again, I really don’t recommend leaving your garage door open at night.