hot garage
 

just moved into tv & have a west facing garage which is extremely hot - any tips on static cooling ? lowering the attic stairs & raising garage doors 3 or 4" doesn't help much as air enters after passing over hot conc d/w
adding 1 1/2" foam panel insulation to garage doors might help lower garage temp
thanks in adv

Insulating the doors will help a bit but this is Florida in the summer. Hot, humid and rainy.

If you are only going to do one thing insulate the door and use the Owens Corning kits which have a better R value than the rigid foam or radiant barriers that are sometimes used. I noticed a difference immediately after installing them.

Here's a recent thread that may be of some help: https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...ghlight=garage It even has same title. :)

Yes, read the other thread on this topic. In my opinon, insulating the garage door is a waste of money. It will slow down the garage heat up time, but it will not lower the ultimate equalized temperature.

Another thread with a solution that produces a noticeable improvement: https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...e-heat-309047/

Insulate.
Cheap and effective.

Get garage screens! We have a west facing garage and the screens are always in place with the garage door wide open.

We have a West facing garage. Insulated the doors and there was a noticeable difference, but still fairly hot in the garage. Propping the attic stairs open and leaving the window open also helped. The attic above the garage is not insulated so radiated heat through the ceiling will keep the temperature up. I suspect insulating the attic above the garage would result in a noticeable reduction in garage temperature.

We have a north facing garage and it is still hot. But our laundry room is located inside of the house and I do not spend long periods in the garage. So, over the 13 years we have been here, we have learned to live with it.

Ours faces east and it does get rather hot. As a result it is our storage area but we do keep our freezer there and so far it has survived the heat.

Insulate above the garage ceiling...we did that and it really helped with radiant heat. We installed a garage door screen and that also makes a big difference. Some people put in a ceiling fan along with the garage door screen. We found we didn't need to do that...the screen door was enough. Garage will be hot in the summer regardless but you can minimize it. We like Thumper's Garage Screen doors over the roll up type.

Insulating the garage doors is a waste of money. It is Florida in the summer.

Insulate the garage ceiling and install a radiant barrier in the attic.

We face west and have done all the above..still hot

I has a screen installed. Remote control and my garage is much much cooler. Can't see in unless it is night and the light is on.

Micheles Hide away screens and adding a ceiling fan to move some air. It has helped a great deal but its still warm out there. June - Sept, it's just going to be warm. Payment for the other 8 wonderful months.

thanks, ALL,,, think i'll install some 6" f/g batts 'tween the joists in the overhead where there's presently no insulation + add 1 1/2" (r8) to the garage door,,, really no way to empirically judge if it makes a difference as exterior temps will change but may be enough to 'feel' difference on skin,,, adding a garage fridge will increase heat too

Ceiling fan!
 

We don't spend much time in our garage. Laundry equipment in there, but we do laundry twice weekly and do not stand in garage waiting for washer and dryer to do their jobs. A ceiling fan, blowing in down position, and lowering garage steps about 8 inches pulls the hot air out of attic space. Leaving the garage door about a 1/3 open with sliding screens in place helps to circulate the hot air out of the garage nicely.
Being from MD, we are accustomed to hot, humid summers. The only difference here in FL is that the summer lasts longer. No worries!

We just put in dehumidifier. Made an great change. Worth every dime

Insulate over garage in attic and install fan in garage ceiling and vents in door (coolmygarage.com). Leaving stair ladder door open is fire hazard and nullifies your insurance. The door is a fire break.

After much reasearch I installed a reflective foam core product. I have a heat gun the door measured 125 before I insulated and 95 after.

Robot Check

A/C the Garage. Works Great.
Had a fan just made everything dirty.

One useful thing: If you’ve had your car out driving or parked in the sun somewhere, it may be cool inside with the AC on, but it still emits heat for hours like a giant hot iron. So if it is hot, park outside in your driveway until night, then park it in your garage. A hot car can heat your garage twenty degrees in a few minutes. If you were out driving in the evening, you may want to leave it in your driveway all night, then put it in your garage at dawn. Golf carts get hot, too, though a car has a thousand pounds more hot metal that releases heat than does a golf cart.

I installed insulation from Texas Garage sent to me in the mail. Easy install, took about an hour. No glue or dismantling. I have an east facing garage and lowered the temp about 20 to 25 degrees making it much easier to take.

Insulated our attic several months ago - see post under the thread on the plastic commode valves.

My garage faces south. I have radiant barriers in the attic and have had the garage door insulated. I had screens installed which I believe is the best way to keep the garage bearable. It doesn’t get any hotter than it is outside. It’s still hot but it’s Florida. I have neighbors that installed the rolling ac units. They vent out the window but do not extend to outside so I guess they are ok to have. I can imagine how much electricity they use to cool a garage.

We put a motorized screen on ours.

Ohiobuckeye
 

Well I disagree. Insulating the garage doors does help. Anything else is to expensive & a waste of money. If insulting the garage is a waste of money what do you suggest to do to make money cooling the garage & benefiting the inside of the house. Seriously the only thing you’re doing is keeping the car cool. Really put your hand on a metal garage door & see how long you can leave it there then do the same on a insulated one. If you say everyone has the heavy wood ones, they’re already suppose to be insulted. So insulting a wood door is a cheap compared to anything else. Maybe air condition it! Not putting you down retiredguy123, but insulation is the cheapest & anything else is a waste of money because there’s nothing that’s going to get it real cool.

Simple solution!
 

Use the garage screen doors, also a screen door instead of utility room door, and open one window in the house. The breeze will cool very easily!

:a040::MOJE_whot::clap2:

I appreciate your opinion. When you have two spaces separated by a wall (or garage door), heat will flow from the hotter space to the cooler space until both spaces are at the same temperature. If the garage door is insulated, the heat transfer will be slowed down, but eventually, both spaces will achieve the same temperature. Some people have said that, by insulating the garage door, they have been able to lower the garage temperature by as much as 20 degrees. Heat transfer just doesn't work that way.

we insulated our west facing garage and added insulation above the garage and the Lanai. It helped a lot but it still gets hot in the garage. I'm considering the radient barrier in the garage attic but not sure about the economic benefits.

I got a dehumidifier but it gives off a lot of heat so was still hot but drier air. Doesn’t yours generate a lot of heat?

Ohiobuckeye
 

OK, I don’t disagree but you did say it was a waste of money to insult. So not criticizing you but what is a cheaper way to do it than insulting? All I’m saying is it does help. I insulted my metal garage doors & it did help some. I’m open for suggestions to do my garage doors cheaper than insulting. This is the only thing out there they offer for garage doors.

Insulating garage door will slow the radiant heat transfer from the door. Insulating the space over the ceiling will be more effective but you lose storage space. Put a fan in the ceiling, and open the door, and you will get the temperature down to ambient, but you might have a fire code issue. A ventilator fan in the attic, with the garage stair propped open and the garage door open might work too.

If you go to a screen, get a white one. White will reflect the sun & heat better, and during the day no one can see inside the garage. I noticed the black(ish) screens around the neighborhood allow me to see everyone's stuff in their garage, and I wasn't even trying! The white screens don't let me see inside. Of course, at night with a light on everything can be seen regardless of screen color, but during the day even a slight reflection of sun and heat will help along with other heat reduction measures being taken.

How much does a double car garage screen door cost? Approximately--how much?

Yep I have a west facing garage too...hotter than blazes in summer....I put insulation board R22 on back of door and fixed into place with spray in foam. (Remember to re-adjust your spring tension after you do that as the door weight will be different). It helped. I also put window tinting on windows. That helped. I put an exhaust fan in garage window with a thermostat to come on over 80 degrees. (You could make it more but I have a refrigerator in my garage and I need to keep the temp down as much as possible). I do not like the sight of louvers in the garage door to let in air, but that is another thing you could do. I spoke to a solar ventilation vendor about putting in vent fans in attic to cool above garage...he said might reduce it "a little" maybe 4-5 degrees. I didn't find that cost effective. I did however blow in additional insulation over my garage as the development did not have any insulation over the garage originally. That was cost effective and helped too. All in all I lowered my garage temperature mid-day during the summer about 10-12 degrees. Not much but where it really helps is in the morning in summer and during the spring and fall when the sun isn't so direct. Then it is noticeable.