Insulate garage?
 

Hello Everyone,

Wanted to ask if there is any benefit to adding insulation above the garage. Not going to be used for anything other than car parking. Thanks.

It won't do much of anything. Insulation is used to slow down heat transfer between a conditioned space and an unconditioned space. In this case, both the garage and the attic above it are unconditioned spaces.

I agree not much if any benefit, also, you probably have some plywood (or osb) in the attic for storage, this would need to be removed and replaced. You would probably need fiber glass bat type insulation in this area. I would not spend the money, and I actaully have a work shop in my garage and work in there all the time.

nope, no reason. you won't recoup the expense

Question... if you have a south facing garage, would it be worth it to insulate the garage door?

I don't think it is worth doing, but I know others will disagree. Put a thermometer in your garage and monitor the temperature at various times. If it is significantly higher than the outdoor temperature, then you may benefit from an insulated garage door, but I doubt that there will be much of a temperature difference.

I'm on the other side of the fence...............At construction it was a very small investment and I'm glad we did it. Our garage is much cooler than like houses and facings on our street. There is a notable difference on hot days, pulling the golf cart into the garage.


And I'm one of those who think garage door screens are silly.


Good Luck.
:clap2:

To help avoid very hot garage temps

Don't pull hot cars into the garage. Let them cool off a couple hours outside before bringing them in.

We did this and it reduced the temp by around 15- 20 degrees
 

I bought a few rolls of insulation reflective foil and "tented" the area above our garage (stapled the foil to the roof trusses) cut in a fold-back "door" in case we need to access any other area of the roof. Sealed the joints with the same tape used for A/C ducting. We then lined the garage door with 2" insulation sheets - easy to do. The whole project took a weekend and cost less than $300.00 Measured the before and after temperatures and it was a consistent 15-20 degree drop. So good result based on the time and $$ investment.

Has anyone installed or considered a solar attic fan like the ones SolarGuys installs? We're thinking of having them install one to remove the hot air from the attic.

So, you basically cut off access to the rest of the attic with the foil, which kept the heat from that part of the attic from coming into the attic space above the garage?

Does that sound right? The 2" insulation on the garage door - is that those 4 x 8 sheets they sell at Lowes/HD ?

Had one of theirs installed here a few years ago when we moved it .... have no idea if it made any sort of difference. We had one up north but it was a much larger 120V powered fan with louvers and it did drop temps about 10 degrees and we KNEW when it was running. If you asked if I would do it again here ... I'd say no. In fact, I have no idea if it's even still spinning! Can't get to it or see it from garage access. I guess, like chicken soup, "it can't hurt" but ........

Our garage faces directly due west. We had a new garage door put in when we had our garage "stretched" to a 2-car and got an insulated one. It's not as hot to the touch on the inside as before but not sure if it made much or any any difference to the extreme garage temps on 90+ degree days. We had one of those <cough> "silly" screens (a slider) installed and keeping the garage opened and the screen closed made a HUGE HUGE HUGE difference compared to with the door down even on the hottest days and kept the bugs, snakes, elephants, geckos, lions, tigers & prying neighbor's eyes out during the day when the garage door is opened and the screens closed. I guess that's because it at least allows some air movement.

Roof insulation
 

Yep, and the foil insulation protected that area from the heat of the roof - so the insulation is near to the roof as opposed to heating up the area above the garage. Can't believe the difference in heat when i walkthrough to the non-foil area of the roof. Alos makes it,ot more comfortable when having to go up to the area above the garage to store or retrieve items. We used to have to wait till early morning to go up there but not anymore more.

Exactly 4 x8 sheets, just removed the support rails from the inside of the garage door, cut the sheets to size and put the rails back on. it was a 3-4 hour job.

Had a CYV with garage door facing west. Previous owner ran into garage door and left a large dent, so we replaced it with an insulated door, what a difference. Besides the heat factor the door was quieter. We also had the attic insulated with blown in insulation. This along with the door made a huge difference in the summer months. PS this was a Stucco CYV