Cold Room over the garage

[Jsf721]

Last winter we had a bad one. Loads of snow and cold temperatures.

I have a den over my 2 car (unheated) garage. It was cold in there and we just delt with it as I was not starting any projects in the bitter cold.

Over the summer, I cut the ceiling and the insulation was from the original build in 1966. I replaced it with R13, filled any daylight with foam and sealed it back up.

This winter is very cold and my project, although cosmetically well done. Did not seem to keep the heat in any better. I have an older house and the HVAC system ductwork is not the best and this room is at the end of a run so its not as strong as the rest of the line.

At this point I need to buy a room heater and I am looking for recommendations. I placed a thermometer in the room and it seems to range 7-10 degree lower than the rest of the house. The room is 22 x 12. What do you recommend?

I am looking to properly fixing the problem so I will take 2 part answers if your inclined.

1. What heater to but (efficient electric, Programmable w/auto shut off and remote if possible)

2. What to do over the summer to get this fixed if possible.

Thanks in advance.

 

[danski0224]

Cut the ceiling where?

 

[sublime68charger]

pics of what you did and your room will help a lot with trouble shooting.

for now just get a electric space heater and adjust to your comfort level while in that room.

how well insulated are the outside walls of this room?

how about the windows?

good luck.

 

[Jsf721]

Replaced the windows 2 years ago when I re did the outside of the house. I did not photo document the work But I cut the sheetrock in the garage ceiling and replace the insulation that was in there. It was a combination of roll insulation and blown in junk that was done by someone before I bought the house. It looked like gray shredded cardboard.

I then replaced the insulation with the best I could get at home depot. I purchased the highest r value they stocked locally. I then replaced the sheet rock, spackled and painted. I itched for a week and a half.

I will snap some pictures of the room and post them up.

pics of what you did and your room will help a lot with trouble shooting.

for now just get a electric space heater and adjust to your comfort level while in that room.

how well insulated are the outside walls of this room?

how about the windows?

good luck.

 

[JCByrd24]

The issue is likely that your insulation is not up against your floor, it's down on the ceiling, rendering it ineffective (though R-13 in this service is already minimal). Heat can travel down into that void and easily escape out the ends where there is likely a thermal bridge through a sill/rim joist to the exterior. Code now requires insulation under floors to be "in contact" with the floor. To me the only batt insulation that I would use in this service is Roxul as it is very dense and will not settle away from the floor. But a dense FG batt that fills the cavity might be ok. Preferable to both would be dense packed cellulose or FG, or spray foam.

 

[theoldwizard1]

All electric resistance heating is close to 100% efficient. That does not mean it is "good", just that 1000 watts of electricity is converted in 1000 watts of thermal energy.

If the room get only occasional use a couple of electric baseboard units are not too expensive and easy to install. Thermostat and a timer are a good idea.

If you use that room a lot you will be crying the blues all winter long when you see the electric bills.

A small gas wall heater would be be very economical to operate.

If you would like air conditioning as well as efficient heat, you really need to investigate a mini-split heat pump. Not cheap to install, but it IS pretty cheap to operate.

 

[Jsf721]

Is this an efficient unit?

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lifesmar..._-204308189&ci_src=328768002&ci_sku=204308189

 

[Jsf721]

not doing a split. its on the second floor far from the gas line. Install is a fortune

If you go for the split, check the lowest outside temp that it will work at. There's a limit to how cold it is outside for the heat to work.

 

[CKS1955]

We had a few issues like this in our house. I handle it by using XPS 2" foam, cut to fit in-between the joist, caulked and sealed the joints. Then laid unfaced fiberglass on top of the foam. Spray foam would have been much easier, but the area was not large enough for a contractor to cost effectively spray. Probably to late for situation.

Jay

 

[James-W]

I am going to suggest something that I have heard is available, but I have never actually seen one. I have heard you can get a small blower that fits inside of the heat duct going to that space. It will turn on when the furnace kicks on and will blow more warm air into the room. That's all I know about it. I have no idea as to the cost and I have no idea how well they work. But it may be something you would want to check into.

 

[Jsf721]

Thanks I will look into it.

We had a few issues like this in our house. I handle it by using XPS 2" foam, cut to fit in-between the joist, caulked and sealed the joints. Then laid unfaced fiberglass on top of the foam. Spray foam would have been much easier, but the area was not large enough for a contractor to cost effectively spray. Probably to late for situation.

Jay

 

[Jsf721]

Thanks I will call my HVAC contractor.

I am going to suggest something that I have heard is available, but I have never actually seen one. I have heard you can get a small blower that fits inside of the heat duct going to that space. It will turn on when the furnace kicks on and will blow more warm air into the room. That's all I know about it. I have no idea as to the cost and I have no idea how well they work. But it may be something you would want to check into.

 

[danski0224]

The duct blower will not overcome the losses from improperly installed insulation. That is before considering where the "extra" air that the fan is pushing comes from or if the duct after the fan can make use of the "extra air". Oh, and there are different quality levels of these fans and the additional noise that they make.

If the insulation and air stopping is done properly, and if the ductwork supplying the room is sized and installed properly, it will heat and cool just fine.

Unfortunately, fixing these problems post-drywall is a lot of work.

It may be cost-competitive to insulate and drywall the rest of the garage and install a unit heater in the garage. That will warm the floor.

 

[Jsf721]

The garage I a 2 car garage, and the doors are the main egress for my kids who don't carry keys.

I guess, I have another project Insulating the garage this summer. Might also re-do the ceiling since I think there is too much air between the floor and the bat.

The duct blower will not overcome the losses from improperly installed insulation. That is before considering where the "extra" air that the fan is pushing comes from or if the duct after the fan can make use of the "extra air". Oh, and there are different quality levels of these fans and the additional noise that they make.

If the insulation and air stopping is done properly, and if the ductwork supplying the room is sized and installed properly, it will heat and cool just fine.

Unfortunately, fixing these problems post-drywall is a lot of work.

It may be cost-competitive to insulate and drywall the rest of the garage and install a unit heater in the garage. That will warm the floor.

 

[danski0224]

The garage I a 2 car garage, and the doors are the main egress for my kids who don't carry keys.

I guess, I have another project Insulating the garage this summer. Might also re-do the ceiling since I think there is too much air between the floor and the bat.

There should be ZERO air between the floor and insulation. You might as well not even have wasted the time, effort and money to install it. If you have 2 x 10 joists, you need 9.5" of insulation in there.

Given standard platform framing construction, the rim joist area needs to be air sealed (top plate to rim joist, rim joist to floor deck above, rim joist vertical seams). DIY spray foam flash can work well here.

Fiberglass insulation needs to be in contact with airtight building materials on all 6 sides and not compressed for it to be effective.

Air movement through or over fiberglass insulation pretty much negates the R value.

 

[NUTTSGT]

I'd also be curious if the wall in the cold room were insulated and how well. Thinking about that, what about the ceiling in that room ?

 

[6768rogues]

In our area, electric heat costs about 4 times as much as natural gas heat. Even running an 80% efficient gas furnace is much less costly than heating with electric.

 

[James-W]

I imagine if he wants to insulate properly he would have to tear down the walls and the ceiling and start from scratch. He may want to do that come Spring, but for right now he just wants to heat the space until warmer weather. He needs to get more heat from his furnace into the space, or he needs to get an auxiliary heat source in the space to add more heat. Obviously, insulating the space would be the best choice, but the time to do this is not when it is below zero outside.

 

[Jsf721]

Yeah, I blew it. Though I was doing the right thing but it's a fail.

There should be ZERO air between the floor and insulation. You might as well not even have wasted the time, effort and money to install it. If you have 2 x 10 joists, you need 9.5" of insulation in there.

Given standard platform framing construction, the rim joist area needs to be air sealed (top plate to rim joist, rim joist to floor deck above, rim joist vertical seams). DIY spray foam flash can work well here.

Fiberglass insulation needs to be in contact with airtight building materials on all 6 sides and not compressed for it to be effective.

Air movement through or over fiberglass insulation pretty much negates the R value.

 

[NUTTSGT]

Yeah, I blew it. Though I was doing the right thing but it's a fail.

We've all been there, it's part of the learning curve.


Since you have ductwork that runs up to that room, how much access do you have to it ? If it's not done already, tape all the duct work seams and wrap it to help with air loss and loss of heat as the hot air moves down the duct.

 

[Milzo]

There should be ZERO air between the floor and insulation. You might as well not even have wasted the time, effort and money to install it. If you have 2 x 10 joists, you need 9.5" of insulation in there.

Given standard platform framing construction, the rim joist area needs to be air sealed (top plate to rim joist, rim joist to floor deck above, rim joist vertical seams). DIY spray foam flash can work well here.

Fiberglass insulation needs to be in contact with airtight building materials on all 6 sides and not compressed for it to be effective.

Air movement through or over fiberglass insulation pretty much negates the R value.

Danski is 100% correct about insulation needs to be in an airtight enclosure on all 6 sides. I built new homes for 15 yrs for a national builder. Every floorplan we had with a bedroom over the garage was 3-7 degrees colder than the rest of the house. We would put R-30 in the floor joists beneath the room, spray foam all joints & gaps, run an hvac duct that just blew hot air into the floor system and insulate the ceiling with r-38. Even after all that the room was still colder, its just the nature of rooms over cold garages. Start heating your garage & it will eliminate your issue plus you will have warm cars. Don't waste a lot of time and $ trying to figure out a long term solution get a couple thermostat operated baseboard heaters for the winter and a window AC for the summer.

 

[Jsf721]

I have never seen it. It's buried in the walls and ceilings. House build around 1966. I purchased 20 years ago.

For the duct work I have seen and repaired and taped, it is not the best job. I replaced as much of the old ductwork with flex duct tubing and it helped a lot. I did not tear apart the whole house. After the hurricane damage whatever I needed to rip to repair was fixed the right way. It was a huge non insured expense so I did not expand on the project too much. I paid my mortgage off 2 years before paying off my mortgage. No more follow insurance requirement and never had a drop in the house. I let it go and got nailed. Lesson learned. Only cost me 130k to het it all fixed. Not posting to brag or share my stupidity. Just hoping someone else can learn from my mistake.

We've all been there, it's part of the learning curve.


Since you have ductwork that runs up to that room, how much access do you have to it ? If it's not done already, tape all the duct work seams and wrap it to help with air loss and loss of heat as the hot air moves down the duct.

 

[bczygan]

We have the same situation, a bedroom above an unheated and uninsulated garage.

Instead of insulating between the garage and the room above, we are going to properly insulate and then heat the garage........Problem solved.

 

[Platonic Solid]

Now is the perfect time to get a hold of an infrared camera and do a thorough evaluation. Best results are achieved if done late in the evening or early in the morning before the sun hits the siding. Naturally, if you do this, make sure you download them to your PC and post them here. My bedrooms over my garage are cold too, but at least I know why = the old post construction blown-in insulation done by a previous owner has either settled or was never filled to begin with. The bright yellow and white are from the forced hot air vent in the floor.

Picture taken today 2/15/2015 @ 8:00pm. Outside temp = 8°F

 

[mix123]

I recently moved into a home with something similar to this. Bonus room over the garage. Uninsulated/Unheated Garage. I live in a very cold climate. Many days -20C or colder. No heat ducts. It was pretty cold up there. The previous owners had electric baseboard heat in the room. Electricity is expensive here. I put in a natural gas fireplace to heat the room...insulated the garage. Upgraded the garage door to R16. The ceiling in the garage was already insulated and drywalled...not sure whats in there. It doesnt really matter much now that I've heated the garage and got the outer walls insulated.

Now I'm trying to figure out what optimal temp to keep the garage at is.... any ideas?

 

[bmes1982]

I have an EdenPure heater, very similar to the one you found at Home Depot. I've been using it all winter for the upstairs of my house since it seems a little colder up there and haven't noticed a difference in the electric bill at all. Upstairs is about 500 sq. ft. and it's easily 5-10 degrees warmer with the heater running.