Installing insulation in garage w/ wood siding

[axeman713]

Hello all.. longtime lurker. I bought a house and I am trying to renovate the garage. Garage is on a slab, separate from the house. I have SO MANY questions!! If you guys could provide me any advice you have, I'd greatly appreciate it!

1) New garage door - I'd like to reinforce the corner of the garage next to the garage door opening since I live in southern CA. It seems like it should be braced better to resist a side to side motion. I was going to install diagonal 2x4" inbetween the studs, and then put 3/4" plywood to tie the studs into the header better (from the interior side). What do you guys think about it?

2) Insulating the walls - I'd like to insulate and drywall the walls. The garage siding is just wood planks nailed from the exterior without any building paper behind the siding and the studs.

I'm assuming I cannot just install insulation in the wall without building paper between the insulation and the wood siding, correct? Since the siding is already installed straight to the studs, what should I do?

Should I just cut the building paper and staple it from the interior of the garage and then install the insulation over it? Would that be sufficient enough? Do you just use regular staples and staple gun to attach building paper to the studs?

3) Framing in rear 8' garage door opening - The garage has a 16' front entrance, and a 8' back entrance. We never use the 8' back entrance and I'd like to just frame it in as a wall. I'm assuming since the garage was structurally built to have an 8' opening in the back, that I can easily build in a wall instead? Anything special I should know before doing this?

4) Re-locating 32" side door - I'd like to move over the side door a few feet so the entrance isnt right next to my car. The current door frame seems like it was hacked together and it doesnt really fit right. It hangs over the edge of the foundation and bugs can crawl in; it's not a very good seal.

How do I properly install a pre-hung exterior door a few feet over from the existing opening? The part that confuses me the most I guess is the prehung doors seem like their frames are wider than my garage wall.. so what do you do? Do you cut the edge of the pre-hung frame to be skinnier?

What do you do about the bottom of the door seal with the slab? Is there a piece of trim or something you buy to seal with the floor?

5) Top plate 2x4 crack - Right near where this 32" side door is to be relocated, the "top plate" of the frame structure has a crack in the wood. How do I fix the crack? The top of the wall has 2 layers of 2x4" that meet with the roof structure. it's the top of the 2 2x4"s that is cracked. Do you think I could just glue and screw the wood back together?

6) Cracked foundation - The slab has a large crack running down the center. I have had a few people tell me it was likely caused by lack of gutters/drainage outside of the garage? Does this sound correct?

What is the process for me to fix this large of a crack? I'm assuming I have to cut a ~2ft channel and fill it with rebar and repour concrete in there?

7) Painting the ceiling - Suggestions on how I could paint the ceiling white? I'm thinking buying an air compressor for the job. I'm thinking of painting the ceiling white and leaving the trusses exposed to leave the room nice and open? What do you guys think?

If I wanted to drywall the ceiling w/ the peak of the garage and leave the trusses exposed, how could I make these trusses look more aesthetically pleasing? How could I hang drywall on ceiling? Would I have to reinforce roof w/ 2x6" before hanging the drywall?

Album of images (I dont know why they wont stay in order):
http://imgur.com/a/WRJXB

 

[matt_i]

Couple ideas...i wouldn't insulate the walls and not build a ceiling that can be insulated also. I think either one without the other doesn't buy very much. The rafter-roof design doesn't lend itself easily to a ceiling like a trussed roof, so there's that hurdle to overcome.

My guess is your concrete isn't reinforced and cracked due to a combination of settling plus the usual shrinkage of the concrete as it cures.

To build a studded wall where the garage door used to be, I would anchor a piece of treated timber to the concrete with wedge anchors. Next measure for studs, I like to cut them 1/32" long with a mitersaw so they wedge very slightly into place. Lastly I like to use the kreg jig but offset for torx drive screws to provide the "toenail" action.

 

[tjdux]

I will try and answer some of these but im not an expert.

Hello all.. longtime lurker. I bought a house and I am trying to renovate the garage. Garage is on a slab, separate from the house. I have SO MANY questions!! If you guys could provide me any advice you have, I'd greatly appreciate it!

1) New garage door - I'd like to reinforce the corner of the garage next to the garage door opening since I live in southern CA. It seems like it should be braced better to resist a side to side motion. I was going to install diagonal 2x4" inbetween the studs, and then put 3/4" plywood to tie the studs into the header better (from the interior side). What do you guys think about it?


That cant hurt.




2) Insulating the walls - I'd like to insulate and drywall the walls. The garage siding is just wood planks nailed from the exterior without any building paper behind the siding and the studs.

I'm assuming I cannot just install insulation in the wall without building paper between the insulation and the wood siding, correct? Since the siding is already installed straight to the studs, what should I do?

Should I just cut the building paper and staple it from the interior of the garage and then install the insulation over it? Would that be sufficient enough? Do you just use regular staples and staple gun to attach building paper to the studs?



Building paper is just a form of vapor barrier. The general rulenof thumb i beleive is that the vapor barrior goes on the warm side. Are you planning on heat or AC? It's possible you may not need any vapor barrier if the garage temp is gonna be close to the exterior temp most of the time.

Being in California i would guess the warm side is gonna be exterior so possibly barrier next to siding then insulation then drywall. I could be wrong here and hopefully an expert will tell us.

3) Framing in rear 8' garage door opening - The garage has a 16' front entrance, and a 8' back entrance. We never use the 8' back entrance and I'd like to just frame it in as a wall. I'm assuming since the garage was structurally built to have an 8' opening in the back, that I can easily build in a wall instead? Anything special I should know before doing this?




It looks like a sliding barn door style door? No reason you can't just frame it up. Make sure you really dont want it though. Also if that woule be an easy place to frame a man door or window.


4) Re-locating 32" side door - I'd like to move over the side door a few feet so the entrance isnt right next to my car. The current door frame seems like it was hacked together and it doesnt really fit right. It hangs over the edge of the foundation and bugs can crawl in; it's not a very good seal.

How do I properly install a pre-hung exterior door a few feet over from the existing opening? The part that confuses me the most I guess is the prehung doors seem like their frames are wider than my garage wall.. so what do you do? Do you cut the edge of the pre-hung frame to be skinnier?

What do you do about the bottom of the door seal with the slab? Is there a piece of trim or something you buy to seal with the floor?




Prehung doors are designed to bw the width they are to accommodate for wall framing and interior cladding. Your interior wall will gain at least .5 inch when you install the drywall. You want the interior door frame flush with the drywall so the trim goes on correctly.

You can probably order a thinner framed door if needed.

The bottom of the door is called the threshold and is often sealed with silicone to the concrete slab. It is generally made of metal for a garage. Many prehung doors come with a threshold and they can be bought at a home store.



5) Top plate 2x4 crack - Right near where this 32" side door is to be relocated, the "top plate" of the frame structure has a crack in the wood. How do I fix the crack? The top of the wall has 2 layers of 2x4" that meet with the roof structure. it's the top of the 2 2x4"s that is cracked. Do you think I could just glue and screw the wood back together?

It's a little hard to tell from the photo but it may be better to use a scab board that extends 1 or 2 ft each direction of the crack and lag it in. Adding screws to thag crack my just make more cracks.

6) Cracked foundation - The slab has a large crack running down the center. I have had a few people tell me it was likely caused by lack of gutters/drainage outside of the garage? Does this sound correct?

What is the process for me to fix this large of a crack? I'm assuming I have to cut a ~2ft channel and fill it with rebar and repour concrete in there?

That crack is from the ground settling under the pad. It's not good but it happens more often than you would think. If having a perfecly smooth floor is a big priority then yeah cut it out and repour is a good fix but if the soil isn't fixed that will crack too.

How long have you lived there and so you know if its stabilized? Does it grow by the month, day, year, decade? If it's not really getting worse and you can live with it the crack can be filled with, grout, silicone, epoxy ect ect... Also it will probably be cheaper to fill and forget thab repour.

7) Painting the ceiling - Suggestions on how I could paint the ceiling white? I'm thinking buying an air compressor for the job. I'm thinking of painting the ceiling white and leaving the trusses exposed to leave the room nice and open? What do you guys think?

By all means by the air compressor. We here at gj love new tools lol. But for this type of painting i beleive an air compressor may not be the correct tool. While you can paint with compressed air its generally more of an automotive/specialty thing.

For painting a small building a wagner (or any similar brand flavor) power painter would likely work great. Cheap knockoff versions can be had for 20 bucks at harbor freight but no promises they work well.

If I wanted to drywall the ceiling w/ the peak of the garage and leave the trusses exposed, how could I make these trusses look more aesthetically pleasing? How could I hang drywall on ceiling? Would I have to reinforce roof w/ 2x6" before hanging the drywall?

Are you saying you want to drywall the rafters? Judging on the style of the roof framing those are actual "rafters" and not so much "trusses" Trusses are engineered triangles that hold up the roof very effectively. They often are made offsite and brought in. Every single truss will be a triangle with 3 sides. Rafters are not connected horizontally at the bottom the way trusses are.

Point of all that is rafters are not as strong as trusses. It may not be a good idea to add much weight to them. Drywall is very, very heavy.

It can all be painted though. I personally wouldn't because i love wood, it's natural beauty and paint doesn't do it any justice. That's just my opinion though. If you were feeling very industrious you could tape off all the rafters and paint the space between them. It would look neat i feel and create an exposed timber kind of look

Album of images (I dont know why they wont stay in order):
http://imgur.com/a/WRJXB

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[tjdux]

Also please enter your location in your profile. It helps us help you.

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[tjdux]

Also another thought. Are you painting the ceiling white to help bounch more light down for working?

In that case at this point its likely less work and $$$ to just put in more simple fixturea and LED bulbs. Porclin bulb fuxtures are cheap and easy and so are the LEDs anymore. Mostly gone are tbe days of 250~500 watt bulbs to light up a small garage like yours.

You could literally run 30 LED @ 8 watts per bulb which would be a light every 2 or 3 feet making the building crazy bright and still be under 250 watts total.

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[Angelfire]

Just as a point of clarification, building paper is not a "vapor barrier". It is known as a "water resistive barrier" and is intended to keep water that makes it's way through the siding from entering the wall cavity. It also has a high permeability rating which is opposite of a vapor barrier. I really don't see a way to install it without getting water intrusion unless you pull the siding off. Perhaps there is a way but I haven't seen it.
Cheers.