upstairs...

[norrie]

My new garage has a second story... I guess most people would call this the attic but it has 6.5' ceilings, is 15'x25', and has the beginnings of a permanent set of stairs. I want to finish the stairs, and make the upastairs the sitting area. I'm in MN and I'm wondering how important it might be to insulate between levels. I might just put a door at the top of the steps so I can close it off when I'm not using it, but then it would take a while to heat back up in the winter. Any thought or suggestions?

 

[nova65ss]

I'm insulating mine as a big shell and putting a door upstairs to close it off from the downstairs. No need to insulate between the floors in my opinion.

Jimmy

 

[wantedabiggergarage]

Would take a while to heat back up?

Remember Heat rises.

 

[Andamo]

I live about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh so it gets cold here also. My garage is a 24 X 36 2 story. I have the same amount of room on the second level as I do on the ground floor. I partitioned off a section upstairs about 15 X 24 to use as my workshop. I closed off the stairway from downstairs to the upstairs adding a door and insulating the stairwell. I insulated the walls in the workshop area but I didn't do the floors. I have a 30,000 BTU heater both upstairs and downstairs. The one upstairs is a little overkill, but they were closing them out at Wal-Mart, so I bought 2. Even in Jan. and Feb. I can go out to the workshop, start up the heater and let it run for about 1/2 hour ( it has a small blower in it ) and when I come back out in 1/2 of a hour, it's comfortable. It's not a living space, so that's why I didn't do anything to the floors. Do everything else ( walls, ceiling upstairs and such ) and if it's not comfortable, then consider the floors. Good luck.

 

[norrie]

Thanks for all the input. I suppose heat does rise, and if I didn't insulate the floor between it would get pretty warm up there even if I did have a door to the steps. I wonder if it would really be neccesary to have a seperate heater up there since I'll almost never use the up and not the downstairs, but I also wonder how much I could lower my heating bill if I only heat the downstairs when I'm only using the downstairs. This is starting to sound like a bit of a double-edged sword... more expence to seperate but the heating will be cheaper, or pay more to heat and less to set up.