You may have considered using the room above your garage as a private study or a spare bedroom. Maybe you’ve already repurposed it. Whatever the scenario, you may discover that your above-garage room isn’t comfortable enough for living. This is because the insulation in such rooms isn’t usually at par with the rest of the house. Whether it is excess heat or cool drafts, proper insulation is necessary to make the room more habitable. Consider spray foam insulation in Austin to make your above-garage room more habitable.
Do You Really Need Above-Garage Room Insulation?
Extreme temperatures are some of the common issues encountered when one attempts to use an above-garage room as a living space. Poor insulation is responsible for allowing significant amounts of heat to escape from a room. This can result in an abnormally cool room that makes it uncomfortable. This scenario is a serious problem if you live in a place that experiences very low temperatures. Of course, heating such a room to the appropriate temperatures will mean overworking your heating system, resulting in high energy bills. Proper insulation helps to address this problem.
In addition to temperature control, insulation also helps to keep out significant amounts of unwanted noise. This is necessary if you live in a bustling part of town.
Materials Used for Insulation
To achieve proper insulation in your above-garage room, the following materials are ideal for the task. These include:
i)Blown-in cellulose: This type of insulation material is very eco-friendly because it’s made of wood and recycled paper by-products. Its malleability is such that it can permeate nooks and crevices, meaning it can conform its shape to that of surrounding structures like ductwork and radiators. Blown-in cellulose is also good for keeping vermin away.
ii) Spray foam: Spray foam is a popular type of insulation used by many industry experts. It comes in as a liquid foam before being applied. This makes it ideal to get into hard-to-reach areas. Spray foam expands before it dries. This characteristic makes it ideal for sealing deep cracks and crevices, making such spaces impermeable to air. Spray foam also helps to avoid mold growth. For residents of a noisy neighborhood, spray foam provides sound protection, keeping out excessive noise.
iii) Fiberglass batts: Much like blown-in cellulose, fiberglass batts are environmentally-friendly insulation materials. They come as rolls, loose fills, or pre-cut panels. In addition to noise reduction and the prevention of mold growth, fiberglass batts are also reliable fire retardants. A major drawback is that their thermal protection capabilities decrease gradually.
How It’s Done
When insulating an above-garage room, the focus should be on the walls and surfaces that enclose it. This means focusing on each surface separately for better results.
1)Insulating the Floor
The floor of the above-garage room is technically the outer surface of the garage’s roof. Insulating it well is critical. A typical floor consists of the underlayment and the subfloor. The former is particularly important in providing stability, keeping out moisture, and sound reduction, among others. The space between the subfloor and the underlayment is the area for applying the insulation material. Spray foam and blown-in cellulose are the insulation materials of choice. Fiberglass batts can also be used even though they’re likely to accumulate pollutants. Some industry experts advise against their use due to this reason.
While some homeowners choose to do this themselves, it’s best to get a professional to do it.
2) Insulating the Garage Ceiling
The garage ceiling is part of the above-garage room’s floor. For many such rooms, insulating one side is enough. However, for such rooms with spacious layers separating them from the garage below, insulating the garage ceiling separately is necessary.
Sometimes, the garage may already be insulated. In such cases, it’s up to the professional technician to ensure that such insulation is still effective. Among other things, this will involve checking the insulation material’s R-value. The r-value measures how good an insulation material is at resisting heat flow. Insulation materials with higher R-values are better. Assuming there is effective insulation in place, adding spray foam insulation to any cracks in the garage ceiling doesn’t hurt. This extra insulation ensures that cold drafts don’t find their way through the garage ceiling into the room above.
If the garage ceiling lacks any previous insulation, the professional will need to drill some holes. Spray foam or high-density blown-in cellulose can then be installed through this hole.
In addition to the garage ceiling, it’s advisable to check the garage as a whole. Assuming its insulation is poor, this is likely to detract from any efforts to insulate the room above it. Properly insulating all the garage walls and doors will do the trick. Using spray foam can get the job done. For the garage door, a few fiberglass batts can be added to keep to make the garage warmer. The idea is to use materials with an r-value ranging between 8 and 12. You may have to check local building codes before making some of these adjustments.
3) Improving the HVAC System
All the insulation efforts for an above-garage room will be ineffective if the HVAC system isn’t set up correctly. For many homes with a central HVAC system, it may not extend to the above-garage room. Contacting an HVAC technician to make this adjustment is necessary; it’ll ensure that all your other insulation efforts pay dividends. This may require adding some extra registers—the conduits that channel air from the vents into a particular room i.e. the above-garage room. Adding space heaters inside the above-garage room can also help if the HVAC system cannot be improved due to technical or structural issues.
4) Insulating the Exterior Walls
A typical above-garage room has no insulation in its exterior walls. This contributes significantly toward making it uncomfortable due to issues like cold drafts. Spray foam and blown-in cellulose are the insulation materials most effective to curb this problem. To install them, the technician won’t need to tear out any drywalls. The cellulose insulation may not permeate every tiny space, given its curdy nature. Spray foam has no such issues, making it ideal for this task. While some homeowners may opt for blown-in cellulose due to its cost, spray offers long-term durability.
Reach Out to Stellrr Insulation & Spray Foam
Have you had insulation issues at your residence? Maybe it’s just a single room and not the whole house. Regardless of what it is, our team at Stellrr Insulation & Spray Foam can help. We’ve handled such issues for clients for years, helping them experience comfort inside their homes. Contact us here https://www.stellrr.com/
Name, Address, and Phone
Stellrr Insulation & Spray Foam, 401 Congress Ave, #1540 Austin TX 78701, 5125200044