All,
I live in Minnesota and while I suspected my attached garage was not insulated I just now got around to actually checking. The builder sheetrocked the attached garage without insulating first. There is no insulation in the attic/ceiling, either. Question: Is it worth it to tear the sheetrock off and insulate (ie. is it going to make that much of a difference in heating/cooling bills)?
Most sites I have found emphasize the importance of having an attached garage insulated.
Thanks much,
Mike
So long as the adjoining walls in the living space that share a common wall with the garage are insulated to normal exterior wall specs for your area, and the door from the house to the garage is an insulated door, then the only downside is that it gets really cold in the garage in the winter.
How far North are you? Do dipstick heaters get used around there??
Insulating the garage walls and ceiling is a daunting challenge with little energy payback to the household. Adding the garage to the conditioned space is NOT a good idea!! Garage doors are very energy leaky!!
We are in SE Minnesota so it's not like we are north of the Arctic circle, but it gets cold and it's quite windy. The wall between the living area and the garage is insulated correctly, as far as I know. The door is insulated, as well, but I am considering maybe a storm door into the garage, now.
Not sure what a dipstick heater is and while I have no plans to add the garage to the conditioned space I was a little annoyed to see that the builder sheetrocked without insulating. I'd have thought if he did not want to insulate at least it would have been left unfinished to give the owner the option.
Thanks,
Mike
Ok, not far enough north for dipstick heaters.
Oil gets very viscous on sub zero weather. A long time ago, I visited in eastern Quebec (north of northernmost Maine) in February. The hotel had outlets at every outdoor parking spot, and every car that drove in had a extension cord hanging out over the radiator. Plug the cord into the outlet and oil temps stayed above freezing. Seemed like when the weather warmed up to 0, it would snow. Most of that week, it stayed below -20F
Mike spake thus:
As long as you don't know the meaning of "plug my car in in the morning so I can start it", then you don't need to know this (it's heated dipstick to make your crankcase oil thin enough to turn your engine over).
You'd think, wouldn't you?
If you really wanted to insulate, you could do it without too much grief, I'd think, by punching holes in each space between studs at the top, blowing in insulation, then patching the holes, which isn't too bad an ordeal.
I'm in Ontario Canada and have never had an insulated attached garage. Don't realy understand the point of it unless the garage is heated, and most aren't.
Or just lag a 2x8 to the studs to cover the holes- makes a great place to put hooks for garden tools, bicycles, etc. Putting those through rock always messes up the rock where the tool bounces against it anyway.
Insulation is nice- as long as you drive the car every day, the heat from the block, plus the leakage from the house, will keep the garage above freezing on all but the coldest nights. (At least at my latitude.) And if you want to do a project in winter, a space heater in an empty but insulated garage will make the space tolerable without a heavy coat.
aem sends....
I grew up in NW Minnesota not far from the Canadian border and when I was a kid we always plugged our car in at night if it was outside. But, I don't remember doing that if the car was in a garage. Don't remember seeing the block heaters around SE MN or WI, though.
Funny, same thing my dad said. Logic of it totally escaped me. Guess I better not quit my day job. Thanks!
Mike
I bus to work, but my wife is out and about hauling the kids around places so, yes, the block would be warmed periodically throughout the day. I'll see if I can blow something into the attic, too, maybe on top of some rolls....
If there are no obstructions, it seems possible with a little ingenuity to cut the top 12" off the sheetrock and work the insulation down into the cavity. A long clamp to grip the paper and a couple of long cords might do it. Maybe not, but I would probably try it.
Don Young
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