We have a finished attic. Typical kind, I think, side walls slope down to about 3-4 feet from the floor, then become vertical.
Behind the vertical part of the walls is storage space. There is a door on each wall giving access to that space. The walls have fiberglass insulation on them, but the doors don't.
Since the door feel noticably warmer than the walls on a hot day, I'd like to put some insulation on the door. Any suggestions on how I might attach the insulation?
Thanks,
Sam
I would get the white foam insulating panels. You can cut them to fit as required and then just glue them in place. Put them on the inside the storage area.
Charlie
Thanks. I was thinking of ways to attach fiberglass. Foam panels make more sense. I'll have to see if Lowes of Home Depot carries something like that.
Sam
Hi, Styrofoam you mean. Has better R value than fiberglass batt. Also easier to stick to door. You can get one side with foil as well. Tony
Two possibilities Foam board glued to the door panels or fiberglass bats held in place by Vinyl ( e.g. garbage bags and staples.
First, you need to define what is the insulated envelope of the attic. In your case, it sounds like the insulated envelope runs down the sloped roof to the knee walls (that's what the 3-4 foot high walls are called), and then would need to run under the floor of the storage area. The idea is that you have a unbroken surface of insulation across the entire roof. In your case, as you have identified, you need insulation in the doors to the storage area. Also, if you are *really* doing it right, you should have weatherstripping on the doors, insulation under the floor in the storage areas, and technically, you should ventilate the storage area and essentially make it be part of the outside. Assuming you have eave vents, they should open up into this storage area and then have a path above the sloped roof insulation all the way to a ridge vent. This is admittedly a lot of work to accomplish all of this.
An alternate way is to make the insulated envelope be the entire underside of the roof deck. Continue to run the insulation down the sloped part of the roof in the storage areas. In addition to keeping the heat from getting through the door to the storage area, it will also keep the storage area itself more comfortable, if that matters to you, such as if you have items stored there that are sensitive to heat or cold. But the tradeoff to this is that you are also paying to heat/cool that storage area, which may not make any sense to if all you are storing there is the Christmas decorations that you get out once a year. Also a lot of work to do this.
Of course, just putting some rigid insulation panels on the back of the door with take about 15 minutes, not counting the trip to the hardware store, and will cost you about 10 bucks, and may be adequate. Make sure you use panels that are fire rated, which I think are the foil backed panels. Plain pink or blue rigid insulation must be covered by a fire rated covering such as drywall.
Ken
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