Insulating garage in CT

[Bob M]

I have a raised ranch which has two bedrooms over a garage. Last winter, these rooms were colder than the other rooms in the house. I'm going to insulate the ceiling of the garage with the following:

Then I'll have drywall installed over that. I'm going to add more insulation to the attic.

I was also planning on insulating the walls (having blown in insulation put in) and possibly insulating the garage doors, adding better weather stripping around garage doors, etc. My goal would be to increase the temperature of the garage so that the bedrooms stay warmer. I would have to insulate one full wall, one half wall (the foundation makes up half the wall), and the wall where the garage doors are. The interior wall to the house is insulated.

However, the following site:

says that if you're not going to heat the garage, insulation may actually make the garage cooler in the winter and not warmer. Because my garage is completely packed with stuff when both cars are in there, I doubt I'll use it much for any work. I may change oil and the like every once in a while. I may also use it every once in a while for other projects, though these projects would be few and far between (by this, I mean the amount of times I'd actually want to heat the garage would be maybe once per month or less during winter).

So, is there a benefit to insulating a garage in Connecticut, if one does not necessarily want to use the garage as a working space?

[Edwin Pawlowski]

The cave effect is interesting. For a free standing building, the loss of solar may be a real factor, but the garage under the house is already a cave and probably have little sun exposure. I'd insulate.

The only heat, of course is going to be what you introduce from the heated house, and possibly from bringing in a car with a hot engine. I don't know the balance between a hot engine and a cold mass of metal though. Right now, the garage is acting as a big vestibule like older houses had. Ed

[Joseph Meehan]

From my experience you are better off with insulation. That theory is correct, but it is also incomplete.

Most of us are interested in having the garage warm in the morning when we are leaving for work, not at sundown. Their theory would mean that the garage would be the coldest in the morning. With insulation I have to believe (and my personal experience also agrees) that it is warmer in the morning with insulation.

[TSLtrek]

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My personal experience agrees with Joseph...my insulated garage is noticeably warmer than the outside air in the morning.