Insulation above carport ceiling sheetrock

This 1990 house has 4 bedrooms, all upstairs. Only the one above the carport is noticeably hotter than the others. I think the most important reason is that the underside is outdoor instead of indoor (living room, kitchen etc). I asked other people whose houses have a bedroom above the garage. They all say that bedroom is quite hot in summer. Now I'm thinking of having a contractor remove the sheetrock above the car port (i.e. below the floor of this bedroom). Unless there's already insulation (I would be very surprised!), I'll have them add good insulation materials to it. Hopefully they're good enough to put the sheetrock back as if nothing has happened. What do you all think? Thanks.

I may also have the carpet in the room changed to wood floor. So doing it from above (in the bedroom) can be considered too. But I think that's more work than doing it from under.

Reply to
Yong Huang
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Call an insulation contractor. They can blow in insulation by just making holes in the sheetrock rather than taking it all down. It will be much cheaper.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

you might check to see if it already has insulation. it'd be surprising that a house built then would have none, although it might be a place the builder skimped on.

Reply to
chaniarts

The very best gold-plated solution is to take down the sheetrock (hard to salvage, get rid of it) and call in a contractor to spray foam it. Icycynene and similar are the highest R value per inch in most places..

Reply to
Joe

Nobody else said it, so I will- highly unlikely that the carport ceiling is sheetrock, aka drywall. Most likely plywood or OSB, maybe one of those plastic-coated OSB things.

Carport= no walls and no weather protection, IOW a damp location. I'm not even a fan of drywall in garages, much less anywhere the rain can blow in anytime it wants.

Reply to
aemeijers

Thanks to everyone. I removed the ceiling light holder under the car port and peeked up through the hole. There doesn't seem to be insulation, at least around where the light is installed. A contractor told me it will make more sense to improve attic ventilation than do anything to the car port. Now I ask myself, Why did I never hear anybody talk about insulation under the floor of the bedroom above car port or garage? If this idea sounds weird and nobody does it, there may be a reason. Making attic breathe better is of course good. I may do that first.

(Sorry for this late reply. I use Google Groups. It stopped working a few days ago.)

Reply to
Yong Huang

if there truly is no insulation under the floor above the car port, find a different contractor. there is most likely insulation above the ceiling in that room. with none under, it will ALWAYS be cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and the problem isn't the ceiling.

Reply to
chaniarts

I agree that there should be insualtion in the carport ceiling, but I doubt it's going to solve a heat problem in the summer, unless it's someplace that's typically 110F+. If a more typical hot day is 80 or 85, I'd say you're not going to lose that much cooling through that uninsulated floor/ceiling interface. A 10 deg temp difference just isn't great enough to make a big difference. If in the winter there can be a 50F delta, then I'd say you have a bigger problem.

On the other hand if the attic is 120F and there were no insulation there, that would be a problem. I also would make sure the attic is properly ventilated, which is very important and not only for heat issues.

I'd investigate how the ducts are run, the length, adequacy, returns, etc. IT's not unusual to have one room be a problem just because it's at the end of a long duct run, ducts that were too small were used, inadequate returns, etc. And that kind of situation could easily be found in a room over a carport, unless the HVAC is in the attic. Such a location limits how you can run ducts to it. Also, obviously if the room faces south, that could be a factor as well.

Not saying that ceiling shouldn't be insulated. It should be. Just that I'd investigate a lot more before I spent money fixing something that may not provide much difference.

Reply to
trader4

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