My best advice for anyone building a shop


estesbubba

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Insulate the crap out of it! I put R19 in the walls, R44 in the ceiling, plus used expanding foam to seal all the cracks. In the winter, if the low temp was 0-10F, the inside temp would settle at 44-48F with no heat running. The few times it was -5 of below it would be around 40 in there. It was nice not having to run heat while not in there to keep waterbornes from freezing.

What really surprised me is how well it has worked in the summer. People that have been in there on hot days can't believe it's not air conditioned. It's a little more humid than an air conditioned shop, but 78 inside when it's 99 outside feels pretty darn good! Here it is after the sun beating on it right before the shade starts to hit it.

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Absolutely good advice. When I had my shop rebuilt a few years back I had a whole bunch of insulation put in. It's cool in the summer and warm in the winter and as an added benefit it is also fairly soundproof so the neighbours don't hear me.

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I did the same thing with the last addition on our house-only a lot more than your numbers.  When the new inspector came, he told me what the minimum was.  I told him, I didn't care what the minimum was, that I was going to insulate the hell out of it.  That addition is larger than the original part of our house.  Heating contractors came and told me what size unit we needed for it.  I said I thought they were figuring too big, and we were going to see how many 1500watt heaters it took to heat it.  So far, we don't need any heat in it.  It gets enough from the original part of the house.   Insulation, and sealing makes a world of difference.  We more than doubled the size of our house, and power bills haven't changed for the seven years since I built the addition.

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Yes, as a matter of fact, you do suck! It was 90 out today, it was 92 in my shop, oh, and with all the sweat it was 100% humidity, compared to the 90% outside... I have to get my shop insulated soon!

 

 

I'm with colin. You suck.

It was 88 outside and 92 in my garage.

Man I wish I had bought myself an ac unit recently.

 

 

X3...you suck, Mike.  I saw your post yesterday and I had nothing nice to say so I said nothing.  I still have nothing nice to say.  I'd like to kick you in the groin, through.

 

I had my AC running non-stop yesterday, and by 1:30 it was 88* in here and I called it quits.  Procrastination is a horrible disease.

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I heard spray foam was a great home for termites on the ground floor of a house. The one reason I have not gone that route.

This is a best practice discussion worth engaging. If the bays are open for spray foam, they are easy to pretreat for termites. It is better to treat the exterior of the framing and sheathing also, but treatments are better in efficacy and environmental impact than they used to be.

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The spray foam in my house has a fiber reinforcement and it is fire retardant, I dont think spray foam is at any more risk of bug damage than any other properly installed insulation. This is the contractor that installed it, they done a fantastic job and hit the estimate. http://customcomfortsprayfoam.comNice web site with lots of info, 

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The spray foam in my house has a fiber reinforcement and it is fire retardant, I dont think spray foam is at any more risk of bug damage than any other properly installed insulation. This is the contractor that installed it, they done a fantastic job and hit the estimate. http://customcomfortsprayfoam.comNice web site with lots of info, 

I think the OP is talking about tuff stuff expanding foam to fill any gaps in the walls and such, not the blown in insulation.

 

 

 

Insulate the crap out of it! I put R19 in the walls, R44 in the ceiling, plus used expanding foam to seal all the cracks. In the winter, if the low temp was 0-10F, the inside temp would settle at 44-48F with no heat running. The few times it was -5 of below it would be around 40 in there. It was nice not having to run heat while not in there to keep waterbornes from freezing.

 

I wish my shop/garage was insulated, but for the ones that don't have an insulated garage I installed the ridged foam insulation on my door and it cooled my shop by about 5 degrees in the summer and gives me about 10 extra degrees in the winter. In the summer I just work with the door cracked about 2 inches and I have 2 box fans moving the air once I start working the temp actually drops about 5 degrees in about an hour or less. In the winter I run a 60,000 BTU heater in a 2 1/2 car garage I can raise the temp about 15 degrees total (5 before the insulation and 15 after installing the insulation).

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Insulation is a given. If you are building a new place then insulate. My daughter is building a new home above the snow line in Australia and she wasn't going to insulate the external walls in the 3 car garage, just the walls between the garage and the rest of the home. I told her I would pay for it because I felt it was that important. She ended up getting it done and paid for it herself.

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I think the OP is talking about tuff stuff expanding foam to fill any gaps in the walls and such, not the blown in insulation.

Spray foam is spray foam. Blown in has not been discussed in Raef's post. M Raef has his home spray foamed, not blown in. I think you made a wrong assumption about his post connecting it to the OP. Canned expanding foam is not spray foam. The foam is similar but has different carrying agents to allow spraying several feet so that the fan can be spaced to allow coverage the whole width of a stud bay. I am not sure either is consumed by termites quite like old foam boards. Here it is common to spray to a thickness of a half inch as the foam creates an air seal. Fiberglass follows to keep cost down. The fiberglass is so much more effective with that foam draft block.

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I dont remember the exact numbers, but it seems I had 5K sqft at 11" thick and 2K sqft at 3 1/2" thick at a cost of $15,000 and I didn't have to lift a finger.

 

The original quote did not include the exterior garage wall, I didn't know if it would be ready. We got it ready in time and I ask them if they could go ahead and spray it, they would not, It took 2 units to do the house (4-55 gallon barrels, 2 part a and 2 part b )they would not order or open another unit to do that one wall so it ended up being fiberglass.

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