Insulation in garage conversion help

Lestratcaster

Over a year on and still suffering from not enough insulation. Running 2 radiators is expensive, but just keeping an eye on the next few electricity bills in the meantime whilst considering improving insulation as I think ultimately this is the only way to fix.

I bought a thermometer a few weeks ago and could see in the morning the heat loss is excessive, down from room temp to as low as 6 degrees!! So there's some severe heat loss and not enough insulation as I always knew. 

I've thought about covering the floor in extra carpet/rugs but that won't solve it. Wall thermal liners won't really make much difference as its only 4mm thick.

If I was to redo the insulation I have thought about a few things. After speaking to my uncle who does a bit of DIY stuff he said to look at the U-value rating on it, the number related to the thermal resistance of layers. My 25mm is over 1 w/m2k which has poor heat retention. 100mm celotex has 0.22 I think which would perform better, which is what I should have gone for in the first place. Basically the closer to zero the better.

He then suggested I don't plaster as that would rinse me out in labour/material costs. So go plasterboard which is what many gyms have or indoor converted man-caves (some of you lot on here have done this).

So maybe if I get the right thickness that has a good u-value I might not need 100mm? Maybe 75mm to go over the existing celotex but if that has a poor value anyway I might as well chuck that and do it properly.

As the room is outside at the back of the garden there's no surrounding buildings to help so 100mm is probably right. Celotex or Rockwool though...hmmm..

Gonna ask a few insulation/builders to find out how much it might cost, see if its sensible to do it. I expect nothing less than £4k.

Sporky

I recently added a radiant heat panel over the bench of my workshop - already had an oil-filled radiator. The panel works really well - heats me rather than heating the air. 

Lestratcaster

I don't think changing the type of heater is going to help with the heat loss, esp overnight. Left the room at 10pm at night on 19 degrees, by the next morning it fell to 7!!

Iamnobody

24m2 sounds like a large room for tuition. Can you partition some of it off? And just improve the insulation in that part. Obviously a smaller room would also retain the heat and cost less to heat up on the first place.

Sporky

Lestratcaster said:

I don't think changing the type of heater is going to help with the heat loss, esp overnight. Left the room at 10pm at night on 19 degrees, by the next morning it fell to 7!!

No, but radiant heat is more efficient in some situations because it heats you, not the air. 

Danny1969

Iamnobody said:

24m2 sounds like a large room for tuition. Can you partition some of it off? And just improve the insulation in that part. Obviously a smaller room would also retain the heat and cost less to heat up on the first place.

That's a double garage size ... ideal little CTR room with Live booth recording studio but a bit big for 1 on 1 teaching. 

Lestratcaster

Iamnobody said:

24m2 sounds like a large room for tuition. Can you partition some of it off? And just improve the insulation in that part. Obviously a smaller room would also retain the heat and cost less to heat up on the first place.

I have considered it, but there's a window right in the middle where the halfway point of the room is. To build stud wall frames would need a bit of extra room so it'd cut a bit off the room space. Plus sometimes I do group sessions in there so the extra space is nice.

Lestratcaster

Danny1969 said:

Iamnobody said:

24m2 sounds like a large room for tuition. Can you partition some of it off? And just improve the insulation in that part. Obviously a smaller room would also retain the heat and cost less to heat up on the first place.

That's a double garage size ... ideal little CTR room with Live booth recording studio but a bit big for 1 on 1 teaching. 

Yep double garage size, was good for covid social distancing haha.

But like I mentioned above sometimes there's groups of 3 in there. 

I wonder though how much it'd cost to do a partition? And how much work needs doing? Stud wall frame I am presuming, but I'd still wanna insulate the other walls better.

strtdv

How many hours a day is this being used? I think it's very unlikely that you're going to be able to insulate the room well enough that you aren't starting from scratch each day without spending a serious amount of money.
I think Sporky's idea of heating the person rather than the room is a good one.

Lestratcaster

strtdv said:

How many hours a day is this being used? I think it's very unlikely that you're going to be able to insulate the room well enough that you aren't starting from scratch each day without spending a serious amount of money.
I think Sporky's idea of heating the person rather than the room is a good one.

4-5 hours I think, a couple of days more than that. Also as there's some electrical equipment in there I don't want it going damp because its got so much cold air inside (I do have a dehumidifier though).

Lestratcaster

In terms of "permitted planning" I suppose I'm not allowed to knock down half the building and rebrick it up in the middle either? As that's altering the structure of the building so I can't really do that.

m_c

I've not read the full thread, but is the roof insulated?
Is the floor insulated?

As you know the values for the insulation, work out the surface areas, and calculate how much heat loss the various options have.
Once you know that, you can decide what will give you the biggest improvements, and if needed, do them in stages.

Lestratcaster

Roof - yes it is but obviously not enough
Floor - no, I have tried to cover it in an extra layer of carpet and might buy rugs but think its the walls. They're cold to the touch in the morning.

Lestratcaster

Sporky said:

Lestratcaster said:

I don't think changing the type of heater is going to help with the heat loss, esp overnight. Left the room at 10pm at night on 19 degrees, by the next morning it fell to 7!!

No, but radiant heat is more efficient in some situations because it heats you, not the air. 

Yes but its more for when I'm not in there that I need to stop heat loss and keep warm. If I'm using the room it's not a problem cos I would be using the heating.

Dominic

I would suggest lining your walls with ISO Q10 
Essentially it's a metallic foil quilt designed for retro-fit roofing applications but with a very high U value . It's not especially cheap but a roll will go a long way .
It's easy to apply yourself and could look quite funky ;imagine a silver Puffa jacket lining of the room .
You can simply staple it on with a powerful building stapler but if you got 10 lengths of dirt cheap roofing batten and a bottle of Walnut stain ( Ronseal or similar ) ........stain the battens dark walnut (2 coats ) and use them as fixings screwed as uprights every metre stretching out the iso as you go then you will get a silver quilted room with walnut batten panels that will look very designed and be super insulated .
Effectively it's internally cladding the room with a high tech thermal quilt .
Its easy to fit yourself in about 3 hours 

Dominic

It's actually called TRI-ISO Q10

chillidoggy

Has anyone tried one of those diesel powered truck heaters for garage heating use? They sell them on Amazon for about £170. My garage is like a fucking tomb in the winter, but I can't see how I can heat it without major expense.

Lestratcaster

Dominic said:

It's actually called TRI-ISO Q10

So a similar idea to the wall thermal liner but supposed to be more effective? I think that foil is the same as 210mm rockwool which I have inside sound panels covered in speaker cloth which I suppose help insulate a bit. 100mm thick though not 210.

There's 8 of them in the room but we had to be careful where to put them up as there's a lot of sockets in the room so didn't want to drill into the wires to hang them up. Could the foil go in the gaps?

HerbieTheRadDorklift

Build a subfloor and insulate that. 

Lestratcaster

HerbieTheRadDorklift said:

Build a subfloor and insulate that. 

My uncle said its a waste of money to insulate the floor and I think he's right. Most of the loss is coming from the walls and ceilings. 

Got the number of the builder who did some ceiling work for my neighbours bedroom. Will get some options off him and maybe a price on what I'm looking at.