Garage Insulation

How about the space on the sides?

Is the rest of the garage insulated/dry walled? Or heated?

 

Depends a lot on the rest of the garage - insulating a garage door is inferior to a garage door built insulated (maybe half as good if you do a good job), but either is a small cork in a large pipe with a garage that's uninsulated and perhaps also has single-pane windows, an uninsulated slab, etc.

Garages are commonly cheaply built, and that makes them expensive to retrofit to a degree of usefulness.

I think someone had a project posted where they took the more practical/affordable/effective route of building a well-insulated box just big enough for the amps, and ran a small heater in that box over the winter - the box being in the (typical uninsulated, unheated, expensive to retrofit) garage.

 

Just as an aside, if the garage has any fossil fuel fired devices like a water heater or furnace, code requires there be unrestricted air vents. It might also be related to whether the garage is attached to the house, or detached. Usually there's one vent near the floor and another one above it near the ceiling or rafters.

 

There is no point unless you are heating it.

 

I installed one of those Home Depot kits on a 3 car garage two years ago...one double door and one single door. Ordered them on line and they shipped to my door.
They work great, improve the climate control a lot, and are super easy to install. All you'll need is a measuring tape and a sharp utility knife. I'd do it again if the need ever arises.

 

If the garage shares a common wall with the house, and the garage is reasonably well insulated, it might stay surprisingly warm. The coldest my garage has ever gotten is about 40 when the outside temperature was in the teens for a few days. Water heater and/or furnace in there will contribute too.

Detached and no heat source will probably be fairly pointless though.

 

What's the volume of amps? Would it be more cost effective to build a set of insulated storage spaces within the garage, with methods to control heat and humidity rather than the whole space? I suppose as an alternative a dead but we'll insulated fridge or freezer might be a starting point, in terms of insulation, depending on amp size.

 

I just had a pair of insulated doors installed in a garage that's not insulated otherwise. In the recent 30-degree weather, it perhaps increased the temp inside the garage 5 degrees. Better than nothing, but hardly a radical change.

 

The whole envelope needs to be properly insulated if you want it to really work at all. Add heat, too. Really.

 

Yep. Especially the concrete floor.

 

I've thought of doing something like this for other things, a 60w light bulb would probably suffice. Like a place to leave painted parts to dry when it's too cold out otherwise.

Is your garage free from critters? I'd be leery of keeping amps in a place where bugs and mice can find a home and destroy them.

 

Is this a finished/attached garage?

 

I have had one in my garage for several years. It does seem to help. I also have the attic above the garage insulated with foam.

 

60W incandescent, not 60W equivalent LED . There are probably options for incubating eggs or lizard tanks that might be workable, if set to a low enough temperature.

 

The best bet - if the cables will reach, put your network router or hub or some such thing you run 24/7/365 anyway in there (maybe take it out in summer time.) I don't like incandescents as heaters due to fragility, even though I can easily come up with multiple ways to improve that - if you can't get a power waster you already run to make the heat, there are small heaters made for the job that are more robust - the one that's the "Band-Aid" of its kind is "Goldenrod" and everybody's piano had one to keep the summer humidity at bay when I grew up. But they are kinda spendy, and if you have hot electronics you run anyway, you don't pay any more to use the heat off them.

With good insulation 60W might be overkill, too.