I am considering an addition that would be a three car garage, with a family room above, and possibly a bedroom above that.
Long ago, a friend built something similar, and the room above the garage was never warm enough (in Minnesota winter). He did everything he could (using 1990’s techniques, insulation, etc.), and was never satisfied. Is the newer generation of insulation good enough to make this a good idea? Or will I be fighting the same fight?
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mms.... about 5 years ago we did an addition with a 2-car garage and a master bedroom suite over.... the basic insulation was 2x10 joist bays with dens-pak cellulose and 1" eps foam below that
the rest o f the structure was highly insulated
one problem we had was that we also had a separate stairway from the unheated garage up to the common hallway with the house... so that was another large heat loss, even though we had an exterior door at the bottom of the stair hall
all -in-all , this was very easy to heat addition... but we paid a lot of attention to the insulation envelope
I will also want a stairway from the garage to the main living area of the house. Would you recommend some type of heating in the stairway, to reduce cold air entering the living space?
Would this room be a good place to use in-floor heat? Or is that a bad idea in with carpet?
You could do radiant floor w/ carpet. My house has it and it's fine, really. The response is a little slower, but wood framing response is pretty fast compared to concrete. Make sure the garage is insulated (incl the door) and make sure you have the door weatherstripped well ... to keep a good tempered buffer below your new heated space. You might consider e.g. thermax in the floor. Cuts precisely w/ a table saw. Or just do a darn good fiberglass batt job ... be tidy ... even double the depth if you are so inclined. I'm assuming you'll have a ceiling (gyp bd) in the garage ... duh, guess so ... fire rated, right?