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Heated floors. A portion of my parents condo is over the fire escape stairs (from the underground parking garage) and it was freezing. They got heated floors and it's toasty. They only turn them on when in that room.
Be careful though, I don't think you can have carpet over them, their floor is hardwood.
A lot of times, the bonus room is the farthest away from the furnace, which can lead to less hot air reaching the bonus room vs. other rooms in the house. Having the thermostat away from the bonus room compounds the problem, as the hot air directed to rooms farther away trigger the thermostat to stop running the furnace, while the bonus room remains cooler/cold.
If you have dampers installed on your ducts, you may be able to reduce the air to other rooms in the house and increase the amount directed to the bonus room. This will let the bonus room heat up before the thermostat is triggered to turn off the furnace. My thermostat also allows for periodic re-circulation of air (not constantly on, but every so often), which i find helps even out the temperature. If you can't do either or if they don't help, you can always add a space heater in the room to help take out the chill on particularly cold winter days. It will use more electricity, but it is better than freezing.
This.
If the room has heating ducts and return, start by rebalancing the system air flow for the whole house. It may take a few weeks, but is free.
Then add insulation to the garage ceiling if not already there. And rebalance again.
Rebalancing, changing the location of the thermostat, additional returns and supplies are all good suggestions. What they all have in common is increasing the overall heat in your house, which requires additional energy use (gas, electric, oil, whatever) to achieve and maintain that heat.
This will result in higher utility costs every month that you are heating or cooling your house.
Insulation in the garage ceiling is going to be necessary to moderate those costs. In fact, insulation may solve your entire problem, as you are already paying to heat this room, you are simply losing this heat through the floor into the garage.
If you DIY you are going to need to do some drywall work, as you are going to need to do some demo for access. Make sure to avoid temptation and overstuff the insulation. A lot of people work on the "more is better" principle and take some nice thick insulation with a great R value and compress it to fit into a narrower space. Others pack in the blown insulation. Don't do this, as the air spaces created by the fluffiness in the fiberglass are critical for maintaining the R value. Compression will reduce the efficiency of your product.
You should also check on your attic insulation. Your BOG is losing heat through every exterior wall, the ceiling and the floor. I agree with other posters and the floor is the most likely culprit for the greatest amount of loss, but checking an attic is usually pretty easy. You may find that you are under insulated in the attic as well.
We have a bedroom over the garage that seems to get pretty cold. Presently we don't use that room much and keep the doors shut.
What options to I have and estimated costs? Any DIY options?
The room is carpeted but the previous owner had changed the carpet and the padding under seems pretty thin. I was wondering if I can put a thicker padding. First time home owner, so don't know what kind I need to buy and how much of a pain it is?
Why do you think Fonzi on Happy Days always wore a Leather Jacket? The room above the garage he rented from Richie's Dad was always cold.
We just built a detached garage with a room above. First, we put blown insulation in the loft area. Second, we insulated the garage itself before we dry walled it. That cost around $750. In the BROG (300sq ft), we installed a ductless heat pump system which has settings for heat, A/C and dry. That cost around $2,500.
We have a bedroom over the garage that seems to get pretty cold. Presently we don't use that room much and keep the doors shut.
What options to I have and estimated costs? Any DIY options?
The room is carpeted but the previous owner had changed the carpet and the padding under seems pretty thin. I was wondering if I can put a thicker padding. First time home owner, so don't know what kind I need to buy and how much of a pain it is?
You can add insulation to the ceiling of your garage. If the garage ceiling has sheet rock you can either tear it down and do a fiberglass bat insulation and put up new sheet rock OR in between the ceiling joists drill a series of holes in the sheet rock about one foot apart. Go to your local Home Improvement store and find an employee knowledgeable about spray in insulation. You can either buy individual spray cans for maybe $7.00 a can or buy a kit with the two agents and the application setup. Depending on the size of your garage buying the kit might be cheaper. After spraying the expanding foam in the ceiling you can use a joint compound to fill and cover the holes and repaint. You could do all this yourself but it might be better to get an estimate from a REPUTEABLE local spray applicator and compare costs.
Just want to chime in from another angle... Beware of new shoddy construction. Cold room above garage means you don't have enough insulation and if you live in cold regions and happen to have water pipes running through, they might freeze and burst. It happened to one of my friends in a new housing development. It's a mess and costly to fix/clean up.
Know of a case still open where a couple came home from shopping. Put the groceries away. Sat down with some cheeses and crackers. Had left the car running in the garage with the door from the house to the garage open. They died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The insurance company is balking, claiming it was a well thought out suicide plan.
Know of a case still open where a couple came home from shopping. Put the groceries away. Sat down with some cheeses and crackers. Had left the car running in the garage with the door from the house to the garage open. They died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The insurance company is balking, claiming it was a well thought out suicide plan.
My "point" was stupidity and Carbonmonoxide are not relevant to the thread- so lets stick to the subject at-hand.
I have a bedroom above the garage. The garage is insulated only on the ceiling. I am planning to change out the floor from carpet to hardwood. I want to add more insulation (I think that it is only R13 fiberglass on the floor/ceiling). Is it more cost effective to tear out the subfloor in the bedroom or tear out the garage ceiling (dry-walled and painted) to install the additional insulation in my case?
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