Insulation Services Case Studies: Cold Rooms Above Garage in Leesburg, VA

Wednesday, May 8th, 2019 by Justin Dobson

Challenge

This Leesburg, VA homeowner was complaining of cold rooms and cold floors above the garage. After a FREE home evaluation, thermal imaging and a blower door test showed that the garage attic was the issue. Two walls in the room above the garage backed up to the attic causing them to be cold. The worst issue was the cold air getting beneath the floor of the room due to air gaps between the Batt insulation and the floors above.

Solution

Comfenergy used SilverGlo foam boards and installed them on the 2 walls backing up to the garage attic. Next, we cut a swath of drywall out of the garage ceiling. This allowed us to densely pack TruSoft cellulose insulation under the floors of the rooms above the garage. InsulSpan was used to cover the swath of drywall and allowed us to blow more TruSoft cellulose into the cavity. Drywall was finally re-installed in the garage.

Now the room above the garage is nice and cozy and the homeowners don't have to wear slippers to walk on these floors anymore!

Project Summary

Evaluator: Chris Last

The rooms over the garage in this Leesburg, VA home were too cold in the winter, and the floors were absolutely freezing. Notice the dormer windows? Does this look like your home?

The rooms above this garage were freezing cold in the winter, and very hot in the summer.

This is what the back side of the walls look like from the garage attic. The cold room is right on the other side of this wall and cold air is able to travel between the Batt insulation, making the room frigid during winter months.

SilverGlo foam boards with a heat reflective barrier have been installed to create an air barrier and keep the cold air off the walls.

The garage ceiling was opened up to allow us to densely pack TruSoft cellulose insulation beneath the floors above. This eliminates the cold air gap and makes the floors above warm again!