I saw on your site that you're looking for bucks to contract out the insulation. It's very well spent money. Insulation is a crappy job that will leave you with glass itch for a week. The insulation contractors can get the material for way less than you can because they buy in bulk. The price of material and installation was less than if I bought the material on our last house.

Stray it in. Much better than fiberglass.

I did all my basement renovation myself. However I did have a contractor hang and tape my drywall.

Suggestion to you if you have a contractor do your drywall. Count all of your outlets, windows, and heat vents in each room. My drywaller went over one outlet and one window. Funny until you are trying to figure out why you have 5 windows outside but only 4 inside?

I did the pink insulation myself. No big deal and saved some on what was bid. I got it on sale at a HD. It always pays to wait around and watch for sales. You would be surprised how much you can save by catching stuff on sale.

Good luck to you and we missed you at Nationals.

If orphan means spray it in, I agree 100%. Spray foam is the only way to go. Better R value, less worries with moisture, and it makes the structure stronger over all.

i was very shocked at how cheap the bid was to spray in insulation in my house (attic). $300 for standard $500 for the highest R value

Really? I had understood that the spray-in stuff was roughly twice that of fiberglass. I don't think it pays to do the insulation myself. My brother most recently had a guy quote supplying and installing insulation that was less expensive than what he could buy it for at a box store. The sprayed stuff has about twice the R value but I'm still a little concerned about the long term affect of a water problem should one ever come up.

It probably doesn't matter what you use. A house up the hill had an o-ring go bad in a water filtration system. Slow leak which eventually covered the wood plank floor, soaked through the sheetrock and was wicked up to the ceiling by the glass insulation. What a mess.

pretty certain. 1000sq' was around 3-500 .
http://www.danielinsulation.com/products/batt-blow
i think that was the product i was quoted for. i never ended up doing it. i found out it already had updated insulation

Water should not be an issue with a closed cell foam over any other of the choices. I know up here you do not have to run a vapor barrier with the closed cell.

It does cost more, but there is a savings to be had in the long term with lower heating/cooling costs. Granted our extremes are a bit different than yours. Temps here can sway 140*F with the seasons, so I'm not sure if it is as critical.

Personally if I were to build a house today, (I know a garage is a slightly different story...), I wouldn't consider anything else.

[edit]- The noise suppression from the spray in is also very impressive.

Most spray in foams are open cell - real closed cell is like 4x the price of open cell foam...or so I thought.

Yep, its significantly more. I don't know if its cost effective for you, but up here it has just about become the standard for both walls and ceilings.

The Mahal is still under construction. I haven't done crap to the inside yet other than push a boat in there and do a little work on my truck. I have been using the space to building fencing and fabricate a couple of (overly) complex gates. Also been pushing dirt around. It's getting there. I'm still blown away at the amount of space and can't wait to get it finished to get started on something fun! That's my extended cab Silverado at 19+ feet long in there with the garage door closed.

To Nigel and Dave who gave me the sage advice: "people complain about it being too small or being too expensive - but nobody complains about it being too big"....thank you!

Rule 1: build it bigger than you think you need.
Rule 2: no mater how big you will fill it with stuff and wish you had made it bigger.

How true I'm running out of room in The Man Shed 48' x 30' at first I thought man look at all this space ---- and now I have to move things around.

I have a friend with a "shed" that is 40' X 80" and it is so full with sh** that you can barely move around. Between two Cessna 185s, Piper Cub and a John Deere and 50 years of crap...

The garage is slowly coming around...I'm finally ready for electrical and plumbing rough-in inspections.

BUT! projets like this keep getting in the way. We're getting our F18 infusion ready for the fall regatta season and sprucing her up.

www.teamseacats.com

that's quite a crack, and lots of good detail for us amature repair folk. It bears repeating that the elbow grease is what makes it work....

AMEN!

Mike,

I sifted back through this thread and saw your comment. I have to say, that is one of the most sage pieces of advice I have heard. I have a 16' door in one gable end and a 12' door in the opposing gable end of my garage. I did that so, in the odd chance I needed to, I would have options to pull something large in and drive out the other side. What I've discovered, however, is that having the two doors is incredible for airflow and comfort when doing the things we do with fiberglass, grinding, welding, and other stuff. Fresh air comes easy when you have a door on either end. It really is quite nice.

If you epoxy the floors yourself, get the solvent based kits, plan on doing two coats, and put a clear coat over the top. I did my garage at my old house and the only thing I would've done differently is I should've sand blasted the floor to give it some texture for the paint to adhere to.