Outdoor Shed Insulation Tips

Shed Insulation Saves Money

It may seem early to start thinking about traditional winter-time prep, like jacket shopping, but it is time to think about starting those larger projects that will improve your quality of life in the winter time now. The days are still long enough to get projects done, but they have started to get shorter, so you don’t want to procrastinate on insulating your shed for too long. If you expect the weather to be cold in the next coming months, and you plan to heat your shed, you’ll want to make your shed is as well insulated as possible, in order to make the best use of your shed heating. Not only will you end up with a more heat efficient shed, but you will also end up with a shed that feels more like an extension of your home.

Shed Insulation Planning Tips

So here’s what you’ll need to think about before you get started: how much space you have for the materials that you can used as an air barrier. This will help you understand what materials you will end up working with. An extra layer of plastic, wood, or aluminum will help keep air outside where it belongs, and help to normalize the internal temperatures. A combination of materials will further help to keep drafts out of the shed, too. With a few sturdy layers of insulation installed in the inside and/or on the outside of your existing shed, you’ll be able to enjoy a stable internal climate year round.

If you are working with a shed built out of wood, your walls are most likely built with vertical timber ‘studs’ at 2′ centers. This leaves room for insulation materials to be installed in between your studs. Sheetrock can be applied over insulation; tape, textured, and painted for a more finished look.  Fiberglass is used in many traditional builds for its quality as a good vapor barrier. It will help protect against humidity. We’ll be talking about why you want to think about keeping humidity out of your shed a lot today.

Shed Insulation Choices

If you don’t have enough room to use fiberglass, however, then blown in insulation, rigid foam board, cotton batting, loose fill cellulose, and open-cell Polyurethane spray foam. Each of these types of insulation have their pros and cons. Here is a link to many of the pros and cons of the different types of insulation for your climate and shed uses:

If you have a metal shed, you have some of the same choices for insulation, reducing humidity, preventing mold, and reducing sweating of metal sheds. You’ll need to cover these materials with a fireproof vapor barrier, like a fireproof aluminum-composite panel, before finishing it off.

Shed Insulation Placement

Insulating the walls of your shed is important, but a shed is more than just a structure with four walls and a door. We all remember one of the first lessons in science class that hot air rises, right? So, if you want to trap warm air in your shed, then you’ll want to insulate your roof. However, because hot air rises, and because heated air has a relatively high moisture content, that moisture might condense against the inside of your roof when it meets cold roof timbers. This is what is known as a ‘cold bridge.’ and it can occur any time warm air meets a colder surface, like a window pane, for example. Think about when you’re heating your car in the winter.

Because this happens, your insulation is going to want to be placed below the roof deck and between the rafters. Be sure to leave at least 2” above the top of your insulation. You’ll also need to leave room on both sides for ventilation, lest you want to trap moisture in your roof. The ventilators allow air to flow in one side and out the other, bringing fresh air in and exhausting the moist and damp air out. Skipping this important step will eventually lead to roof decay.

Shed Floor Insulation

Moisture can threaten the integrity of your shed even from below. Water seeping up from below is going to be very damaging, in addition to very cold. A layer of insulation beneath the floorboards will help to keep the inside of your shed toasty. Old scrap metal and concrete blocks can be used to create an elevated sub-structure between you and the earth. Making this type of lift will act as a layer of ventilation itself. In this case, air is your material. So, even if you don’t add an extra layer of materials to further ventilate the floorboards, you will end up protecting your floor deck from absorbing energy from the cold earth and/or water below.

Upgrade Windows for Insulating Value

Once all 6 sides sides of your shed are insulated, upgrading windows and doors will take your shed to the next level. You’ll be able to reduce air drafts in the structure by upgrading windows from single pane to double pane, or by upgrading a doors as a draft stop. At Shed Windows and More we have an extensive selection of double pane windows in hard to find sizes meant for small buildings such as backyard sheds and barns. Keeping your shed airtight will generally reduce drafts, but it will also help to keep warm air inside.