Anyone Know Someone Who Does or Has DIY Tips for Spray-In Attic Insulation or Drywall & Paint?
I've got a rather spacious garage (humble brag) and we've decided to build out a home gym given the recent craziness with the Chinese virus closing all of the gyms down. I need to do a few things I've been putting off for over 15 years now since we built this place. Namely:
Spray-in insulate the attic and walls which have already been rocked (good news/bad news)
Dry wall around the overhead garage doors on the front wall
Prime and paint interior after repairing holes created for step 1 above
We plan to do most of this work ourselves unless makes sense to farm out and pay an expert the labor to handle it. So far, none of it seems like rocket surgery just more time consuming or messy. I've done most of it and have a good idea what I'm getting into save for the insulation portion.
Painting: We've painted lots so I know most of the tricks of the trade just w/o the lengthy experience that comes with being a pro. I've also got a neighbor that has a painting biz and therefore gets a discount (30% I believe) @ Sherwin Williams. We've used their paint in the past for exterior and it's good stuff. Not sure we need that for the interior of our garage/gym though. Especially when you consider it's 2x higher than Home Depot's regular price against the discounted SW price. I'll make that decision a little later.
Drywall: Really just a super limited amount of this so likely not even worth getting a pro involved. I know how much they hate these little patch-type jobs anyway. All I really need to do is drywall the front wall around our overhead garage doors which will be less than 114sq ft of actual drywall. Probably only 4-5 sheets total with lots of cutting and what not. I then need to mud a couple of tape joints in the ceiling, fill some holes and then address the dozens of holes I'll likely need to cut to insulate the walls. I'm not going to texture so I may need to sand all of the walls/ceiling to make sure I get a smooth surface to paint. They're really not that bad as is though so I may be alright here.
Insulation: This is the part I haven't yet done. I've watched a ton of videos and read a lot online so I've got a pretty good idea of what it entails. Looks simple enough but messy and hot. Fortunately we're coming up on some cooler times (hopefully) which will make the latter portion of that a little more bearable. I also wake up super early so as long as I can drag my helper out of bed we can knock the lion's share of this out before it gets too hot. I've got 881sq ft of attic space above the garage I want to fill to 17" to achieve an R-value of R49. I also would like to dense pack the walls with the same stuff. Seems like if you use the cellulose (as compared to fiberglass) it's a better product long-term and doesn't require air sealing prior to filling the space as it settles into air gaps better. I may air seal anyway but not 100% on that. Either way, I'm coming up with roughly 150 bags of the Green Fiber insulation. Since I'm over 100 I'll get the price break which puts it at about $11 per bag or so. This also qualifies me for a free machine rental for 24-hours. Perhaps I can find a 10% off coupon somewhere which may or may not apply to the paint as well if we go that route. Either way, insulation portion should be around $1,500 or so plus our time to do it which, other than transport and setup, really shouldn't be that bad. Few hours or so of actual spraying I'm guessing once everything is ready to go.
I'm curious if someone might do this though or knows someone who does. It seems like one of those things where they get a far better price on the materials making that plus their labor not a heck of a lot more than I can pay for materials alone and do myself. I've also got a neighbor who wants to do his garage attic (approx 500sq ft) and will do it at the same time if it nets us a better price through economy of scale.
The goal here is to keep it a little bit warmer in the winter and a little bit cooler in the summer and help mitigate the sounds of music, grunts, whimpers (don't judge) and banging & clanging weights lest my neighbors think improper things of my wife and I. In the short-term I'd also like to throw a mini-split out there to help with this goal and the insulation will help to keep costs lower of running this. Long-term I plan to have solar which will effectively make running this free at some point but I'd rather not play it like that short-term. Right now it's about knocking out the basics while keeping costs as low as possible.
With that, I'll open up the space to discuss these topics with a primary focus on the insulation aspect right now since it's step 1 in this project. I'd entertain some input on anything though to help keep the conversation moving towards the finish line.
Thanks!
