When it comes to home design, no one likes wasted space. That’s why rooms located above the garage have become so popular in recent years. Why leave a large space empty when you could use that square footage to your advantage? However, this repurposed space comes with one drawback: it’s difficult to keep comfortable.
Why Rooms over the Garage are Cold
Most people assume that a lack of insulation between the floor and the garage below is the reason a room over the garage is colder than the rest of the house during the winter. If the insulation is not dense enough, this does contribute to the problem. However, the issue is mainly caused by the home’s roofline. If you think about how a typical roofline slopes down around the room above the garage, you can imagine the triangular spaces that are created on either side of the room in order to keep the room’s walls completely vertical from floor to ceiling. These triangular spaces are basically attic spaces, and they’re problematic because they’re typically poorly insulated.
What’s the Solution?
The easiest way to fix these issues is to use a supplemental heating system in the room. An in-floor heating system uses an electrical heating cable to radiate heat upward through the floor. If you have a lack of insulation in the ceiling above your garage, this heating method will eliminate that problem. To maximize the heating system’s output, you can also add ThermalSheet synthetic cork underlayment under your radiant heating system. This layer of underlayment insulates the heating system from the subfloor, ensuring that all of the heat radiates upward instead of absorbing into the subfloor.
Plus, radiant heat is known for its even distribution, which means the entire room will feel warmer even if the walls are poorly insulated.
WarmlyYours Radiant Heating offers floor-heating systems that work under tile, stone, carpet (in the U.S.), laminate, hardwood and more. They can usually be incorporated into your existing electrical panel, so a huge overhaul of your system likely isn’t necessary. All you’ll need to do is remove the existing flooring, adhere the ThermalSheet underlayment to the subfloor and install the appropriate floor-heating system on top.
To find out which floor-heating system is right for you, check out WarmlyYours’s floor-heating collection online. Simply select your room’s floor type using the drop-down menu at the left of the screen, and you’ll see your relevant options. You can also get a detailed quote that displays how much your floor-heating system will cost and shows you various installation options. Just use the free Instant Quote tool here.
With a floor-heating system installed in your room above the garage, you’ll never have to worry about the room being too cold to use. You’ve reclaimed that wasted space, so be sure to put it to good use!