What's new
What's new

i need insulation ideas for a butler building

tnmgcarbide

Diamond
Joined
Jul 6, 2004
Location
N. GA- 33.992N , -83.72W usa
just recently bought a metal building, but it is bare sheetmetal , and no batting -as most
have.

it's geting cold here and i'm at a loss.....

fiberglas ... spray foam ... mineral ... ???

it's 100' x 60' and getting colder every day !

what's the least expensive way to go... i blew my wad on the purchase of the place.
 
You do know about metal building insulation, right? Made for the job...

here's one supplier with a bit of an explanation..
Metal Building Insulation


Just make sure you realize that if that stuff actually performed to an R-value of 15.67 then it would be in the walls and roof of every new house in the country. The FTC is constantly after these companies for fraudulent marketing claims. It's better than nothing but not by much.

TNMG - Your best bet would be to call up insulation contractors in your area to get some recommendations and prices. I agree that spray foam is the best insulation but that is probably going to be a couple bucks per square foot. You've got around 10,000 sq feet of surface to insulate so I don't think you are going to find anything cheap.

Steve
 
Spray foam is great, but around here they wanted $20000 to do my 36' x 54' x 16' shop. Batting was $6000.

If you really want spray foam, there are several manufacturers of the equipment. You can pick up a system for around $5000, and about $1000 for the foam. Thats what I have planed for my next building. You can always sell it when you are done to the next guy.

Josh
 
I had a Meyers Building put up a few years ago and had the builder make a insulated workshop on one side, for me. They put up 2 x 6 stringers, put in fiberglass batting and then used the same sheet metal sheet they used on the outside on the inside walls and ceiling. They just screwed the sheet metal to the bottom of the rafters. I called a local insulation contractor and he blew in fiberglass in the rafters from above. I built a white building, so inside the building it looks would like a lab it it wasn't for all the junk I have in there now..ha ha. A few years later I built a hay loft up there too. Had a retired carpenter /building inspector come over and he helped me with the design and the steps. It was fun then I build a small barn in a pasture and I copied Meyers technique. I found a great source for the lumber...I went to construction sites and dumpster dove. It's amazing the things they throw away. It was fun too...but need to be careful not to step on nails...not to fun then...
 
Hello Tnmgcarbide
A neighbour put up one of those butler buildings years ago & not the easiest to turn into a heated shop. I have one but just use it for storage. I gave him a hand & we did what Richard King did. We put up studded walls made of rough sawn spruce lumber, batt insulation, vapour barrier, & drywall. Basically, built another building inside a building.
 
Spray foam is great, but around here they wanted $20000 to do my 36' x 54' x 16' shop. Batting was $6000.

If you really want spray foam, there are several manufacturers of the equipment. You can pick up a system for around $5000, and about $1000 for the foam. Thats what I have planed for my next building. You can always sell it when you are done to the next guy.

Josh

Jump all over that system. The rig that was used to spray my home was $57,000.00 plus you needed a 60kW generator to power the heaters.

As for bat insulation. The system I am familiar with uses glue on nail tabs that are spaced on a grid, the insulation is pushed on the grid and then a tab is used to keep the material is place.

To insulate a Butler, VP, Nucor style red iron building with fiberglass bat material after it has been erected will be a job for anyone IMO.

I'm puzzled as to why anyone who build a building w/o insulation. I'm not talking about a enclosed machinery shed either... With all this said, there's a large building near my shop that was used to build mobile homes. It was a furnace in the summer and freezer in the winter.

Care to guess how it's insulated now?
 
thanks for the ideas, guys..........


i think i'll opt for framing in the 40 x 60 ft machine shop area , leaving the other areas TBA..
for now. the office is already a framed in 'BIB' , so i suppose doing the same to the
shop area is just as well .

lower the ceiling , insulate the walls and create a BIB environment to work in.


--------

what about the overhead doors? styrene panels.?...fiberglas blankets? whats
the best way to go there....?
 
Just make sure you realize that if that stuff actually performed to an R-value of 15.67 then it would be in the walls and roof of every new house in the country. The FTC is constantly after these companies for fraudulent marketing claims. It's better than nothing but not by much.

TNMG - Your best bet would be to call up insulation contractors in your area to get some recommendations and prices. I agree that spray foam is the best insulation but that is probably going to be a couple bucks per square foot. You've got around 10,000 sq feet of surface to insulate so I don't think you are going to find anything cheap.

Steve

Wouldn't that be similar to the foil-backed insulation sheets that most Home Improvement stores sell? If I remember correctly, the radiant barrier insulation is cheaper than blown in or batting. That is why it isn't in every home. I have a friend that actually spent the money on it to insulate his pole barn. It does make a difference.

And I may be wrong, but I think the majority of heat transfer happens in the roof, and not the side walls.
 
The formula for heat transfer is:

HT = SF times U-value times Delta T

SF is square footage of surface
U-value is the inverse of R-value
Delta T is the difference in temperature between the outside and the inside.

So the roof is significant because, in this case, it's a big roof. If TNMG's building has 12' walls, he has 3840 sq feet of wall but 6000 sq feet of roof. All else being equal, 56% more energy will pass through the roof just because it's 56% more surface area.

Plus roofs get hot in the summer, especially in the South. I've measured temps of 165 on the shingles on my house roof. So, the Delta T on my walls that day was 20 (95 outside, 75 inside) but 90 (165 - 75) on the roof. That's a bunch more heat transfer IN THE SUMMER. In the winter the sun is helping keep the roof warm and the walls are colder.

Do the radiant barrier foils "make a difference" when put up where there is zero insulation. Of course they will since it does have an R-value. So will a piece of drywall.

My point is that good closed cell foam insulation runs about R-6 per inch. Fiberglass and open cell foams are about R-3.5 per inch. Anyone who thinks a 1/4" piece of foil covered foam or bubble wrap is going to give them R-15 (R-60 per inch) clearly hasn't done much research.

For the truly interested, the Pikes Peak building department requires an energy calc spreadsheet on new construction. Fill in the square footages and R-values of the various surfaces and it gives a total BTU heating load. The T values in columnn G should be adjusted to your local climate but it can be used as is.

Energy Code & Heat Loss Calculation Information

Steve
 
that foil backed bubble wrap bullshit has a couple of good uses but insulating a building is NOT one of them.

IMO, the best and cheapest way to insulate a metal building is to use the foam core panels to cover it but in your case it's a bit too late for that.
 
The formula for heat transfer is:

HT = SF times U-value times Delta T

SF is square footage of surface
U-value is the inverse of R-value
Delta T is the difference in temperature between the outside and the inside.

So the roof is significant because, in this case, it's a big roof. If TNMG's building has 12' walls, he has 3840 sq feet of wall but 6000 sq feet of roof. All else being equal, 56% more energy will pass through the roof just because it's 56% more surface area.

Plus roofs get hot in the summer, especially in the South. I've measured temps of 165 on the shingles on my house roof. So, the Delta T on my walls that day was 20 (95 outside, 75 inside) but 90 (165 - 75) on the roof. That's a bunch more heat transfer IN THE SUMMER. In the winter the sun is helping keep the roof warm and the walls are colder.

Do the radiant barrier foils "make a difference" when put up where there is zero insulation. Of course they will since it does have an R-value. So will a piece of drywall.

My point is that good closed cell foam insulation runs about R-6 per inch. Fiberglass and open cell foams are about R-3.5 per inch. Anyone who thinks a 1/4" piece of foil covered foam or bubble wrap is going to give them R-15 (R-60 per inch) clearly hasn't done much research.

For the truly interested, the Pikes Peak building department requires an energy calc spreadsheet on new construction. Fill in the square footages and R-values of the various surfaces and it gives a total BTU heating load. The T values in columnn G should be adjusted to your local climate but it can be used as is.

Energy Code & Heat Loss Calculation Information

Steve

I was under the assumption that it was more for its reflective quality than actual insulation. Like the difference between temps for asphalt surfaces as opposed to a light colored concrete. As a surface that reflects energy doesn't absorb as much.

Is that not the case?
 
Let's clarify some terminology, heat energy passes by either conduction, convection or radiation. So the "reflective quality" of the radiant barriers does a pretty good job of blocking the heat energy being passed by radiation. "Actual insulation" works by addressing the heat energy passed by all three.

Unfortunately for radiant barriers, radiation is only a significant part of the heat transfer when you are in an uninsulated or poorly insulated building in a hot area in the summer. For all the other conditions, conduction and convection pass most of the heat energy.

The problem in the marketplace is that radiant barriers are dirt cheap to manufacture and ship. So quite a few opportunists go into an uninsulated building with a black steel roof in Florida in July and do their testing and go "Holy cow, this radiant barrier blocks most of the heat transfer". Then they just skip past that annoying Dept of Energy formal testing and put the stuff up for sale with their grossly inflated performance claims. As soon at the FTC starts sniffing around they just close up that company and start a new one.

Would I use a radiant barrier? No.

Here's some more info on it:

Energy Savers: Radiant Barriers

Steve
 








 
Back
Top