Cold weather general!
I just finished putting up thick plastic sheet over my windows, and got to thinking about my shed/cabin again.
What is a good and cheap material/s to insulate with? It has plywood walls and a small woodburning stove inside. My thoughts were expanded foam and emergency thermal blankets.
>>908732
The "right" way to do it would be faced (better) or unfaced (cheaper) fiberglass or rockwool batts. Make sure your measurements are good and buy batts that fit your stud width/wall height/thickness. Faced batts are easy because the kraft paper/aluminized paper facing is usually wider than the insulation so you can lay them into the walls and staple up the edges alone or with little help. Then panel as desired. I would at least panel the area near the wood stove and add a further layer of something heatproof, like a bit of corrugated steel to both reflect heat into the room and keep the wall from overheating (required in building codes in some places for good reasons, even if those codes don't cover a shed)
Another option would be to face the walls with cheap paneling almost to the top and fill them with cellulose insulation. You'll want to secure unwanted holes, move outlets to the face, etc, and will have to either rent a machine or rig something to fluff and blow the material into place.
>>908764
>>908732
cellulose might rot
rockwool is currently best for insulation
if you're doing it and you're unexperienced, find some earth wool from Knauf for example, which won't fuck up your health while putting them on
aerated/insulated concrete can also be an option, if you find a smart way to cast it
I'm going over plans for a greenhouse. In Colorado at 8500 ft.
I'm trying to come up with what material I could use for the floor. Thoughts on rubber asphalt?
This would just go onto the concrete foundation. Worried it might heat too well in the summer but the greenhouse would be open with ventilation fans.
>>910626
I'd rather put some lenoleum and leave it there for centuries
or why not leave the concrete exposed? I mean if it's a greenhouse, you don't need it to be pretty.
>>910798
true, I just wondered if the concrete wouldn't keep the enclosure as warm in the winter
>>911038
the universal solution would be putting 2 layers of styrofoam under the concrete which would provide a good thermal resistance
But if changing the floor slab is not an option, you can just top it off with extra layers of styrofoam and put some cheap lenoleum as a vapour membrane
Rubber asphalt would not keep the enclosure any warmer
>>911211
oh wow, yeah that makes sense. no foundation laid yet so I'll keep this in mind. Thanks mang
>>911220
another cheap solution would be pouring an inch of the slab, filling the area with a ton of straw as your pour the middle area, then another inch of pure concrete. as long as it's not exposed, the straw will never rot, and is a good insulator.
>>911228
but
but
what about the moisture coming out of the slab when drying?
by me, it sounds like he'd be making a ecosphere of straw, concrete and mold...
The idea would work if that was a pro-craftsman doing it and the construciton would not be an industrial one
>>911246
the moisture from the slab will get the straw wet, but that doesn't matter as long as it doesn't also get air. for example, they're pulling out expensive wood from the rivers of michigan from timber operations from the 1910's where it got stuck in the mud, and because it wasn't exposed to air as well as water = no rot.
woody materials rot when between 25-75% humidity, above or below they tend not to.
Also, if you have mold inside the MIDDLE of your floor, >1in. from your living space, who cares? unlike with drywall, it doesn't have a material to live in and spread through. mold only grows on concrete when there's enough dust landing on the surface to feed it, so the straw will exhaust moisture/food and die.
Also, straw used to be (and still is in 3rd world) one of the main ingredients in bricks. so your argument is invalid.
that said, any straw exposed to the edge of the slab IS an issue, which is why i said in the middle, and pour pure concrete below and above. I should have also said be careful to keep away from edges of middle.
straw bale construction is a weird ecobuilding thing, but it's been around for a while. It got shut down a lot of places in the US when we were standardizing building codes. Also, it was fairly expensive in terms of labor because reapers and combines threshed the grain and left the waste straw at the time, so it had to be raked into stacks and hand baled, so straw was more expensive than it is now with combines.
here's the aussie gov take on it, where it's more common.
http://www.yourhome.gov.au/materials/straw-bale
>>908764
I like the plastic wraped fiberglass for this. It is completely plastic wrapped so no worrys about vapor.
>>910626
anon planning a weed factory
nice
>>908732
Is your shed heated? if its not there is absolutely no point in insulating it.
>>912727
>small woodburning stove
