You live in a place where you have access to your own garage, so you have decided to build a home gym. Congrats! A home gym is a great investment. It provides you the convenience of exercising and a training environment that you actually enjoy. Instead of driving 30 or 40 minutes to a commercial arena just to get a good workout, you should better exercise at home. Converting the garage to an exercise room is the best thing you could have done.
The question now is whether your home gym is properly insulated. If your do not have adequate insulation in place, you will not be able to use the garage gym in the summer let alone in the winter. Ideally, the room should be cooler in the summer and bearable in the winter. The home gym needs to be well-insulated. Although it may not see like it right now, insulation makes all the difference.
Reasons why you should properly insulate your home gym
Experts at Great Northern Insulation will gladly confirm that installing proper insulation in the garage is important. If you use the garage as an exercise room, it is all the more important to reduce heat loss and heat gain. If you are still on the fence about insulating your home gym, you may want to check out our arguments.
1. Making Your Home Gym More Comfortable
You need to be comfortable when you work out. When your garage gym is energy-efficient it is cooler in the summer, so you do not risk overheating or getting a heart stroke. In the colder months of the year, the warmer temperatures will keep your muscles warm, the result being that you are more flexible. Simply put, your exercising room is more comfy. When the insulation is up to the par, it is practically impossible not to achieve a cozy gym. You will not even need to turn on the HVAC.
2. Cost effectiveness
It can cost hundreds of dollars a month to heat or cool your garage gym. There is no way about it. You cannot workout at −10 °C or at 30 °C. But neither can you spend your hard earned money on energy bills. Adding adequate thermal insulation is essential. Insulation slows down the transfer of heat and, implicitly, the demand for energy. You can save a lot of money in the long run.
3. Improving the value of your home
In the future, you may want to sell your home. The idea seems crazy right now, but in a couple of years you will no longer want to live in the same neighborhood. When the time comes to sell your home, you will see that adding insulation was a wise thing to do. A well-insulated garage gym increases the house’s resale value. Customers find it a good selling point.
Types of insulation for your home gym
The home gym is not only one of the most important rooms in the house, but also one of the largest ones. Since you will be working out in the garage at least twice a week, you have to choose the insulating material carefully. The following types of insulation work perfectly fine, as long as they are correctly installed. The type you will choose depends mainly on the climate where you live.
• Cellulose
Cellulose reduces heat loss and gain. And reduces noise transmission. It is made from recycled newsprint fibers, which are treated with borate (non-toxic, of course).This building insulation is popular because it has a high R-value per inch. Generally, cellulose is blown into the walls and ceiling cavities of the garage.
• Spray foam insulation
Your exercising room is heated, so there is no doubt that you should insulate. Spray foam is an amazing insulating material. What it does is eliminate the need for soft and ridge vents. Plus, it reduces the size of your heating and cooling system. You should have your garage gym spray foamed, but with closed cell insulation, not open cell, because it is easier to accommodate in narrow spaces.
How to insulate a home gym
If you live in an old house, then the floor zones above the garage do not include insulation. What you need to do is insulate the floors right away. To handle floor zones, you can fill in the gaps with spray foam insulation. Basically, you are creating a barrier against heat loss and gain. The walls are equally important. The walls are typically the places builders forget to add insulating material. If you are using the garage as an exercise room, focus your attention on the wall.
Do not forget about the garage door. The garage door is overlooked when it comes to improvement projects, but this does not mean that it is not important. You can open the window to facilitate air movement, but it will not prevent the heat from coming in. Get your materials and get to work. Better yet, hire a professional insulation contractor. An expert knows what your home gym needs and can have the job done in no time.