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Insulating a timber shed?


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Pressed for storage space, I keep one of my layouts in a timber garden shed. After about 4 winters in store it has suffered some cosmetic damage (warping of card/styrene roofs mainly) because of damp and temperature changes. Does anyone have any experience of insulating a timber shed with (for instance) the 2in  thick insulation foam (Knauf etc) ? I'm thinking of lining the walls and roof with insulation behind plywood but it will be quite an expensive exercise if it's not going to work. (CJL)

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When my new workshop was built, we reviewed the insulation issue, as it's predecessor had been lined with sheets of polystyrene and hardboard and had not been a great success.

 

We opted to go for 50mm thick kingspan for the walls and 72mm thick Kingspan for the apex roof.

 

As you have considered, this was all held in place by plywood sheets.

 

The floor was also insulated with a roll of foam and then had laminate flooring  laid over the top.

 

Was it worth it?

 

Three years on the answer is a most definite yes.

 

The temperature stays down in the summer, and is pleasant in the winter when combined with the use of a small ceramic heater.

 

 

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I have exactly the same issue. I will admit i started building the layout before i had completely finished the insulation, the other trouble is its south facing so condensation was a problem for me. Remember any insulation is only as good as the weakest part so even if you have iron fortress walls if the door/window is a bad fit there really isnt much point.

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I had a 12x12 shed/garden room built specifically for my modelling, had power connected but also lined the walls with kingspan foam board then clad with pine T&G, the floor was 1/2” pine boards covered with foam vinyl flooring (Lino) and the roof was just left as built with 1/2” weather plywood covered in TWO layers of expensive roofing felt (like a thick plastic)........never had issues with damp in the shed or causing problems with tools/models etc.

 

Basic well insulated steps will be fine.

Edited by boxbrownie
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Well worth doing. I've got a 12 by 24 wooden workshop/layout room shed. 50mm Cellotex on the walls and ceiling. Makes a hell of a difference. I can keep the temp at 18c in the winter when it is -5c with just a small greenhouse heater on a thermostat timer. A cheap Argos portable air conditioner in the summer keeps the temp around 24c on a sunny 30c+ day. Even in the winter without the heater it never went below 0. 

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My shed has PVC membrane beneath the floor to stop dampness rising from the ground beneath, that makes a big difference. 

Between the wall battens it has polystyrene insulation.  Then there is interior Wood cladding to hold it in place,  it's a lot easier than wrestling with sheets of ply in a confined space. 

I double glazed the windows with an extra sheets of perspex that also makes a big difference. 

The roof has a false ceiling and is also insulated,  again using interior Wood cladding to hold it all in place. 

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Got a small timber shed that was insulted in the walls but I'm not convinced it made much difference, and damp had got in through a joint and it had started to rot. Fixed that but I didn't put the insulation back. However the roof wasn't insulted at all, which no doubt made the rest of it pretty pointless.

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My 16 x 6 shed (2 fitted together really) only has silver bubble wrap insulation all round and over/ under the floor and ceiling. There is a 1 inch gap between the outer t&g and insulation, and another inch between insulation and inner skin of OSB board. It is now 6 years old, with no sign of damp - I have 20 or so railway books in there too. A modest space heater has to be turned off after 5 minutes in winter, and it stays warm for ages.

Edited by Jinty3f
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My shed is insulated with polystyrene around the walls and ceiling clad with hardboard. Recently I have also added silver foil backed sheets to the roof, Apart from an attack by rodents chewing through a corner of the floor a couple of years ago there have been no problems. Originally I double glazed the windows but, since I usually had the lights on anyway, I removed the windows altogether. Apart from removing a potential source of leaks, it also makes the shed more secure.

Edited by Les Bird
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21 hours ago, Reorte said:

Got a small timber shed that was insulted in the walls but I'm not convinced it made much difference, and damp had got in through a joint and it had started to rot. Fixed that but I didn't put the insulation back. However the roof wasn't insulted at all, which no doubt made the rest of it pretty pointless.

what did you say, did you tell it it was a bad shed?

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Many thanks, everyone. That's just what I needed to know. Pity I didn't do something in the summer as it's now going to be a cold, uncomfortable job refitting the interior with winter on the way. (It was 3.5deg in Barnwell this morning.) Meanwhile, the layout is in the house undergoing repair (and obstructing access to everything that I seem to need access to!) (CJL)

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We used glass fibre loft insulation behind fibreboard on walls roof of our shed but we also added central heating from the house system. The heating is what makes the difference and keeps the damp at bay,  pretty essential as 80% of the track is steel. The Baseboards still expand and contract with temperature and humidity though.

At our bandroom where we have an insulated but unheated shed we are installing computer fans to extract the air and promote circulation in a bid to keep damp at bay. Fans run 24/7.  Similar fans extract air from under the floor of the Bandroom which has reduced the damp problem which used to make the floor joists rot quite noticeably

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