Sunday 8 February 2015

Roller Door Insualtion Installed

As of yesterday the temperature in my new train room dropped considerably with the full installation of my roller door insulation material.

The insulation is made up of a sheet of basically flat bubble wrap covered in aluminium foil on both sides and fitted with foam backing strips to help create an air gap. The material comes in rolls cut to size by order. The installation process is straight forward as I found out.

Basically you clean the door down, mark out where the strips of foam backing run down the door, apply the Liquid Nails provided to the top of the ridges of the door, let it cure for 5 minutes and then attach the insulation material. Aluminium tape is provided to secure the insulation at the top to ensure it stays in place while the glue sets up.


 
The messy part. Applying Liquid Nails of the door.

This process is repeated across the door until it is entirely covered. Aluminium tape is then used to close the gaps between insulation panels and the bottom of each panel is trimmed and attached to the bottom of the door with tape. You then need to use a cloth to rub over the material along the lines of foam backing for about 10 minutes to ensure it is well bedded into the glue.

 
First insulation panel in place.


Both Friday and Saturday hit 36 degrees here in Melbourne so I had perfect weather for testing the effectiveness of the insulation as my garage door faces north and is exposed to the full force of the sun for most of the day in summer.

The end result was a dramatic reduction in radiant heat entering the garage and while not completely 100% perfect, it certainly made the room much room pleasant to be in. In combination with an air conditioner I imagine the train room would be perfect even on the hottest of days.


All insulation panels in place, but the bottom edge still needs to be trimmed.
 
All that needs to be done now is some adjustment to the roller door to allow it to take up the thickness of the insulation material, some more silicone to close up some gaps around the door frame and between the plasterboard walls and exposed brick, a junk clean out and the bench work can begin.