Eighteen months ago I ripped out the front half of the garage ceiling and installed blocking between the joists to provide extra strength:
I also installed a bunch of modern LED lights. The intention was always to insulate the ceiling, but in the meantime, I have been working on making the deck above this area watertight (or avoiding doing so, which accounted for a good few months of the last year and a half).
So, even though the deck is not completely finished yet, I have decided to move forward with the garage ceiling. At the moment the garage does not have any insulation, so it is baking hot most of the time and cold in the Winter months. But not for much longer! I'm using a mixture of R30 unfaced and R15 faced insulation. This way I can install a layer of each material into the ceiling cavities for a total value of R45 AND have a vapor barrier at the warm side of the partition.
The ceiling cavities are 36" wide, so the first step is to cut the 25-foot roll of unfaced insulation material into eight suitable pieces. I made the cuts with a Milwaukee knife which is razor sharp and some help from my Shop Cat.
The insulation is 15 inches wide, which is the standard for 16-inches-on-center framing. However, the cavities in my ceiling are ten inches wide, so I have to cut a five-inch strip off each piece of material:
The faced material was trimmed into similar 10" x 36" pieces, and the excess vapor barrier was retained.
Followed by the faced insulation. The untrimmed vapor barrier is helpful for stapling the material to the joists, and then the excess can be trimmed away wit' sithers.
The offcuts are half the size of the ideal pieces so they can be grouped together and installed without any more cutting:
I was able to fill one complete strip of nine cavities with one roll of each type of material thanks to making use of all the small pieces:
This is quite a bit later. There is a gap in the middle that I can't reach without moving the Mustang, so I'll be coming back to that area later.
Before I move the '68 it makes sense to install the sheathing at this side of the garage. I needed help from Samuel Sheep to get the first board tacked down. I want to be able to remove the sheathing later if I need to, so I'm installing it with screws...a LOT of screws!
First three boards done! I'm not using full sheets - the boards are around 36" wide - and I installed temporary wood spacers between the boards:
After the spacers are removed, I have 1-1/8" gap where I can re-install the LED strip lights. There is not enough space to install the lights on top of the sheathing and still be able to open the vehicle door.
This would have been hard work on my own but fortunately my favorite Shop Cat was around to help:
Finished off installing the insulation:
Put the lights back at the front of the garage. At this point about a third of the ceiling is complete.
This is after removing all of the old screws and nails and having a massive cleanup:
Installed double blocking front to back to strengthen this area:
I used up the last of the insulation I had on hand. I ran out of vapor-backed material so I had to improvise with some tar paper - it's just the same but a different color, as my father might say.
There is a difference in the height of the ceiling where the most recent bit of the garage meets an older section. Our house has been added on-to and pushed-out so many times it is difficult to be sure which bits are original. I had just enough insulation to get up to this point:
Installed my last sheet of sheathing over the insulated area:
I need to install insulation material at the rear section of the left side and then cover it with sheathing...
Then I have to do the same at the right rear quadrant:
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