If you have setup a gym in your garage you’ll understand the importance of a really good temperature control system.
Garages can get really hot in the summer and freezing cold in winters, making them unusable when the temperatures outdoors rise or fall to extremes.
To ensure your garage gym is operational all year round, you need to install suitable cooling and heating equipment.
However, before you move on to that part, you’ve got to ensure that there are no garage insulation problems.
Garage Insulation Problems
If you notice that your garage feels too hot or humid during the summer and unbearably cold during the winters, it shows that there are underlying insulation problems.
There could be numerous issues with garage insulation. Let’s have a look at what these possible garage insulation problems can be.
Moisture Retention
If you’ve got fiberglass or cellulose insulating material installed in your garage, you’re up for some serious moisture-related issues.
If your garage gym feels too humid, you notice condensation, or detect signs of mold growth, it all indicates that your insulating material is retaining moisture and needs to be replaced with a material like a spray foam insulation or injection foam.
No Air Barrier
Another common problem with garage insulation is that it fails to create an air barrier, as a result of which the air from outside (both hot and cold) makes it way inside your garage, making it excessively hot or cold.
Some insulation materials create a more efficient air barrier than the others.
Odor Retention
Odor retention is a common garage insulation problem that not only affects anyone in the garage but may also affect people inside your home.
Some insulation materials can absorb odors, and with time, these smells may seep into your living space, causing your entire house to smell unpleasant.
How to Insulate Your Garage Gym
If the current insulation of your garage is failing, or worse, your garage isn’t insulated at all, you should first get the insulation work done before converting your garage into a gym.
You certainly don’t want to sweat more than you already do while working out or stay curled up in your blanket when the winter season hits to avoid the super-cold garage gym.
Adding insulation to your garage gym is associated with a number of benefits apart from maintaining the temperature of your garage in bearable limits all year round.
Your garage stays operational throughout the year. Whether it’s hot or cold outside, your garage will be just the right temperature.
In addition, the rooms that are connected to your garage, the ones directly adjacent and over the garage, will also stay pleasant.
The temperature of your garage affects the temperature of the adjoining rooms.
With adequate insulation in your garage, the benefits will be extrapolated to other rooms as well.
Another benefit of garage insulation is noise reduction. You can play the music as loud as you like while you’re working out without disturbing your neighbors!
As far as garage insulation materials are concerned, there are numerous options when it comes to adding insulation to your garage.
Let’s have a quick roundup below:
Fiberglass Insulation
It’s one of the most common types of garage insulation materials. They offer effective insulation and are quite easy to install.
Fiberglass panels are installed between ceiling joists and wall studs. Installing fiberglass insulation is particularly a great idea if the ceilings and walls of your garage aren’t covered with drywall.
The fiberglass sheets not only provide the much-needed insulation for your garage gym but also adds to the overall appearance of the entire space!
Cellulose Insulation
Cellulose insulating material is blown into the ceiling and wall cavities. If your garage is in a finished form, cellulose insulation is probably the best option for you.
The installation of cellulose insulation is best done by professionals since it requires the use of blowers.
A professional with make holes through the finished garage walls and blow in the cellulose, followed by patching up the holes.
Rigid Foam Insulation
Rigid foam for insulation comes in the form of sheets made of Styrofoam, polyisocyanurate, or extruded polystyrene.
It is ideal for insulating the garage doors and floors. This type of insulation is particularly suitable for garages with thin walls.
With the Rigid Foam Insulation, you can have a perfectly insulated garage gym that offers you everything that you need in a gym – noise insulation and temperature regulation!
Spray Foam Insulation
This type of insulation offers excellent air sealing. It is a high-end insulation material that will ensure that your garage doesn’t get too hot or cold, regardless of what the temperature is like outdoors.
How to Cool Your Garage GYm
Most of the time, it’s the high humidity levels indoors that make you feel so hot and uncomfortable.
Too much humidity can disrupt the ability of your body to cool itself. High humidity, coupled with high temperature, can lead to heatstroke.
If you feel suffocated, it’s probably because the humidity inside your gym is really high. In such cases, you should try to convert your gym into a well-insulated and air-conditioned space.
Now that you know the reasons why your garage gym feels so uncomfortably hot in summers, it’s a good time to look through the various cooling options that can be installed in your garage gym.
Garage Doors and Windows
The primary routes through which the heat from outside makes its way inside your garage gym is through the windows and doors.
Since they’re facing the sun directly throughout the day, they offer a convenient route for the heat from sunlight to enter your garage gym.
One of the first cooling options that you can opt for is installing energy-efficient, insulating windows, and doors to your garage.
Installing a garage door with insulation is probably the best thing to do when it comes to keeping your garage cool on hot summer afternoons.
Newer garage doors feature insulation that serves as an efficient barrier for the heat.
The heat from outdoors is prevented from entering your garage, and you’ll feel that your garage feels notably cooler.
Energy-efficient windows offer similar benefits.
They prevent the heat from outdoors from entering your garage through the windows, thereby ensuring that your garage gym stays cool even when it’s super-hot outdoors!
Fans and Ceiling Fans
Installing fans to your garage gym can significantly improve the air flow.
Fans do not cool the garage but improve air flow that eventually makes your garage gym feel cooler.
You can use freestanding fans to force the hot air out of your garage through open windows and doors.
You can install ventilation fans on the walls or opt for ceiling fans. Ceiling fans circulate the air around the garage effectively, hence making your garage feel airier and cooler.
It’s one of the most cost-effective ways of maintaining the temperature of your garage gym at a comfortable level during summers.
Portable AC
Another excellent cooling option for your garage gym is a portable air conditioner. This is a viable option if your garage gym isn’t too big.
Since a portable air conditioner isn’t as powerful as the regular air conditioning system, you can’t expect it to keep your large-sized garage cool on hot summer days.
However, in the case of small-sized garages, there’s no reason why you can’t rely on a portable AC to keep your garage gym cool and comfortable.
What makes portable air conditioners for a garage gym such an attractive option is their small size and excellent portability.
You can place it anywhere around your garage gym and enjoy a pleasant, sweat-free workout at any time of the day.
Split System AC
You can opt to install a split system AC to your garage gym. The best type of split AC for your garage gym is the ductless, mini-split AC.
These split air conditioners are smaller in size and need no ductwork. Moreover, unlike regular air conditioners, they can be installed even in a window-less garage.
Mini-split air conditioners are extremely easy to install and highly efficient when it comes to keeping your garage gym cool during hot summer days.
Cooling Jackets
Cooling jackets are the coolest way of keeping yourself cool during the hottest of days.
You get super-hot and sweaty during your workout, and the sweating can be profuse if your garage gym doesn’t have adequate insulation or cooling system installed.
If your budget doesn’t allow you to install either of the two options, you’ve got cooling jackets to help you out!
These are special jackets that are designed to stabilize your body temperature and make hot weather a lot more bearable.
Although they don’t have anything to do with regulating the temperature of your garage gym, they sure make you feel cooler.
So whatever the temperature of your garage gym is, it doesn’t really matter if you’ve got a cooling jacket on!
How to Heat Your Garage GYm
A super-cold garage gym is as bad and uncomfortable as a hot one. If you reside in a region where there are longer, harsher winters, you’ve got to figure out ways to heat your garage gym up.
There are numerous ways in which you can manage to heat your garage gym and keep it operational even when the temperature outdoors is freezing.
AC Systems
Most of the air conditioning systems, including duct, split, and portable air conditioners, offer dual functionality.
They provide cooling during the summer seasons and can be switched to heating mode when the weather gets cooler.
You can opt for the type of air conditioner that you think will offer maximum functionality for your garage gym.
Split and portable ACs are good for smaller garage gyms, whereas duct air conditioning systems offer the best cooling and heating for larger garage gyms.
Electric Heaters
Electric Fan Heaters
Electric fan heaters work through the process of convection. They warm the air and circulate it throughout the room, eventually warming up the space significantly.
They pull the cool air from the surrounding and heat it up and then propel it back into its surroundings.
They’re equipped with a thermostat that enables you to control how hot you want your garage gym to be.
They’re portable and can be placed anywhere around your garage gym. When the weather starts to warm up, you can conveniently store your electric fan heater away.
Infrared Heaters
The next heating option on our list is infrared heaters. They don’t heat up and circulate the air around. Instead, they heat up the objects that come in their path.
They don’t heat your garage gym, but they actually heat you, which is why you feel warm when you’re around it.
Infrared heaters emit a steady stream of infrared rays that instantly warm any surface that they touch.
Unlike ordinary heaters and heating fans, infrared heaters dispel the cold rapidly.
One of the biggest benefits of using an infrared heater for your garage gym is that you don’t have to wait for the heater to warm up the entire gym.
You can simply place it near your workout space and let it heat that particular area for you, allowing you to enjoy your workout session without freezing.
Propane Heaters
Although propane heaters aren’t as convenient as other heating options discussed above, they can heat up your garage gym efficiently.
They’re costlier, and their installation isn’t as straightforward. Propane heaters don’t require electricity to work.
Instead, they use propane as fuel. Propane is an efficient heating fuel. It’s compressed into liquid form to fuel a propane heater.
The propane flame in the propane heaters is responsible for providing the heating that you need. The flame is directed into a pattern that offers the best heating for your garage gym.
You can control the level of heating either by manually adjusting the flame or by opting for modern propane heaters that come with a built-in thermostat that ensures that the temperature of your garage gym is maintained at desired levels at all times!
Biomass Heaters
Biomass heaters are versatile heating systems that can be used to heat living spaces and can be incorporated into water and floor heating systems.
They produce heat by burning biological matter. The resulting heat that is produced is then used to provide the desired heating.
They can burn a variety of biological matter, including wood chips, logs, pellets, and other biological materials.
They can be fully-automatic, semi-automatic, hand-operated.
The biological material is fed into the burner, and the hot air that is produced from the burning process is transferred through a heat exchanger.
Biomass heaters are highly efficient. Not only this, but they are also a lot more cost-efficient as compared to other heating options that we discussed earlier that make use of electricity or propane fuel.
Final Takeaway
A garage gym is one of the best ways to utilize your garage space for something productive, other than parking your car, of course.
With the right arrangements to cool and heat garage gyms, we don’t see any reason why your garage gym won’t be your iron paradise.
Setting up a garage gym doesn’t come cheap, and if you can’t use it all through the year, you’ll feel as if the expense isn’t justified.
However, with the right cooling and heating arrangements in place, you and your garage gym are good to go, no matter how hot or cold the weather gets!
