I have a large third stall on my garage that I'd like to insulate and run electric to. I live outside of city limits and since this is for a garage the only codes I have to follow are electric.

More background:

All garage walls are poured concrete, 8" thick.

The back wall is all but 10" below grade. One of the side walls is only partially below grade (house is built into a steep hill). The other side wall simply divides the third stall from the rest of the garage.

The concrete walls have a chalky, white coating which appears to be a Drylock type product.

On the "living" side of the house the foundation walls are coated with a layer of tar. The garage walls do not have this.

The ceiling is sheetrocked and insulated.

Because I'm not subject to codes and plan to do the work myself I'm having a hard time getting answers on how to do this. Oh yeah, I live in Rapid City, South Dakota so it get's cold here but there are very little moisture/ground water issues.

I'm thinking about framing out the exterior walls with metal studs and leaving a 1" air space behind it. Is this a good idea?

What should I use for vapor barriers, insulation, etc? Part of the stall will be heated with radiant heat so I'm leaning towards a foil-faced product.

Do I need to worry about having floating walls so the floor does not put pressure on the roof joists?

Lastly, we'll be building a room in the back of this stall that we'll be keeping warm all year round so we'd like to insulate the floor.

Will a Dricore type product be good enough or should I frame out the floor and insulate it?

 

All most like our earth contact. Id hang a 6 mil poly on the cement walls. Yes use metal studs if you want. do put down a P/T 2X4 for the base plate and start the metal on top of it. stay out 1" use R 13 in all the walls there with the paper side to the room. We still put a 4 or 6 mil poly over all this then the drywall or panel.

ED