I am living in a 2 year old house. During the winter I am burning over 10 gallons of heating oil a day and the house is still cold. There is a playroom over the garage that is always freezing and I can feel a cold breeze that comes down the stairs that are on the garage side of the house. Could my contractor done a better job of insulating the house?

 

Sounds like the garage is not insulated, nor is the floor cavity between the garage and the playroom. I would check your contract to see what your warranty says.I would also call an insulation contractor to check it out. You can try to get the General Contractor to tell you if he insulated or not. Or call the building department to look up the inspections and see if the insulation inspection was signed off for the garage. As for the cold breeze you may have to hire a home inspector to find the source.

 

All,

I have a similar problem. Our house is abt 7 yrs old. I don't know if there is any warranty left. The room above the garage is the coldest room in our house. I just recently laid new carpets on this room. Do I have to remove this carpet to check if there is any insulation? How do I figure out the reason for room being cold? I can bring in a ontractor but I need to be bit more knowledgeable - right? any help is greatly appreciated.

 

check this pdf file for information on how they should be insulated.
www.dom.com/customer/efficiency/res/answers/pdf/rooms_over_garages.pdf
I also have a room over my garage (1954 cape cod) and had to beat a hole in the garage ceiling to check for insulation (its there) but had only about r3 old fiberglass batts over the actual room in the attic space. Inaddition i also have 2 long kneewalls in the room that i know for sure arent sealed or insulated correctly. What i did so far is blow in R50 cellulose over the room and the rest of the attic that was only R9. This helped out my room alot to keep the heat that it recieved from the long run from the furnace but still wasnt enough to get the room up to the same temp as the rest of the house. Since the floor is still freezing Im guessing i need to actually cut access holes into both knee walls and finally seal and properly insulate them as well. The garage ceiling i will leave alone because thats just too much work to change.
In the meantime i bought a honeywell oil space heater to get me thru the winter. Works like magic keeping the room warm enough to use the first time during a winter in this house since ive been here. Btw the heater also auto shuts off when the room reaches temp but still puts out heat thru the hot oil. My electric bill barely moved up at all.

 

d00bs is correct with using supplemental heating.

Insulation does not produce heat for a room. However the surfaces that are exposed to unconditioned areas, like the garage, attic and exterior walls influence the amount of heat loss. In other words because the room above the garage has walls, ceiling and floor in direct contact with with unheated areas, unlike many of the other rooms of the house, this room above the garage requires more heat to it to obtain the same comfort levels as the rest of the house.

This is quite common where the thermostat located in the main section of the house reaches desired temperature and turns off the heat. But the temperature in the room above the garage did not due to the amount of heat loss from exposed surfaces to unconditioned areas. The result is the room is much cooler than the rest of the house. The draft that you feel in this room is referred to as a natural draft. Warm air as it cools becomes heavier and drops.

Supplemental heating adds heat to the room to compensate for the heat loss. In other words "Heat Load" is defined as the amount of heat needed to maintain a desired temperature per hour. The amount of heat loss in this room is much greater than rooms in the rest of the house. Therefore it requires more heat per hour. Supplemental heat is probably your best option, unless you have hot water heating and you can zone for this room.