Suggestions for properly insulating/sealing shed doors, and insulating cubby spots?

[Michael Yadfar]

I'm jumping back into a project I haven't worked on since early August because I haven't had the time, but now I do again. I decided to put together a personal woodshop because I no longer work in carpentry but still want to do it, and I bought about $5,000 worth of woodworking equipment. Right now I'm not in a situation where I can build a permanent shop, and don't feel like dishing out money to rent a facility, and will likely be in this position for the next three years. I decided the best way to go about it was to renovate a storage shed at my parents house which isn't used too much anymore, and so far I'm about 90% done. I have everything insulated except the windows (which need to be replaced), doors (which are partial insulated), and cubbies.

I will put pictures of the doors below, but the way they work is the frame insets into the building, and the plywood on the outside of the door presses up against the outside of the shed. These don't for tight, but that can be fixed with some latches, which is easy, but the hard part is how to insulate those seems. Right now the door is insulated with foamboard, but I don't know what to do to properly seal them without making them permanently sealed. I didn't buy new doors because it's not practical for that purpose.

The cubby space is space created by the large overhang of the roof, and I will have pictures of that below. These aren't really super important to save, but they give me enough extra storage space to want to save them. Actually putting insualtion in there would cut off so much space they won't even be usuable, so my idea was to seal them off, but still make them accessible. If I was to do this permanent, I would probably run a piece of foam board all the way across the front and glue it. However, like I said, I would still like this space to be able to be utilized.

Front doors (before project started)
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Top of front doors
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"Cubbies"
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Please ignore my thumbnail, can't figure out how to delete it

[Michael Yadfar]

Sorry to purposely jump this to the top, but I really need some advice on this

[Mark Bolton]

Unfortunately there really is no easy way to insulate those doors effectively. The best would be a DIY spray foam setup and then shave the interior face down flush and cover it. The problem with the XPS you are using is that while its something its very low Rvalue. They will definitely be better than they were but not the greatest. If you could have used ISO it may have been better but regardless sealing up all the joints from a nearly impossible fit job is futile.

I cant figure out the cubbies issue but if your just looking to get through a bit of time with this space I would just do the best you can, dont prioritize any spaces based on coulda shoulda woulda, just get the place reasonably tight, with a minimum of effort, and put the resources into additional heat. The pain of all that will motivate you to keep working towards your better solution down the road.

Just my 0.02$

[Michael Yadfar]

Unfortunately there really is no easy way to insulate those doors effectively. The best would be a DIY spray foam setup and then shave the interior face down flush and cover it. The problem with the XPS you are using is that while its something its very low Rvalue. They will definitely be better than they were but not the greatest. If you could have used ISO it may have been better but regardless sealing up all the joints from a nearly impossible fit job is futile.

I cant figure out the cubbies issue but if your just looking to get through a bit of time with this space I would just do the best you can, dont prioritize any spaces based on coulda shoulda woulda, just get the place reasonably tight, with a minimum of effort, and put the resources into additional heat. The pain of all that will motivate you to keep working towards your better solution down the road.

Just my 0.02$

That's another way to think about it, I guess I'm focusing too much on making a temporary shop perfect. I wanted to be able to keep the humidity down, but that's probably unrealistic, but if I keep everything cleaned and waxed, I should probably be alright. In southeast PA I don't have tropical humidity or salt water vapor which helps too. The biggest concern I should have I guess is rodent control which hasn't been bad (knock on wood). I'm already facing a bit of an issue because the caulk (cheap stuff Home Depot was practically giving away) I used to seal the seams on between the foam boards which I have overtop the rafters is cracking either from the cold or expanding and contracting of the wood.

While the foam board I'm using isn't the best stuff like you said, it's not too bad. I have a 20 R value in the ceiling, 13 on the walls (fiberglass), and a 10 in the floor and doors. The idea you said about using foam is a similar idea I had. I was thinking about buying weather stripping, somehow back up the area where the door sits flush against or move the plywood on the doors back. The cubbies maybe I can screw the foamboard straight across and then tape the seams, making it somewhat permanent.

[Joe A Faulkner]

You might check out weather stripping used to seal garage doors and use this on the outside. Whatever you can do to reduce air flow will help quite a bit. On the inside you could attach door stops and weather stripping or you could simply rip rigid foam and tack it up to act like a stop. Also pick up a roll of "sill" sealer. You can use this to fill some voids as well and to even line between the doords. If these are not the only entry doors, you could put up a temporary "interior" barrier - vis queen, rigid foam, both. Come April, you won't need it for another 7 months.