"We asked if the crew could remove the drywall and she said no, it would be too much work for them"

"Technically the builder still owns the house"

This is simple; tell them to either allow you to insulate the walls, like you wanted, or you'll walk.

Period.

Don't naggle, don't waffle, don't do anything. Keep it simple.

We're in a down economy; if they don't want to allow you to do this one thing; walk.

Wow 2 responses already? This site is incredible!

manhattan42: I guess that's my question...does it make a difference? Is it worth fighting about? Everybody we know who has built their own homes always insulates the whole garage so we assumed it made a difference.
We are not very "build savvy" and that is the main reason why we have we went with a mass builder. In fact most of my building knowledge has come from scouring this site at all hours of the day lol.

Our house is brick venner and one thing we have noticed is that the garage is literally just one layer of brick, 2x4 (2x6 for the house), and now drywall. No plywood or anything.
My main concern is that the energy lose could effect the temp/comfort of the bedroom above but maybe I'm wrong (the floor of that room ends where the insulation in the garage ceiling ends).

Jason - if only I had the guts to threaten to walk away. I love this house, neighbourhood, we've sold our current home, and in all honesty the housing market is doing fairly well where we are (besides the fact that we've given lots of $ as a deposit and technically the builder is not doing anything wrong and therefore I think legally we are obligated).

If the floor above the garage, and the walls that form the thermal envelope of your house, are insulated to the levels prescribed by your Energy Code, there will be absolutely no energy savings associated with insulating the rest of the garage.

You can, however, have a slightly cooler garage in summer and slightly warmer garage in winter if you insulate the other walls....but there will be absolutely NO difference in your heating and cooling bills because of it.

So what you choose is just that...a personal choice.

Worth it?

Depends where you live and on what side of the house the garage is located.

The thermal envelope in any house is not perfect; additional insulation can always help but you reach the point of diminishing returns after a while which is why we don't try for R-1000.

Insulating an attached garage forms a pocket of air at a less extreme temperature. Will it be a big difference? No. If the home is well insulated otherwise it might not even be noticeable.

Personally, I would drop the issue and mark this down as one of the concessions you made to the builder. You might need a tick in that column down the road to get your way on something more important.

I had an insulated and heated garage when I lived at a much higher latitude than Southern Ontario. The garage was kept at 50 degrees F. It was really nice to drive in to work in the middle of the winter in a vehicle that had not been cold soaked to -20F or worse overnight.

If I lived in Ontario, I would insist on an insulated garage. In fact, I find it difficult to believe that houses are being built there with uninsulated garages at all. Heck, we are building a house with an insulated garage in Tennessee, and it's our builder's standard offering. He doesn't build any houses with uninsulated garages.

FWIW, I used to live near Toronto, so I am familiar with the weather in that neck of the woods. An insulated buffer space between the house and the outdoors comes in real handy in that kind of environment.

It sounds like it is time to call in either Mike Holmes or Red Green. Heck get both of them involved. Now that would be a show worth staying up for.

Humor aside, I think you have been done a real disservice by the builder. I would ask them how they planned on making it right. Their response will tell you a lot about their integrity.

Just to offer another opinion - different from Creekside. I built in NC and my fairly high end custom builder offered garage insulation but said that it was only worth it if I was going to condition it as a workshop one day. Despite being energy star certified and going above and beyond on insulation, I did not insulate the garage. I've been in uninsulated garages at 20 degrees outside and you will probably be about 50 degrees in the garage. So I suspect at zero degrees, your garage will be about 40 degrees instead of the 50 degrees that it might be if insulated. Personally, that 10 degrees might be worth it in Toronto. But worth ripping down drywall - probably not.

Even with Supers in town on a custom build, things happen that shouldn't. I wouldn't say that your builder is crap over this.

Just to give you something else to think about. You will ruin the drywall taking it down most likely. You might be at $200 for all the drywall in a garage - total guess but the stuff is not that expensive. It sounds like your builder might cover this. It takes minutes to remove drywall so I'm not sure who is too busy to do it.

If you are that concerned, why not hire a company to do
blown in insulation. they drill holes blow in insulation
and cap the holes. when the sheetrock is painted the caps will be less visible.
not a cold climate expert by any means..but just
a possible alternative to your issue.
best of luck.
hiya manhattan..

If insulating the garage creates a slightly warmer or cooler garage then you are slowing the escape of heat from the house in the winter and into the house in the summer. Therefore, there will be a slight reduction in your energy bills.

Is the garage door insulated?

It seems that two mistakes were made. You made the first mistake by asking to perform work in the house yourself without writing it into the contract. The second mistake was by the manager. Both were based on not taking the contractural relationship seriously. Your mistake weakens your claim considerably so you are basically asking for a favor from the builder. The issue will be considerably more difficult to resolve if the drywall installers used any nails.

I'm an occasional TARION builder. Adding fibrous insulation in the ceiling above the garage wouldn't have done much anyway.

What I now do in that situation is use closed cell foam, and also add it in the rim area.

I only insulate the exterior garage walls if there's the possibility the buyer wants to use the garage in the winter for working on their vehicles etc.

I find it strange that any builder here would allow the buyer in to do anything. If I own the building and land, I only allow two inspections during construction. Does Toyota let you in to work on "your" vehicle while it's being built?

Do it right the first time is what I am learning in my DIY build. It might be a huge headache but someone anyone needs to take it down so you can insulate. Tell them that you refuse to "close on the loan" or "sign off on the walk-through" until it is done correctly. So they better move quickly to fix this problem. Stand up for yourselves even though it's a huge headache, but building itself is a huge headache. Who cares if the drywall company has to take it down and put it back up again, the builder better pay them to do it too, not you. Good luck

I agree with Worthy. As I mentioned before, doing work on your house yourself is a serious contract issue that should be specifically addressed in the original agreement or by an an amendment. Nothing your builder tells you orally in this regard is legally binding.

Pick your battles with a contractor carefully. This one is a first round loser.

Thank you all for your responses. My DH sent an email to our rep telling her that we were able to return the purchased insulation and to forget about it. I think this is not a battle we were going to win considering it was an oral understanding b/w us and our rep (we've never met the owner of this company). She is a realtor that acts as the go between for buyers and the site super and/or owner and has made more than a few promises that have been reneged/"clarified with owner as wrong" so I guess we were reacting to that as well.

WE don't plan to use the garage for anything more than a shelter for our vehicles so we are content to leave as is...now we have to deal with an inconsistency between the agreed upon drawing (front elevation shows a door we prefer to the door they have installed and our rep says too bad! urgh)

We did the same (built a home in a neighborhood with a mass builder). We had the same issues with that type of realtor as well. We got so fed up at one point, my wife wrote a 2 page email to the realtor, our realtor, and the realtors' boss in which she let them have it with both barrels, so to speak. Talk about lighting a fire under someone: we had everyone calling to assure us that everything was going to be fine, it would be done the way we wanted it, blah blah blah. In the end, it was done the way we wanted it, but it took a lot of stress and headache to get it that way.

If the drawing of the house was what you were promised, you need to raise seven kinds of you-know-what and DEMAND they give you that door. We threw a royal fit over crown moulding that was promised and not delivered, and they finally caved in and installed it. Just remind them over and over that you wanted to insulate the garage, were told over and over by the realtor that you could, tell the builder what the realtor told you about tearing down the drywall (the realtor will deny it, but so what), and then go back to demanding they put in the right door. You can make these people move, but it takes a tremendous shove.