As anyone who lives in Texas, specifically Houston, summers are brutal. I like to spend as much time as I can in the garage building stuff or just tinkering around. However, it's just too hot and too humid in there for almost half the year. Yesterday, I recorded 94-deg with over 75% humidity. And, that was without even opening the doors once.

My attached, finished, front entry 2-car garage, split doors, faces west, and has no windows or extra doors. Above it is nothing but attic and only one wall touches the rest of the house. So, in my mind, one wall is probably insulated. The other two, besides the garage door side, are bricked.

Is it more worth the time and money to:
A) Add a portable Air Conditioner
B) Insulate the garage doors
C) Insulate the attic above the garage

This is not a forever home and may only be a till this winter home. So I'm not wanting to blow a lot of money at it and insulate everything and install the unit an AC unit in the wall as I would if we were going to be here multiple more years.
I'm open to suggestions.

I have a similar issue, I'm looking to install foam boards into garage doors to help. Previous garage had insulated garage door and it did keep garage cooler.

A few years ago we turned our attached garage into a family and built a detached 3-car garage with a 2-car bay and a 1-car bay separated by a wall. I did all the interior finish work. I insulated the entire garage, divided the 1-car stall in half - shop in front/ store room in back with a pocket door between. Both garage doors are insulated. I had a small AC/Heating unit installed in the store room. I think it was well worth the cost and the effort.

If you really want a conditioned space, you won't get it without air conditioning. Otherwise the best you can hope for is the outside air temp + humidity and then whatever bleed through you get from your house.

Your options are mostly:
1. condition the space continuously
2. insulate the space (garage door, exterior walls, ceiling) and condition the space

If you just stick a portable unit in there and duct the exhaust outside, the unit will need to run almost non-stop.

Insulation is fairly inexpensive if DIY minus whatever drywall damage you need to do to insulate the exterior walls and a portable unit or a mini-split are also fairly inexpensive ($1,800).

I bet insulating the garage door will get you the most improvement first. not really sure of the cost though.

still hot as balls but this product in the garage door helped by a few degrees. Made in Dallas too.
https://reachbarrier.com/

Punch a window in one of the side walls, as far away from the garage door as possible.

My garage does not face the west and gets hot/humid as hell in there. For the cost and effort, I don't know that you can beat just blowing in some insulation in the attic. I plan on doing that as soon as I have a free weekend.

You're talking about bringing the garage down into the 80s, not 65 and 30% humidity. In college (house in Bryan, in hindsight a very understanding landlord) we cut a hole in a walk/man door for a bigger window unit, and added insulation panels to the door. One wall touched the house - similar to yours.

We'd turn it on around dinner time and that's where we'd hang out in the evenings/overnight. Really didn't seem to add that much to our energy bill IIRC.

Realistically I'd you are moving out this winter (if I read that correctly) I'd do nothing. You won't get any of that money returned upon the sale of the home. I'd suggest spending the time you can now as it will begin to cool down "some" in the next 60 days or so.

Personally I'd save the cash for upgrades in your new home that will be a longer term use of your dollars and you will get more days of use.

jtp01 said:

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Realistically I'd you are moving out this winter (if I read that correctly) I'd do nothing. You won't get any of that money returned upon the sale of the home. I'd suggest spending the time you can now as it will begin to cool down "some" in the next 60 days or so.

Personally I'd save the cash for upgrades in your new home that will be a longer term use of your dollars and you will get more days of use.

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It's a large possibility for work. Hence why I was thinking of tackling a portable AC unit that I can take with me or, if possible, install the cellofoam garage door insulation and then attempting to remove and take with me to new home.

I've heard good things about the Radiant Barrier but also the Cellofoam. I can't figure out which one is better by itself.

I found that insulating the garage door made my garage unbearably hot. Throughout the day, the garage would still get to ambient temperatures, and then when our cars were parked in the garage, the heat had no where to go. After I found my garage at 115F at 10pm I ripped all that garage insulation off and haven't had a problem since.

If you are going to insulate and park your cars in the garage, you need a way to remove the heat from the space.

Assuming you are handy, you can get a mini split for less than 500 bucks and throw it in there. You can take it out depending on how you install, but for 500 bucks I don't know if its worth the trouble. They are way more efficient than window units, which as noted above will have to run all the time to keep it even bearable

My neighbor has the best garage I've ever seen. A 2 deep bay and a one deep bay.

The 2 deep bay has a back door to the yard, so I imagine it has great airflow.

I used 1" thick foil-backed foam cut to size on the door and added a portable a/c on a side wall. The only permanent part is cutting the hole for a dryer vent to go through the wall to vent the a/c. I only use the a/c when I'm working in the garage, and it takes about an hour to bring it down to a bearable temp. The door faces south and the west-facing wall is not insulated.

Thanks so much for all the feedback. I'll be here for at least another year, so I went ahead and put an LG 10,000BTU (DOE) portable air conditioner in there and routed the exhaust into the attic. Then I insulated the entire ceiling/attic floor with R13 3.5" fiberglass rolls which isn't anything crazy but should make a notable difference at least. I have a garage door Insulation kit that should be here at the end of this week. I've been running the ac in there all day today and the temp hasn't risen but one degreee. So it makes me think the insulation is working but the AC isn't making a difference. Or maybe they're both doing all they can to maintain? We started off the day (10am) at 87deg with 66% humidity. Now (4PM) we're at 88deg with 60% humidity.
Any thoughts?
I don't plan on removing the side dry wall or spraying foam into it so, besides the doors, this will be it.
Currently no cars are in it.

Quick followup. What garage door kit did you use and are you liking it? I'm building now and my entire garage is insulated except the garage doors, so wondering if I need to do those also.

Thanks

Is venting to the attic a thing?