Hello folks, I'm trying to come up with an affordable (~$50) way to temporarily divide my open floorplan apartment's main room. It used to be a very large garage on the ground floor of a large home built on a steep hill. I am pretty sure they just put sheet rock right on the cinderblock wall (no outlets) with no insulation. On the exterior wall that did get framed out (with outlets) I have 2 massive windows. The entryway into the apartment is a double door, both mostly glass, that no amount of weather stripping seems to seal properly. As a result, my living room is almost unusable in the winter even with the heat full blast, particularly on a breezy day. For 2 years now we've been packing rectangles of heavy duty insulation board into the windows all winter, which has been some help, but we only have the one small heater vent for the forced air heat. Between the walls, the doors, and the windows (even with insulation) it's still uncomfortable to watch TV at night in the winter, especially if it is windy. This year I have been toying with the idea of dividing the room and not using the back half (we're in the compute room most of the time anyways) to preserve heat.
Here are some pics:
From doorway and opposite.
I want to use something to divide the room along the beam on the ceiling. The length is ~26 feet and the height from floor to beam is about 6'8". I have considered plastic sheeting. Enough 6 mil to cover the area and make a plastic wall would be $50-60, but I have my doubt about how effective it would be. I know it would stop airflow but I dunno if the lack of insulation would cancel out the benefit, with the heat bleeding through anyways. I have considered conventional room dividers - until i look at the prices. Finally I was looking in to more 8x4 sheets of insulation board but at 15-25 bucks for the cheap sheets it would be well over $100 to go 24'.
Looks do not matter, all I care about is dividing the room so it gets warmer, and safety. I don't want to use anything flammable or toxic. Do you folks have any ideas?
November 01, 2017 at 02:17AM
