Metal Shed - am I entitled to condensation or how to insulate it?

[MingtheMerciless]

As the title suggests, my new Asgard shed is a bit condensation prone. Looking at insulating it, so far my current thoughts are 20mm Kingspan “pink gripped” onto the walls and roof, 2 pack spray insulation (given my lack of painting skills I foresee a disaster) or van type insulation.

Any other options?

[Horse]

Do you risk condensation between insulation and metal? Leading to damp/mould etc.?

Can you improve ventilation?

[DEADPOOL]

As the title suggests, my new Asgard shed is a bit condensation prone. Looking at insulating it, so far my current thoughts are 20mm Kingspan “pink gripped” onto the walls and roof, 2 pack spray insulation (given my lack of painting skills I foresee a disaster) or van type insulation.

Any other options?

You either hermetically seal it so that no air can get to the inner surface of the steel (no air gap) or you allow it to breathe and have it vented between the insulation and the inner steel. Ventilation needs to be good enough that cold external air flows under the steel, not vented so that any warm air from the inside can reach it.

There are a thousand ways to make either design work but those are the the only two options to prevent condensation.

[Mussels]

I had a large plastic shed a few years back with bad condensation, I made a hole under an eave, fitted a PC fan and small solar panel to power it to keep air flowing. It worked a treat.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Seal the floor from the ground, metal sheds draw water out of the ground as they hear up and cool down, ventilate the roof area.

[demographic]

Vapour barrier on the inside sealed up and ventilate the gap between the insulation and outer venting to outside.
Thats the way for cold climates anyway. That way vapour doesn't get from the inside (wet bike with hot engine type of thing) to and condense on the cold outer surface.
Hot climates with aircon works kind of the other way.
In your situation I'd likely kingspan it with gaps between the boards of 10mm or so, squirty foam the gaps which in my experience works better than trying to have tight gaps that you can't fit the foamgun nozzle into. The foam seals it way better than the boards up tight.
Theres tape you can seal it with but its expensive and I'd still foam the gaps as well.

Oh and don't buy the foam cans with built in nozzle, the foam guns are just better to use.

[demographic]

Mind, saying that I'm soon to be fucking my metal shed right off if my daughters house buy goes through.
With luck, I can move gear into her garage for a while and just build a better one for myself while its out of the way.
Its costing me the deposit on her house but its a nice house for her and local to us.

[demographic]

Another way is to make up timber studs and attach them to the walls and add the sa.e for a ceiling.
Then insulate between the studs with Kingspan and foam the gaps, then you can but OSB or plywood over the studs and you can hang shelves off the walls then.
Just makes for more usable wallspace but you do lose a few inches of floorspace because of the stud and ply thickness.
Depends on how big the shed is in the first place but thats a pretty common way to do it with shipping container offices/workspaces although offices are usually done with a plastic faced board so its easy to clean.

[demographic]

I forgot to mention that when we put ventilation between the insulated frames and cold external cladding of a building we have to put vent/insect mesh at the parts that are otherwise open to outside.
This stops wasps and other small creatures setting up house inside the vented areas whilst allowing moisture to escape to outside when the temperature gradient allows it.

Nowadays any building worth heating gets airtested and there are huge savings in building efficiency to gain if the building is done right. I know I'm really fussy on this subject at work but I happen to honestly believe it matters to the customer (money on heat for birds feet is wasted money) in the long run and the planet because it uses much less energy to maintain a nice internal temperature.
Yeah I know this isn't a shed but the principle is the same, its one that me and another bloke built last year up at Hawick.
Internal vapour barrier, insulated timber frames and ventilated larch cladding.


Looking at their photo of it, the lazy feckers still haven't sorted that outside light and camera I put the cables for through the cladding.