Insulating the galley shelves

[Dalorin]

All,

I want to posture something. From a mathematical standpoint, if you insulate the floor, ceiling, front, and back (the galley shelves) then insulating the walls is wasted effort. I think the real issue is that people aren't insulating between the galley and the cabin.

People are going to a great deal of trouble to create sandwiched walls with insulation and it seems like the wrong place to put effort. Here's what I mean. Consider a standard benroy as laid out in the generic plans. The floor is 85" long, the ceiling is about 63" long, the front wall is 48" (and we will simplify by saying that the back wall is also 48" rather than crunch through too much math to show that there is actually more surface area there). All of these surfaces are 60" wide. So do the math and the ceiling, floor, front and back (everything but the sides) adds up to a surface area of 102 square feet of surface area.

If we do the same thing with the walls and again just pretend that they even were 4 x 8, in reality they aren't because of the galley, you only come up with 64 square feet, subtract from that two insulated doors of 13 square feet total and you are left with a paltry 51 square feet. And this was simplified in favor of the walls dimensions. How much of that 51 square feet will you actually be able to insulate with all of your effort? 1/3 perhaps? 34 square feet optimistically?

Given this math it would seem to me that you would get more bang for your buck (much easier to achieve) insulating the shelves between the galley and the cabin. Again, pretending that there was just a flat wall there it would be 4 x 6 which is 24 square feet. You can insulate all of that rather quickly.

Thoughts?

[bdosborn]

I can tell you that this topic comes up *a lot*. If you read some of the previous posts I think you'll see a pattern; those that have insulated love it, those that haven't wake up with wet walls.

Bruce

[tony.latham]

I've had teardrops with and without insulated walls. Osborn's right, you'll get condensation without insulting your walls. (You still need to have good circulation).

I don't consider uninsulated bulkheads are an issue since I insulate my hatch, so in reality, they are interior walls.

T

[Dalorin]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I didn't know that condensation would be an issue but it makes sense.