My boss owns a 120x190 foot prefab steel building warehouse with exposed insulation on about 85% of the interior. The paper on the insulation has cracked a lot over the years and the boss wants to fix it, here is a photo. There’s really no need to reinsulate, so he’s thinking about covering it with something. I don’t have any idea what he wants to spend but I think we want to go as cheap as possible. We’re basically fixing paper and it’s not worth spending a fortune to fix paper. The lower 8 feet or so is block, the parts with insulation are probably 15-20 feet high. So 20 feet high by 120x190 minus 15% where the insulation is not exposed, there’s a lot of square footage to cover.
The material isn’t too important, but it needs to be white-ish, needs to be able to withstand light wind from open garage doors and also a 20 foot diameter industrial ceiling fan that puts out a 10mph breeze, and heat from both air temp and the radiant heating system which will warm it up about the same as summer heat. White cardboard would be perfect, except it’s pretty ghetto and probably against fire regulations.
We looked at various sheets of vinyl but they’re usually $20-30 for a 4x8 foot sheet so that’s way too expensive. I thought of that stuff they wrap buildings under construction with but boss said it’s a little flimsy, plus they’re usually covered in logos. I thought of white radiant barrier but it may be overkill and more expensive than necessary.
Also, some of the plastic vapour barrier in my house is plain opaque white instead of clear. I assume it came in 10-foot wide rolls like the clear stuff.
There is paint that is good for filling or creating texture. Sound proofing material is particularly thick.
The trouble with putting paint on is that the extra weight will pull the paper off faster.
You can buy thin board, like 4mm thick, that is used for quick repair jobs where the surface isn’t exposed (to people who would knock holes in it.)
Get it cut to size when you buy it. (measure all those gaps and leave some allowance… Glue on simple blocks to hold it in place ?
That’s the direction I was heading. A fireproof/retardant fabric that is translucent. Anchoring against the problems you mention shouldn’t be daunting.
Then spend a few bucks and hire an interior design consultant to make it look purdy. Some tasteful lighting/back lighting alone can go a long way.
This was my first thought when you said small warehouse. So why try to cover it up then? If it’s not important, that implies ultra-low budget which means it’s probably 50-50 if it ends up looks a much better. Even a 60"/5ft x 75ft roll of tyvek is almost $400. So I don’t really see this getting done without spending a few bucks. And given the economy, consultants for non-essential services are probably going to be a lot cheaper than you think.
When we had our basement finished, we had bare fiberglass insulation facing the unfinished part. I put sheets of something like pegboard or very heavy cardboard. i don’t know what it’s called. It came in 4 X 8 panels.
