The space over my garage is dominated by a large dormer, which I use as my office. On either side of this dormer, the remainder of the over-garage area is attic space. We have access panels into these attic spaces.
I'm thinking of using that space as a networking closet, as it's easy for me to get cables to the basement and up into the main attic from there, which gives me the ability to drop cables down to all of the other bedrooms.
My concern is temperature. This is the front of the house, and the slope of the the roof of this space goes all the way up to the attic (which does have a ridge vent), but it's broken by an interior wall, kind of like this:
Here's a picture of the front of the house, for reference:
I haven't measured temperature in there on a hot summer day, but as it's uninsulated and effectively not vented I assume it gets fairly toasty in there.
Is there any way to keep it cool(ish?) I'd love to keep it under 85F, but I'd settle for keeping it with 5 degrees F of the external temperature.
Best Answer
You're basically asking how to convert an unconditioned space into a conditioned space.
This requires opening up the space to the existing conditioned part of the house and closing it off to the unconditioned space.
I challenge your belief that it isn't vented. I suspect that it is vented - there will (or should) be some kind of air gap between the top corner of your office wall and the roof line. This is mandatory, as unconditioned spaces must properly vent to the outside to allow airflow which prevents moisture buildup, thus preventing rot, mold, etc.
I won't design the solution for you (plan my project questions for me are frowned on), but if it were me, I would bump the wall out a couple of feet and build a complete closet, WELL insulated, with vents on the top and bottom, with a low power continuous fan running to make sure the air got transferred.