I currently work out of a one car garage in a Dallas suburb (Plano). About 6 years ago or so, I had the garage walls insulated, I insulated the garage door and then I had a split A/C unit installed. It all worked great.
In mid-December, my wife and I began the long, involved process of purchasing a short sale home in a small suburb north of Dallas (Prosper). After 5 months, we are due to close this Friday. One of the attractions of this house is that I would have my shop in an oversized two car garage. I plan on hiring an electrician to do the electrical work (fortunately for me, the service is already there in the garage, and is more than adequate). I am going to have the walls insulated and another (larger) split A/C unit installed and I will insulate the garage door – just as I did in my present one car garage shop.
I called the town’s inspector to get a rough idea of how long it might take to get a permit for the electrical work. Once he heard that I was planning on air conditioning a garage, he told me that I will need to remove the garage door and brick up the opening!!!!! Otherwise I would be in violation of the energy code, and I got the impression that the job will not be permitted without such a plan!!! What the heck??? I thought this would be just an electrical permit/inspection and would be very straight forward.
Has anyone heard of such a thing? Anyone familiar with the “Energy Code” in Texas (it is supposedly a state thing). What if I worked on cars for a hobby? I would not be allowed to air condition the garage because I couldn’t remove the garage door and close the opening????
This seems crazy to me, and I am in a bit of a panic as I had not planned on the significant expense it would take to close the garage door opening and I like to have it open when the weather is nice anyway!!!.....but I need to have this thing cooled in the summer and warmed in the winter.