Has anyone tried a portable air conditioner in their shop?

[Silas Smith]

I know the northies are going to hate this, but we are maybe a few weeks away from summer in Houston. I am dreading the garage during the summer and I need some way to cool it down. Unfortunately, I have no window, and the garage is surrounded by a brick facade that I really don't want to cut into. I am considering either a portable air conditioner or some setup where I put a window unit under my garage door and then make an insulated blocker for the rest of the door. What have you tried that worked out well?

[Kenneth Hertzog]

Hi I have a portable air conditioner in my shop. I took out the garage door and studed the opening and left a hole for the unit. I insulated all the walls and it runs very little. I put plywood on the inside wall for storage and shelves. works great

[lou sansone]

it gets hot up here in CT as well..I have tried it, but my shop is too big for the window type. I may try simply to run a dehumidifier to lower the dp this summer.

lou

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Raising up your garage door would be very inefficient. The reason for this is that as you raise up your garage door, the top pulls away from the seals. There would probably be a foot gap that you would have at the top of the door. If you were going to put an air conditioner at the bottom of the door, you would have to fill gaps all the way up the door and along the top.

[John Renzetti]

hi, I bought a smaller portable Fedders unit from MSC last year. It exhausts through a port I made in the wall. Works fine. I think it was only about $550.
take care,
John

[bill walton]

Silas,
I live way down almost to Key West and I understand what you are talking about and you've given me a good idea. I'm going to get a small room unit and put it on some sort of rollaround cart sitting very near the ground. I'll sew an insulated curtain out of sunbrella, a polyester canvas-like awning fabric, sewn to some stuff I have that looks like bubblewrap encapsulated with reflective mylar. A bit of chain in a tube at the bottom and I can deploy it from the bottom of the garage door. Thanks for the idea.
Bill

[Tony Sade]

I put a vertical indow unit in an Anderson casement window last summer. I had to take out the window, hinges and casing then creat a new "storm" to minimize heat loss above the unit (the Westinghouse unit I got from Sears comes with a sliding panel that provides a seal, but it's not transparent. I substituted some plexi in that frame and added my storm to creat dead air.) It works fine and helps a lot. While I sure don't miss the heat, I do miss the light I'd get from sweating with both garage doors open.

If I were in your shoes, I'd try Bill W's approach with the ac on a mobile cart and a port cut into your garage door, maybe with a sliding door to seal things up when the ac isn't in use.

I believe that stand alone ac's are made, but you'll probably have to find a way to bring in the warm air you need. Maybe just a smaller port in the garage door like something the automotive places use to vent exhaust.

Good luck. I sure can't imagine working in FL without AC. Great weight loss technique, I'll bet.

[Ellen Benkin]

I know someone who worked in an office where they bought a free standing air conditioner for the summer because the company would not let them install window units. It rolls around like a small dust collector. You do need to vent it to the outside, but a hole in the garage door would work just fine. In fact, a "quick connect" dust collector port attached to the door might work. I think I've seen them for sale in Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The people in that office LOVED it!

[Silas Smith]

The only problem with the free standing ones is the price. A decent one costs over $500!!! I wonder if I could take a window unit and build a cabinet for it? The basic function is the same isn't it?

[Mike Tempel]

Silas, as a fellow Houstonian suffering in our heat and humidity I can't wait to hear what solution you come up with. I would be extremely interested in it as I have the same problem and for me, summer just isn't in the cards for woodworking unless it is extremely early or late in the day as I don't tolerate the heat like I used to.Please, please, please (begging now) keep us updated as to what you come up with. I considered stripping my shop one wall at a time and insulating and then installing some sort of insulation/decking in the rafters of my detached 2 car shop. After insulation I was going to look for a self contained unit like what is used in motel rooms or just a good sized room unit and hope that would do the job without forcing me to float a loan to pay the electric bills for the summer. However, the cost is maybe to prohibitive for me to do anything but wait each year until the fall where I can return to the shop in relative comfort.

I am greatly interested in what you might come up with and how it works.

[Mike Forsman]

Living in the Dallas metroplex, I too experience extreme heat and high humidity in the hot months (May to Oct). I was fortunate enough to have two windows in my garage/shop. The problem was that HOA restrictions would not allow a window mounted A/C unit. So, I needed a different solution.

<O</OI purchased a window mount A/C unit and built a plywood cart on casters. The bottom of the cart is used for storage and the top contains and encloses the A/C unit. The A/C enclosure has the front of the unit exposed to the shop. The back has two ports/holes. One port provides intake air and the other port provides exhaust air. There are internal baffles to keep the intake air flowing to the heat exchanger and then out of the exhaust.

<O</OWhen I use the A/C unit, I back the cart up to one of the open windows and run short ducts for the intake and exhaust ports to a bulkhead that also has holes for the intake and exhaust ducts. This bulkhead goes into the open window and prevents the hot outside air from flowing into the shop. This setup allows outside air to flow into the intake port, through the heat exchanger, and then out the exhaust port.

<O</OThere is also a condensation drain catch pan under the A/C unit. This then drains into a small tube that I run under/around the garage door.

<O</OThis setup works ok. The biggest problem is that in the hottest months, the A/C unit is not quite big enough to handle the thermal load. However, it does pull the humidity out of the air and drops the temperature down from over 100 degrees to the high 70s to low 80s.

[bill walton]

It doesn't get much above 85 here, just pretty humid. If I could arrange a unit to give me a bit of relief on the temp side plus some reduction in humidity, I'd be happy. I'll be happy if I don't drip sweat in the varnish. I guess if I want to construct a type of curtain I'll have to make one for the top part of the door as well as the bottom. I've got a large amount of fabric and other material left over from my boating days. Perhaps I can get to it while we are having a cool spell.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Could you build a wall in the garage to partition it and put the A/C in the wall with the exhaust going into the other part of the garage. You could put the machines etc. that you don't use that long like planer, saw etc. in the hot part of the garage. In the air conditioned part you could have a work bench, and anything else you want to use in the nice cool part. Be sure to insulate well and get the correct BTU size A/C. You're may need something pretty big to handle the space depending on size and insulation. Good luck.

[Jack Norfleet]

If your washer and dryer are in the garage like mine, you could always use the dryer vent to get rid of the exhaust. That is what I plan to do this summer.

[George Summers]

Another point of view: I think you would be money ahead, from a cost and an effeciency point of view to go ahead and cut a hole in the wall and mount an appropriate sized window unit. For the $500 + you don't get a whole lot of BTU's plus the hassle of having to set it up and take it down each time you work. I would think that, in fact, a through the wall unit would add to the resale value should you ever sell the home.

There is another option. A split unit. the compressor and all are outside like a central air unit but the fan and face is inside. The only hole requirement is a small hole for the tubing to go through. It is more expensive than a window unit but more effecient than a portable unit (and less cost).

George