Air Conditioning a garage shop

[Douglas Robinson]

I am moving to NC and will be setting up a garage shop. It gets very HOT in the summer. There are two windows in the shop. I will have about 250 square feet with an 11 1/2 foot ceiling. Any recommendations how to air condition this space? Window unit? Portable unt? Size?

Thanks

[Lee Schierer]

A window unit would work, but unless the garage is insulated, including the door, it won't be a cheap date for A/C. Every time you open the outside door you will let the cold out and the hot humid air in.

Just don't try having the unit on a stand completely in the room. That won't work at all. You need to exhaust the hot air out side.

[Andy Fox]

Try a big fan or two in the windows to suck air out of your shop. Open a door/window on the other end to get cross-ventilation. Get another big fan to blow directly on you. The cross-ventilation helps a lot with fine dust too.

You'll still sweat some, but probably not as much as you would when your electric bill arrives if you use AC. Give the fans a try first, they're cheaper and simpler overall.

[Tim Solley]

Try a big fan or two in the windows to suck air out of your shop. Open a door/window on the other end to get cross-ventilation. Get another big fan to blow directly on you. The cross-ventilation helps a lot with fine dust too.

You'll still sweat some, but probably not as much as you would when your electric bill arrives if you use AC. Give the fans a try first, they're cheaper and simpler overall.

Douglas,

Expanding on this ventilation idea. My dad is a firefighter, and taught me a great trick when I was a kid. When firefighters are ventilating a structure, they'll sometimes place a fan five or so feet from the door, on the outside, blowing in. Open up a door on the other side of the garage. What this does is the column of air being moved by the fan sucks the surrounding air around the door in as well. That small fan can easily move twice as much air than if it were just placed in the door frame or in a window.

I too have a hot shop predicament. I live in central Texas and spend all summer long cooking and sweating out in my shop. I just live with it.

Tim

[John Harden]

How about one of those pedestal air conditioners that they sell at Costco or Sams Club? I see them all the time for about $400 or so and they have around 10,000 btu output. Would these work?

These are a better solution for me than a window unit as I don't have a window that opens. I can vent it outside using the supplied hose. My shop is in a 3.5 car garage, so it may not make it 70 degrees, but hopefully will take the edge off.

Anyone have experience with these?

Regards,

John

[Paul Muhlstadt]

If you use AC, make sure you protect your equipment. If you shut the AC off at night or when your not in there, the cool equipment surfaces will sweat. Sweat=water=rust!!!

[Mark Duksta]

Paul,

I have two portable units in my two car garage. They do OK until the garage door takes the full heat of the sun. It faces west. The door is insulated but the A/C units can't keep up. At night or during the first half of the day they do cool the shop down into the upper 70s. I have a 10,000 BTU and a 12,000 BTU.

The next time I cool the shop I'm going with a mini-split system.


Mark

[Tom Jones III]

I'm using an LG brand window unit, it is good and cheap. Get the biggest one you can and insulate as much as possible.

[Al Willits]

Try and go with a 220v unit if ya can, they're usually cheaper to operate and if this is in a shop, don't forget to clean the filter and coils.

Al

[Cody Colston]

I'm in East Texas and it gets very hot and very humid here in the summertime.

I placed a 18,000 btu heat/ac unit in the wall when I built my 600 sf shop. The shop is 2x4 stick framed, insulated and the 8 ft. garage type door (from HD) is insulated.

The A/C works very well as long as I keep the DC running. If I do much sawing/sanding at all without the DC, I have to wash out the coils on the A/C as they clog with dust and freeze.

[Ben Roman]

This is what I did !! Works really good in the Summertime over in the Austin Area ... Have to wait about 1 hour before I go in there but it keeps me just cool enough to work in there.

Ben

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=32986

[Dick Latshaw]

I have a 12,000 BTU window unit in my two car garage, about 400 sq ft. I also have lots of insulation in the ceiling (R13 or better) and foam panels on the garage door that face East. Keeps the temp at about 76 without a strain down here in hot and humid Florida. The ceiling insulation seems to be the most important.

[Matt Meiser]

I use a very large window unit (forget the size) in my 30x32x12 shop and it works great. Like others have said, the key is the insulation. My walls are R25 and the ceiling has about 18" of cellulose. Once I get my shop cool its easy to keep it there.

[Lopaka Garcia]

Ok a couple of thoughts here. What if the air you're blowing into the shop is really hot? Wouldn't you just be blowing hot air? I know there's the wind chill factor but it is still hot air. And second, unless you have a really good DC set-up, wouldn't the AC unit be acting as a DC unit? You might be cleaning out the AC filter more often than you'd like. It's a little warm too where I am, and unfortunately I can't take advantage of the trade winds here because then I'd have dust everywhere in the house, being that my shop is part of the house.

[Matt Moore]

I would suggest window units. Buy as big as you can. Also as everyone else said you may want to consider some insulation, at least in the attic.

My garage did not have a window to put a unit in, so I built a platform just benieth the ceiling then built a housing around the back of the unit and connected a 8" HVAC fitting to the top of the housing, put a hole in my ceiling and I vent the AC into the attic. Amazingly, it works.