garage air conditioning

[distended]

First of all, for some reason I can't search from my phone and am currently sitting in a hotel in Kingman AZ.
Secondly my garage is where I work on my pig so thats why I posted this in Bronco Chat rather than the Off Topic forum. Summers in Phoenix kinda suck, last summer I didn't touch the Bronco until October sometime, if'n I've made a faux pas (thats fo pa meaning "Mistake" for my Texas friends) I'm so sorry.
Thirdly I have got to have one of the coolest wifes IN THE WORLD cause she's totally behind my obsession.

I'm going to put in a garage a/c unit in our house in Phoenix and was hoping that there is some previous experience and knowledge available. Budget is always a consideration but because I have a credit card, I have the wifes giggady to spend more than I might think I need to so it doesn't cut into my Bronco budgit, I want to do it right but not over do it to much.

We bought the house new so I know that the walls that the garage share with the house are insulated but one wall, the attic, and of course the door aren't. I plan to insulate the door when I install the A/C unit to help. I'm thinking that a 16k BTU, wall unit will probably do the job but beings I've seen 120* in the garage a time or two was wondering what you guys might think. Its only going to be on when I'm working on my projects and what's causing my conundrum (again, corn-few-sion "Confusion", for my Texas buddies) it would be cool to move it into another area of our house to offset the big a/c meaning possibly a portable a/c unit.

Any opinions?

 

[bronconut73]

They use roll around mobile a/c units on big bldg. construction sites.
They work really well!

 

[Squid]

I had my carb rebuilt by a guy in El Cajon last summer and he works out of his garage. Hot as heck out there but he ran a commercial rolling AC that you see in some shops and it blew a lot of cold air. I forget th brand but recall I looked them up and they are pretty reasonable.

 

[distended]

Ive seen the big industrial units and was hoping to keep .it about $600.00 make me holluh

 

[distended]

They use roll around mobile a/c units on big bldg. construction sites.
They work really well!

I had my carb rebuilt by a guy in El Cajon last summer and he works out of his garage. Hot as heck out there but he ran a commercial rolling AC that you see in some shops and it blew a lot of cold air. I forget th brand but recall I looked them up and they are pretty reasonable.

I've had the luxury of being in El Cajon in july when the wifes grandma died and it sucked. What I'm going for though is should I do bigger is better or is 16k BTU going to do it? The mobility thing is very low on the importance scale, the most important thing is making the garage comfortable, 78*-82* when its 110* and up.

I'm leaning towards a wall unit.

 

[AZ73]

I just purchased this 12,000 BTU rated for 640 sq feet:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Frigidair...Temperature-Sensing-Remote-FRA126CT1/13448981

15,000 BTU is for like 800 sq ft (25X32 size room)

My garage is 22X24X10 (528 sq ft). All three walls are insulated and the door is too. The ceiling isn't, although it's dry walled and has a vented attic. Only 1 wall gets direct sun (at a time). It runs on 115 v and uses 1110 watts/hr. SRP Time of use plan is about 7 cents per kilowatt hour off peak (before 1pm and all weekend) so it costs about 8 cents an hour to run.

Because of my HOA I can't put a hole in the wall so I mounted it to a Harbor freight mover's dolly and bought a 4X8 sheet of 1.5 inch aluminum coated Styrofoam insulation from Home Depot.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/R-Tech-1...Foam-Insulation-310880/202532855#.Ua6xNuuhUy4

Cut it in half the long way (2-2X8 pieces), then cut a rectangular hole in one piece that the face of the a/c sitting on it's dolly will fit through. I open the garage door, push the a/c out. put the 2 2X8 pieces of foam perpendicular to the floor in the opening, and close the garage door down to them so now the bottom pane of the garage door is the insulated sheets. I then go outside and push the a/c face through the cut-out and stuff a couple of pool noodles up on top of the garage door opening where the garage door is slightly pulled away from the door frame as it's rounding up the track.
I use a box fan on the inside to help move the air around. Elaborate, I know, but you have to be creative with the HOAs. I ran it this weekend and it was 104 outside and the garage was 75. (it's a dry heat!) I keep my house at 78-80.

A couple of things. It doesn't take any time to cool the air, but it takes a while to cool everything in the garage (your Truck, tools, walls, etc). That's true for any A/C unit. Start it up before your garage gets to 104.

If your garage is hot already, open the door and blow the air out first. Get it to at least the temp outside

The BIGGEST issue is air leaks, like between the garage door and the frame, or any venting you have in the garage. I have 2 one foot square vent holes in the wall that I cover with Styrofoam panel also.

The second BIGGEST issue is the heat you're generating in the garage. If you're running an air compressor, have incandescent lights (instead of florescent), welding, or just more than 4 people, that all produces extra heat so you'll need extra BTUs.


If you can mount it in the wall, that's more convenient than what I have to go though. You can use this to guide you:

http://www.theymightberacing.com/ShopTech/AirConditioning.aspx


Last note: Those portable ones with the hose that goes outside won't do a garage. They NEVER produce what they say they will. Think about it: Where does the air come from that used to blow the heat from the compressor out? it comes from the room you're cooling so you're sending cool air out. Unless you get one with a dual hose where it sucks the air from the outside to cool the compressor, then sends it back out ($$) they're not going to be able to cool your garage.

Most of the "commercial" a/c units they use in construction are rolling evaporate coolers and won't work during the monsoons in July/August.

http://www.homedepot.com/Heating-Ve...c_Portable Evaporative Coolers&searchNav=true

 

[broncodriver99]

As an HVAC guy I would advise avoiding the portable units at all cost. They are a pain in the ass and what I call "spot coolers". They work well if you are standing in their general vicinity buy other than that not so much. Your best bang for your buck is going to be a window banger if you have a window. If not a mini-split will do what you need and they are relatively affordable.

 

[inthmtns]

The guy down the street from came up with an ingenius solution... He has a fairly large lawn and 2 sprinklers going at any given time during the summer. (He is on a well)

He mounted some large automotive radiators over every other window of his shop, and ran the water to his sprinklers through each of them. He then added 110V box fans to suck the outside air through the radiators. His shop was always a comfy 70 degrees!

You could do the same thing with a stand alone unit mounted in your garage so it constantly re-circulated and cooled the shop air rather than suck in the hot outside air.

I have a small version of this in my garage and it works very well. It's only a 20"x20" radiator and it will knock 10 degrees off the garage temp in an hour or so...

 

[bronconut73]

The guy down the street from came up with an ingenius solution... He has a fairly large lawn and 2 sprinklers going at any given time during the summer. (He is on a well)

He mounted some large automotive radiators over every other window of his shop, and ran the water to his sprinklers through each of them. He then added 110V box fans to suck the outside air through the radiators. His shop was always a comfy 70 degrees!

You could do the same thing with a stand alone unit mounted in your garage so it constantly re-circulated and cooled the shop air rather than suck in the hot outside air.

I have a small version of this in my garage and it works very well. It's only a 20"x20" radiator and it will knock 10 degrees off the garage temp in an hour or so...

Not sure if that would work in "hot ass" central Florida but ingenious none the less.

 

[OX1]

They use roll around mobile a/c units on big bldg. construction sites.
They work really well!

Any links to those things and what do they run?

 

[Mountain Ram]

If you are willing to permanently mount an indoor & outdoor unit- Go with a permanently mounted mini split. I was in the industry for years as well. The previously mentioned 'spot coolers' are exactly that and are typically way more expensive to run.

 

[Fireball05]

A ductless mini-split is what you want. It will work way nicer than a window AC unit, can do heating and cooling, and the outdoor unit can be sized up so that you can run an additional unit to another spot in the house in the future if you would like.

We just had one put in a garage conversion for someone. How big is your garage? Ceiling height? You're probably looking at around $2k installed, maybe a bit more depending on size.

 

[TTTGOWYO]

I use one of those roll around units. Got the biggest one I could for under $400 bucks. I think it is 15000 bTU's. What really helped though was insulating my aluminum garage door. Now the little AC unit can keep it 70-72 in there on a hot day. Makes a BIG difference.

 

[joshnjulie1]

Just keep in mind the rul eof thumb about heat. The cooler air will always remain lower than the hotter air. Hence, if your attic space is holding 135 degree heat inthe attic, the 110 air at the top of the garage will be the cooler air. It will be more efficient and cheaper if you first figure out how to remove the hottest air from the equation, the attic air. This is where a whole house fan system comes in. I recommend the QuiteCool fans, either the 1550 or 2550 single fan. With this installed, you can pull air from whichever direction out through the attic making it cooler up there which brings your air temps down. If you displace the 135 out fo the attic with the 110 in the garage and replace the 110 in the garage with the cooler air from outside (yes, best to run early morning, etc.) everything will cool down considerably. With a system like this in place (less than $600) would you now be able to tap into the current AC system and plum some duct work into the garage? An entire unit will be overkill for a garage (but I do not know the size, so I could be wrong), and those portable ones will play humidity hell on you. Instead of it being hot and dry, it will be really warm and sticky...yeahhh. Anyway, my two cents. I am just thinking of your budget and for less than 600, it may be worth a try first. If the fan does not solve the problem, it always makes a great addition to a system. I have one inside the house and it is the best thing ever.

 

[zbronco]

I just purchased an AC unit for my garage. I had two home 10k btu portable units that could not cool down the garage. I looked into an evaporator cooler but it is way to humid in Houston for it to be effective.

I went with an industrial 22k btu (movin-cool) portable unit. it moves a lot of cool air and cools down the garage.

If I were in a dry climate I would look at an evaporator cooler like port a cool.

I picked my movin cool up for around 300..

you can pick up the large port a cools for under 1k (used) and the smaller units which would be a good size for the garage new for 500.

 

[texhost1]

I bought one of these and it works great. http://www.heatandcool.com/Ductless...=24884485880&gclid=CJb1_cb-zLcCFVRo7Aod5h8Acw It has been installed for two years. I use it about once a week.

 

[Timmy390]

I know it's not in the OP's budget but is no one running a "Bard" unit on their shop? I'm looking at cooling my shop (1152sqf) and through my research a Bard unit seems to be the way to go. They come in AC only or a heat pump version. Price is the only thing holding me back.

I need to look at those ductless units....they seem to be gaining in popularity.

To the OP, if cost was a factor and it's always a factor, I would go with the biggest window unit I could get for the money I wanted to spend. I noticed my local Lowes had a unit that said it would cool 1200sqf for right at $600.

Tim

 

[Crush]

My garage is 36x55 and used the old trans xl1200 unit out of my old house. You could probably pic up a used house unit cheap and just have it run without ducting in ur garage

 

[jim3326]

Just keep in mind the rul eof thumb about heat. The cooler air will always remain lower than the hotter air. Hence, if your attic space is holding 135 degree heat inthe attic, the 110 air at the top of the garage will be the cooler air. It will be more efficient and cheaper if you first figure out how to remove the hottest air from the equation, the attic air. This is where a whole house fan system comes in. I recommend the QuiteCool fans, either the 1550 or 2550 single fan. With this installed, you can pull air from whichever direction out through the attic making it cooler up there which brings your air temps down. If you displace the 135 out fo the attic with the 110 in the garage and replace the 110 in the garage with the cooler air from outside (yes, best to run early morning, etc.) everything will cool down considerably. With a system like this in place (less than $600) would you now be able to tap into the current AC system and plum some duct work into the garage? An entire unit will be overkill for a garage (but I do not know the size, so I could be wrong), and those portable ones will play humidity hell on you. Instead of it being hot and dry, it will be really warm and sticky...yeahhh. Anyway, my two cents. I am just thinking of your budget and for less than 600, it may be worth a try first. If the fan does not solve the problem, it always makes a great addition to a system. I have one inside the house and it is the best thing ever.

^^What he said^^
I had a flat roof on my house and could never get it cool with a swamper. After putting a pitched roof on and ventilating it, the swamper worked great, until the 'monsoon season%)', then it was back to trying to sleep in a wet bed.
I would suggest you insulate the door and attic AND ventilate it, that will make any kind of cooling unit work better. Also, if your going to work in there daily, and if you use a refrigerated type unit, turn up the temp a little and leave it on overnight, it will work less than trying to cool everything down again.

Jim W.

 

[ManTruck]

I live in a Mtn Desert environment and use the swamp cooler for my shop. Works well and very little energy usage. The key is get the biggest you can get. My 1200 sq ft shop is insulated and has heat and AC. The swamp cooler is my best friend, especially when the air gets up around 100* outside and I have the TV going leaning against the refrigerator keeping myself lubricated.

The swamper will probably run your bill up about $15 or $20 a month, if you run it everyday. The key is a dry climate.