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How to cool a hot airplane factory? i.e. garage

philcam

Well Known Member
Despite the unusual amount of rain we've had this year, it is still Texas and that means hot summers. A garage that opens to the west doesn?t help much either.

So, I?m wondering what others have done to keep cool?

Here are some of my ideas:

Fans, I have three, but they are just fans, blowing hot air. Yes, I could get large shop fans, but these tend to blow more that just air, such as plans and even small parts.

A Port-A-Cool type swamp cooler. At $1,000 they aren?t cheap, but they do cool shops areas very well. Since, I am building a metal airplane and I?m worried about all the moisture they put into the air. Add in the hassle of keeping them hooked up to a water hose, which will leak and the tanks are a mosquito haven.

Central HVAC unit. Now, this would be the Cadillac of cool working, but trying to insulate the garage and the cost of the unit, makes this one a no-go. I?d rather spend the time and money working on the plane.

I was at Ellington Field a few weeks ago, and noticed something that might be a workable solution. In one of the avionics shops there, they had a roll around shop/tool cart with a window a/c unit mounted to it. Under the cart was an oil drain pan to catch the condensation from the a/c unit. A window unit a/c can be had pretty cheap. The only disadvantages to this idea I see are dragging the electrical cord around all the time and it certainly isn?t very energy efficient.

How about everyone else? What are you guys doing to stay cool?
 
Ductless slimline design

Hi Phil,

I recently had the AC replaced in the house. One of the topics discussed was diverting some air to the garage. It was highly discouraged for two main reasons:

1) If you install a return and vent in the garage, you're trying to also cool the hot garage air and also distributing that warm air into the house. It's been my observation that most garages aren't especially well insulated - may be different for custom homes, however.

2) If you install just a vent to the garage, you'll be pulling a negative pressure in the house and the air will have to come from somewhere (around doors, faucets, windows, vents, etc). This will have to come from the outside which is now hot unfiltered air.

What was suggested was the slimline ductless type of AC's. Mitsubishi was specifically mentioned but their prices seem rather unreasonable.

Googling for 'ductless air condition' I came up w/ some hits. Here are some sites for your viewing pleasure (i.e. to prepare your pocket book):

http://www.ehomeair.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=14
http://www.ductlessdepot.net/
http://www.air-n-water.com/split_air.htm

Regards,
/\/elson
Austin, TX
RV-7A - Fuselage
 
Do you have a window?

I went to Wal-Mart and for about $250 purchased a small window unit for my garage. I have two windows in the garage that face the front of the house. They are tall windows, so the AC is about a foot off the floor. There are bushes out front that hide the window unit sticking out.

That was two years ago and it has been GREAT!

picture300ry3.jpg
 
I moved to Colorado

But you don't want to do that. Too much snow in the winter. Blizzards. Car wrecks. Oh it is so bad here.
 
I DID live there, for a while, granted I was just a kid. I'd love to go back, but what is up will all the aviation fees and gas prices!? Anyone who thinks it is bad in the US, try the UK.
 
exactly, bloody ridiculous, it's what seperates the men from the boys! you boys have it TOOOOO easy ! :)
 
I live in the Phoenix area and have the same issue, though its much much hotter.

I partioned the single car side of my 3 car garage with a ceiling to floor heavy vinyl curtain, insulated my garage ceiling over this area, and purchased a portable 15,000 BTU A/C unit on the internet. I ran the hot discharge air from the A/C through the ceiling. I also bought styro insulation sheet and insulated the inside of the garage door. I also have a fan to keep the air moving.

Last weekend when it was 115 degrees F outside, my workshop peaked out at 92 degrees F and it wasn't that bad working in there. The urge to keep building helps to overcome some of the discomfort.
 
Swamp cooler type fan will rust a lot of stuff in the garage. It really raised the humidity, also.

When I was building I kept short hair and worked in shorts and flip flops (no shirt). Every thirty minutes or so I'd step outside and hose off with the garden hose. Standing in front of the regular fan after that did wonders while still a little wet. Our garage faced south so I certainly have sympothy for ya. 2pm in Texas during September can be brutal in an un-airconditioned garage.

Insert comments about how funny it must have looked here <g>.

b,
d
 
Even if you don't have a window....

Mark Burns said:
I went to Wal-Mart and for about $250 purchased a small window unit for my garage. I have two windows in the garage that face the front of the house. They are tall windows, so the AC is about a foot off the floor. There are bushes out front that hide the window unit sticking out.

That was two years ago and it has been GREAT!
I did something very similar to this but just whacked a hole in the garage wall and stuck in a small window unit. Works great!
Not at home, so no pictures but you get the idea. Plus you are not constrained by an existing window location.

-mike
 
I live in Yorkshire and last weekend when it was 12c outside (about 42F in the middle of our summer!) I looked out the garage to see the river breaking its banks, fortunatly being a Yorkshireman (we are renowed for being tight) I quickly improvised and made the fuse into the canoe it was originally designed to be, however, the lyc doesn't make a good inboard motor! need another plan to get out of this village!

Now you lot are really upsetting me with talk of wonderful hot weather, I'm off paddling to the pub!
:)
 
Portable units at Costco

The stores have them too, as well as several other models in the same price range. Thinking about cutting a hole in the garage door for the duct plate and gettin' cool myself.


John

Portable A/C
 
Window AC

Here's what I did for relief in South Alabama. You can see it up in the endwall, about 8' high. My shop is 24 x 36 with 10' side walls. All are insulated, however, most of the day the sun beats down rather hard on the roof. It's a 25,000 BTU unit and on the 100 degree days will keep it 80 or so for all but about 2 hours, then it will get to 92 or so. It still feels better, though, than outside mostly due to the lower humidity.

I bought it at Lowe's and it's even got a timer that will start it in "x" number of hours. It's all remote which is a big plus, that high on the wall.



 
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broke down

I broke down just yesterday and got a 10000 BTU window unit at Home Depot for $200. My garage is detached and uninsulated. I'll let you know how it goes but last night it seemed to help after 30 min or so. Like you, I don't plan on insulated the walls, but I may do the ceiling (thinking about just stapling foam sheets to the rafters.)

I looked at the portable ones but there was a price premium for the same capacity and then you have to empty pans or cut holes for drainage.
 
I used an exhaust ducted portable unit during my build. It did ok, but was not ideal. The problem is that when you exhaust hot air like a clothes dryer, you must draw in air from somewhere (as David described previously). That means that hot humid air is basically drawn in from around the garage door.
Next time I build (a plan is already in the works), if I don't have a new garage with dedicated central A/C, I'll use a big window unit cut into the bottom panel of the garage door since I have no window in my garage.
 
This probably isn't an option unless you're building a new garage, but....I was fortunate at the time to have a "three story" house on the water, where the entire first floor was sacrificial space (six feet above sea level in hurricane land), which meant garage/workshop. Since it had the same footprint as the house, it was pretty big, and we had garage doors in both the front and the back. The airplane factory was essentially a 50 foot long "pull-through", and if I opened the doors on both end, I almost always had some sort of breeze wafting through. Being a born and raised Minnesota boy, I was very concerned about my ability to survive the heat of building in Texas, but it turned out to be pretty pleasant with the breeze and the shade. Oh, just about sunset, I'd have to retreat to my air conditioned study for about a half hour to escape the evening mosquito invasion - they were regular as clockwork - but then I could go back and work well into the night....

I think that in Texas, they call a nice covered corridor that is open at both ends a "dog run", and it works pretty well!

Paul
 
my solution

I have a 3 car attached garage, very tall inside. I have no windows, but I have a door I don't use.....(can you see this coming?)

Click for inside picture and outside picture

It works great... I bought the biggest A/C that Lowes sells, about 25KBTU for about $400. I had to run 220V power but that was easy. I bought a solid core door (VERY HEAVY :eek: ) and modified it as shown for summer use. It holds the A/C just fine (about 120#).

I saved the original door for winter use. Way eaiser than installing a window or cutting a hole in the house. I've noticed that since I'm more comfortable than last year, I'm more patient and have better work quality. It takes only about 1 hour to make the 90+ degree garage tolerable, and another hour gets it cool & dry. This was the 2nd best piece of shop equipment yet (1st is the 75KBTUH hanging gas heater... it gets cold here too!)

Good Luck,
 
I bought something called a split system. It's in between a window unit and a Central unit. The unit sits outside and the inside unit is about 11 inches high and 34 inches wide. You do have to cut a hole for it. The only thing that comes inside is the refrigerent line and a condensation line. It comes precharged. The advantage is it's very quiet and heats as well as cools. It was around $1,000. It very hot and humid locations it might not be the best choice as it is a heat pump. Works good here in Arkansas.
http://www.ac-world.com/proddetail.php?prod=Celiera12000BTU&cat=9
 
Build Naked at night - Did I say that outloud?

I have a 3 car garage with an apartment overhead, so I don't get a hot ceiling, plus I have North-South window and door airflow. I also have a modest drain slope to my floor so I can hose it down once or twice a day and get excellent evaporative heat exhange. That and a couple of fans makes it comfortable.
 
In the house where I built my airplane, the HVAC system was located in a closet in the garage. I simply cut a vent into the air handler and capped it when not in use.

Not ideal from an efficiency standpoint, but the idea was to push a lot of cool (or hot, season depending) air into the garage on an as-needed basis.

The garage was never as comfortable as the rest of the house, but the cut-in duct sure made a difference.
 
2X window rattler units

Plus insulated the roof some more.

At the time I was taking Friday's off from work to build the plane. Being a bit of a heat weenie I found I pretty much stopped working at about 90F.

So lets see, the value of my time at **dollars an hour and I can't work on the plane!...Made the choice easy, the 2 second hand window rattlers cost $2 a day to run.

And of course...My shop has AC but my house doesn't!...Only a guy could come up with that!

Frank in Co...Back to OR Sunday if I can keep the motor cool!
 
Insulation is king in non-HVAC spaces

insulate first, cool later. It's the same order for insulate/heat, as all of us in Colorado know.

if you're just looking for a quick fix and dam the energy costs then strap a window A/C to a cart and roll it around to where you are. It's very expensive but easy.
 
Caution - garage returns and Colorado

David_Nelson said:
If you install a return and vent in the garage...
A return in the garage might not be a good idea. If you ever use your garage as a garage, it could distribute fumes and potentially lethal gases throughout the house.

ronlee said:
But you don't want to do that. Too much snow in the winter. Blizzards. Car wrecks. Oh it is so bad here.
I second the notion that moving to Colorado is a bad idea. Definitely stay far, far away from here, it is a truly awful place. ;)

I got the call today, my wing kit arrives on Monday!
 
I vote for the window AC. I have one I got at Wal-Mart in my 30x36 shop and leave it run 24/7. I set it at 74 and the most it has cost when comparing my elec bills from before is $50 and usually less than $35 unless it is a real hot month. It turned out it was cheaper to let it run 24/7 than turning it on and off when I went out to the shop. The shop is insulated well also.

I agree you'll get more done if the shop is comfortable.
 
Best Buy portable A/C

Best Buy has a 10,000 BTU (~1 ton) portable A/C that is draws about 12-14 amps. It has a good fan on it that puts out a good air flow and is rated at 500 sq.ft. It has a flexible vent to exhaust to the outside. The price w/o tax is $399. The seer is 7.8. Not bad you can get some flexible vent hose and wheel it around to have it blow on you when it is needed. My plan is to use it just when I build after work and weekends. Right now I am just using a box fan to blow air from the house, which does not work bad and it will keep it to about 85F even on hot days.

Davd Syvertson
Sugar Land, TX
 
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