Air Conditioning for Stand-Alone Garage

[clare]

I have not had very good luck trying to cool a computer room with them..

[Stormin Mormon]

Because a $3,000 installed system with heat is cheaper than a $150 window AC?

[Stormin Mormon]

Would be good idea to see how much electricity you have. Real shame if your AC max out the power feed, and then you can't run power tools or lights at the same time.

[Stormin Mormon]

Based on being a garage, size, and humid Nawlins, bigger is good. Some of those window units can be run on 120 VAC, 15 amps.

Worth noting, the AC should remove a lot of water from the air. Do you have some way of handling the condensate?

[Stormin Mormon]

recommendation to insulate. There is a big door next to the alley for cars plus a regular- size door for people on the house side. Since we're not going to use the garage for cars, I think we'll rarely open the big door.

One or more 15A circuits from the main panel go to another box. From there the wires go via buried conduit to the garage. If I need more power, I presume the additional wires can be pulled through the existing conduit.

may still arrive later. It's odd that it took 24 hours for the first one to show up.

It is very possible the garage was wired with the need for lights, and not much else. It is very possible you have one circuit. You might need to turn off the window AC while running power tools. From the sounds of it, you may need to put up some kind of partition, use half or two thirds of the garage for storage, and only AC part of the garage.

[Unquestionably Confused]

You've received a lot of input from the group with not so much input from you

That said, the validity of the "soluti1) If you want it as a shop and music practice area, you likely really will need AC

2) The shop component, if you're serious about it, should have 220V available. This also expands your cooling and (if needed) heating solutions. 3) Insulation is cheap and worthwhile from several aspects. It will help sound proof the garage something that may not be critical depending on the neighbors but OTOH could be a real "saver." 4) Consider getting out the Sawz-all and frame in a space in a solid wall to install that room sized AC unit. Almost every unit I've seen can be disassembled to the point where the outer casing can be used as a thru the wall sleeve, mounted security and then the guts reinstalled for a more finished look. I've done this in several places including my own shop which is in a large detached garage in the Chicago suburbs. Also have an electric ceiling mount heater. 5) Doing the wall mount (or window mount) you take care of the condensate issue. It simply drains out the back/bottom of the properly installed unit onto the ground beneath. 6) important to consider sizing. Bigger is not necessarily better. You need to calculate your cooling load based upon the average heat, humidity and insulation factors for your specific application. If you get a unit that is too big, you will achieve a rather quick cool down which might seem to be just what you want. Unfortunately, the A/C will not run long enough to dehumidify the air in the shop so you wind up "cold and clammy" (sort of) and your tools will suffer for it as well.

[Muggles]

Maybe I just got lucky with the 2 that I bought, but so far I've only had to hook one up in the living room area and it's keeping things cool.

[Bob Simon]

Sound proofing IS a good idea. Thanks!

I like your framing suggestion a lot too. The wall is going to be opened up in several places anyway to blow in foam.

Thanks for your thoughts. This kind of diversity of ideas is exactly why I come here for advice.

[Tony944]

Sound proofing IS a good idea. Thanks!

I like your framing suggestion a lot too. The wall is going to be opened up in several places anyway to blow in foam.

Thanks for your thoughts. This kind of diversity of ideas is exactly why I come here for advice.

Do not install Friedrich are you will be sorry!

[Ed Pawlowski]

Why? I thought that years ago they were top quality. They were the most expensive too.

[trader_4]

Another thing no one mentioned is if you have the location for two, you may be better off with two 6K window units than one 12K. If you just need to take humidity out, running one would probably do a better job. And having cold air come out from two locations would distribute it better.

[TimR]

You need cooling and humidity reduction in that area and you need to consid er both.

Yes, you'll need insulation and vapor barrier, and have to do something abo ut the overhead door. They rarely seal well at the base.

But consider something else. Shop requirements and music room requirements are not the same. A window knocker is loud and annoying, but you won't he ar it when your saw or router is running. On the other hand, doing some re cording or even practicing with the compressor in the same room is a no-go. I don't even like fluorescents buzzing.

Lighting is another problem. For either shop work or music, you want lots of light and then a little bit more. Most garages are just for storage and a single overhead fixture is plenty, so you'll have to add.