Cooling off your shop?

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
A

angboy

Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2005
Messages
2,136
Location
North Las Vegas, NV
I'm living in a house where the garage is my shop. There's a large window, but it's oversized and not really sutied for a window AC uit. Does anyone use any of these swamp cooler type portable/mobile things I saw today when I was in HD and Lowes to cool their shop? Any other ideas of portable something that one can buy to provide cooling during the hot summer months? I'm willing to pay for something, although I'd prefer to not have to spend more than a few hundred dollars at most.
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
I use a portable unit at Home Depot like this one that I run an exhaust duct out of the shop. Here in Texas, summer temps easily reach 100+ with high humidity and my shop is not insulated. Rather than spend a fortune cooling the whole shop I just roll this baby over within a few feet of me when I'm at the lathe or at my workbench. Works for me!

754c957a-7e9b-43ff-a2b2-1c8c1ba5eaff_300.jpg
 
I think what George posted is the best option. I will get one soon. Youy can get them in large enough size to cool a 500 square foot room.(thats about the size of a 2 car garage. You just need to run the exhaust duct out a window or they even have a setup where you can duct it out the wall like a dryer. problem with evap or swampp type coolers are the moisture it puts off, not good for woodworking in my opinion.
 
I agree with George and Nolan . I have considered these units myself . Beats a block of ice in front of a fan ! Although , I believe they used this system in cars , in the pre-AC days . Good luck !
 
The coolers are fine if you live in an area of low humidity like I do, otherwise they are next to useless. The one suggested by George (refrigerated) is obviously superior, but unless getting a large unit, you would need to park it right next to where you are working.

Another issue with them too, is the amount of power they pull, expect you power bill to increase significantly with a refrigerated unit. We bought one of these last summer during a heat wave when our roof mounted evap unit died, and we were up for a couple of weeks wait to get it fixed. The power bill doubled [:0]

What ever you do with the portables, get the biggest unit you can afford, you can always turn them down.
 
During the short time I lived in Tucson, the townhouse we rented had a dual cooling system... an evap cooler and a regular air conditioner... as long as the humidity was at or about 20% the evap cooler worked like a charm... during the rainy season (July) when the humidity was at 35 to 40%, we switched to the regular ac units... here in TN we use a heat pump unit that works well.... In the shop, I rely on an old fashion box fan.. keep the air moving and wear shorts and a t-shirt... even switch to crocs to stand in 'cause all that sawdust and wood chips hurt when I go barefooted.
 
Chris in AZ we are use to our electric bill doubling even more then that during the summer months. Looking at 110 to 113 (prediction) for the next 15 days. Here comes the 200+ bills, my last one was under 100.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom