Portable A/C unit?

[sammm]

Insulate (garage door included) before you do anything...you'll be fighting a losing battle otherwise. The radiant heat will kill you this time of year. You will also need an exhaust port of some sort for any type of AC unit, or a 3" hole thru the brick if you go the split-unit route.

[Dave04]

Yeah, the split units were all over the place in Australia when I was down there and they really do a good job. Plus side is that a lot of them heat as well as cool. Not exactly TCB though...

LINK

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[POS Racing]

Problem for me when I get home after work the garage is the same temp as it is outside.

I plan to replace my garage doors with insulated doors later this year and I'm also going to insulate the garage (& house) as much as I can without pulling down drywall this winter. I've also figured out how to vent one of the portable units up into the attic and then out on of my eaves. The key thing is to limit the length of exhaust run or it can effect the efficiency of the unit. I'm hoping this will work but if it doesn't I'm not putting a ton of $$$ into the project to test my theory.

I'd like a split unit but I can think of a lot of other things I could do with that kind of $$$, like replace my 18 year old A/C system in the house!

I find if I have to work on the car these days I tend to do it first thing in the AM.

[slowchildmiata]

I find if I have to work on the car these days I tend to do it first thing in the AM.

That is how I do it. Wake up a little early and just work on it in the morning. Usually leave the door into the house open with a fan running.

[black roadster]

Yep. Gary get's more work out of me in the mornings these days. After lunch, I try to find things to do inside the a/c cooled office space, ship orders, etc...

I don't plan on replacing a perfectly good door. Does that aluminum backed Styrofoam board work good for insulation? two sheets of those look large enough to insulate the door. I will likely block it to keep an air pocket between the insulation and the metal panels. I also have attic access above my garage and may roll out some attic insulation over the garage ceiling. What R-Rating is recommended? Like POS, I can't justify tearing down drywall to insulate the walls. The insulation seems like it would be affordable and make a big difference. Has anyone done this and can tell me how big of a difference just some insulation can make?

[Rob®]

From my bit of research awhile ago, I am going with http://www.texasgarages.com/akit.htm for the door. I need two kits and was going to get the threshold strip too (might as well). Says has an R 9.0 rating, and should be good for an energy tax credit (I didn't look into that part yet, but will once I order it).

After this bit of heat we've been having, and me actually working on the car, I am placing my order this Wednesday. My garage door is directly in the afternoon sun, so I'm banking on the door insulation having as much of a positive effect as the window tint I just put on the windows on the same side of the house.

EDIT: Here's the quick comparison chart from the Texas Garages website: http://www.texasgarages.com/insulation.htm. Compares just their offerings, but give you the general idea on the different types of insulation out there.

[trickyrix]

An attic fan might do a lot of good. At least it would vent the hot, stagnant air up and out through the attic. That combined with a big fan on the floor might do the trick.

[Rob®]

To keep this thread going, I just placed my order for the garage door fiberglass insulation I linked a few posts up. I didn't order the threshold kit since it was like $90, and I know I can get the "same" thing locally for a lot less than that - I can be TCB on things too. The bottom rubber part of my door is fine anyway, I don't see any light from under it, so it shouldn't be a problem.

I started a spreadsheet with times and temps throughout the day. I only have one thermometer that I can find, so I can only go by weather.com for the outside temp. I'll have data for the inside garage temps down to the tenth degree. At $193 shipped, the crap better work!

[POS Racing]

Other thing I wonder about is we actually use our garage as a garage.

When the Yellow Miata gets home at night and gets nestled back in its assigned spot it also bakes the garage up pretty good. I'm wondering if I insulate the garage will that mean the heat from the car will be better trapped in the garage??

[Rob®]

My Miata gets kept in the garage regardless of it running or not, so I plan to find that out as well. I would imagine yes, as that's the point of insulation in the winter, so I don't see why it would differ in the heat. How much it warms it up, I don't know though. I would think my car would put off a lot more heat at the end of a drive than yours, seeing that it's got all the hot turbo parts. So if my garage is still manageable, yours should be even better off.

But that was one of the first few things that crossed my mind, so seeing how that plays out was in the plan already.

[POS Racing]

In my case we go from around 100 these days up to about 125+ with the car hot car in the garage. It is even worse if both car are used......

[Rob®]

I don't know how much my car raises the temps in the garage, but I do know that my garage gets to 120° after about 4pm with the door closed and nothing going in or out of it. If I can get it down to even 100° in the afternoon sun, I'd be "happy" to get back up to 120° for a few hours overnight after a drive. Luckily we live in a good neighborhood, so I can leave the garage door open for a few minutes if it comes to that (and install the ceiling fan I have ready to go for the remodel of it).

My AC plans are put on hold since the wifey put in her notice at work yesterday

[Flyin96M]

I'll add my here. I have an insulated garage door and I insulated the ceiling when we moved in. The insulated garaged door helped a lot as the door faces west and I had even added foam board insulation to my old door. If we don't put any hot cars in the garage the temp stays pretty constant throughout the day, but if you put a car in there all bets are off.

Here is what works for me if I must work in the garage in these temperatures. The night before I plan to work in the garage I open the window and turn on the attic fan I installed in the garage ceiling. Over the night this usually gets the temp down close to the low for the night. Then I remove the cars that I will not be working on and turn on the AC and let it run for a bit which will drop the temp a few more degrees, but it also dehumidifies the air which helps a lot. Now I just position the AC so it blows on the area I'm working and I can work in the garage. Now here is my problem and most likely most of yours. The sun heats up the brick on the outside of the garage which then radiates through the walls like an oven. Given this it is almost impossible to really cool your garage without installing a radiant barrier or insulation in the walls. Unfortunately I also don't believe in ripping off the sheetrock to do this so I am just living with it.

One other thing I do all the time is keep the pull down stairs in the garage halfway open so the hot air has a way to escape.

[Rob®]

Thanks, Flyin96M. Have you noted the temperature differences before and after all the changes you've made? That's really what I'm after, and more just for my own curiosity. I know that I'm not going to be installing AC out there anytime soon now, but I would like to drop garage temps as much as possible. My water heater is out there, and in the summer we can't even get "warm" water since the garage is Africa hot all the time.

As I said, I am logging temps out there right now. I will have however many days worth of readings until I install it, then I will be sure to log for a few more days. Figured it'd be cool to know for my own knowledge, and just to have some actual numbers when the conversation comes up again.

[sammm]

I just built a brick garage with an insulated overhead door, R-13 walls and R-19 ceiling. Insulation alone isn't going to cut it in this heat, no matter how well it's insulated. Try turning off the A/C in your house and see how quick it heats up.

[Rob®]

Right. I'm not looking to get it as cold as the house, just bring the temps down as much as I can for now (and up in the winter). If it stays at 110° at its peak for now, that is better to me than the 120° it currently sees.

And my AC is off for most of the day now that I tinted the windows on the western side of the house :) I'll leave the AC set to 87° and the house will stay ~84° all day without the AC kicking in. Obviously the hotter days that isn't the case, but so far it has been the last few weeks. One day I'll finish tinting all the windows. EDIT: The house does NOT stay that cool after about 4pm without the AC on...worded that a bit incorrectly. All the windows in our house are in the shade until about that 4pm time.

[Flyin96M]

http://www.spot-coolers.com/server_OP18.phpNo readings prior to doing all that other than walking out in the garage and saying "Holy #*@ it's hot out here!" Now the garage stays between 95 and 100 without using the AC or fans which is still hot. If I use the AC the temp depends mainly on how hot the garage was before I turned it on. If you start early it will maintain the starting temp, but no real chance of getting it super cool. I use an Office Pro 18 which works well, but still doesn't have the power to cool a 2+ car garage that is not insulated or shaded from the sun, but I can't complain too much as it was free.

[POS Racing]

http://www.spot-coolers.com/server_OP18.phpI use an Office Pro 18 which works well, but still doesn't have the power to cool a 2+ car garage that is not insulated or shaded from the sun, but I can't complain too much as it was free.

Can you get me one for free also?? Thanks in Advance!

[Flyin96M]

Can you get me one for free also?? Thanks in Advance!

Sure meet me on Harry Hines and I'll show you what corner to stand on.

[altiain]

For a bunch of guys who spend your weekends standing around on 150* parking lots, you guys bitch a lot about how hot your garage gets.

My garage faces west. It's uninsulated. Both my wife and I actually use our cars, and they both get garaged. If I want free time to work on the car, it's usually after Colin goes to sleep at night (after 7pm). I put two box fans in there and suck it up.