It’s simple. I recently moved to Texas.
It’s hot.
The garage is now my modeling space.
It’s hot.
I cannot stand to be in the garage for more than a few seconds because…
It’s hot.
The desire to get back into the hobby and pick up where I left off is huge but…
It’s hot.
I have a nice butt kicking fan, way more wind that I can work under if it’s on me but it doesn’t help.
Just blows around HOT air.
For you souls who are banished to the garage what do you do about the heat? Do stand alone AC units work? Wait until fall? Winter?
I have not a single window in the garage and the missus won’t let me put one in so no window units. Spare bedroom is out of the question.
My choices seems very limited so here I am looking for over looked idea.
Thanks for your input.
I used to use the garage all the time here in Mississippi, hot or cold, but it was always the cold that got to me. I’ve been allowed in, but all the airbrushing is still out in the garage, usually in the evenings with the added benefit of mosquitos.
I feel your pain! I too live in Texas. My garage door faces due west and gets unbearably hot around 3:00 PM and doesn’t cool off enough to work until around 12:00 AM and by that time I’m tired and have to get up for work around 7:00 AM. The best time is before noon but that is when I’m at work!
By AC I assume you mean the coolant filled “refrigerated” units. The problem with these is they work by moving heat from one area to another. Usually inside to outside. You would have to at least have the backend of the unit facing out the garage door. Of course with the door open the cool air is going to escape. The only other option would be to cut a rectangular hole in a wall or the door for the AC unit. I suppose you could have the air blowing directly on you and not worry about cooling the entire garage.
Depending on where you live in Texas you could get by with a “swamp cooler”. These work best in the drier regions which tend to be in the more northern and western parts of the state. Next to useless in central, south, or coastal regions. Of course with these you will need to run a water line.
Is there a way you could do some things in the house like gluing/construction and save painting/sanding when the garage has cooled down?
In winter it again depends on where you live. In general a space heater would work with larger units needed for colder regions.
I used to model in the garage before the new house. Never had any issues, hot or cold. Of course, I live in Colorado. Never gets one or the other for very long anyway. Now I’m in the basement, and when the wife has the AC rolling I get downright frigid down there!
HK, you are going to think I am crazy here, but, here is an idea.
Build a room inside your garage, either with permanent walls, or “walls on wheels”,make them tall enough to seal off at the top,then put in a door if you need to,and put a window mount AC unit in one wall, between your work area and the rest of the garage (since it is already unbearable in the main garage, a little more heat won’t hurt anything)
it wouldn’t have to be a large room,an area in one corner about the size of a bathroom would do it, and the smaller the room, the cheaper it would be to build, and the easier it would be to keep cool
I was building something that same size on the open back porch when we decided that I could just switch to acrylics and work inside the house,but, the “room” I was building would be about the size of a pickup bed, just enough room for a bench, a compressor, the chair and clearance for the AC unit
I was doing it to fight the humidity we were having a problem with, here in Tenn, and I might finish it up one day, just to have an alternate workspace
I think that’s a good idea too. In fact, it wouldn’t take that much more engineering to make it possible to make each wall detachable. That way, when you don’t have any paint work coming up, the “room” could be “knocked down” and maybe have the walls stowed against the actual walls of your garage? Good luck keepin’ cool hk!
Is the garage at least dry-walled? If not, any HVAC system is going to have a tough time keeping up. But if it’s not, you can take advantage of that fact by adding insulation and buttoning everything up with drywall. Taping and floating the seams/screw holes and such is as much art as technique, but since it’s a garage, it is a good place to get the practice in, and/or determine it’s not going to be a second job.
After that, you may want to add some insulation panels on the garage door(s). There are kits you can buy, or just get either the silver plastic ‘attic liner’ stuff, or glue the pink styrofoam sheets to the inner panels.
The garage may actually be a fair amount cooler, and dryer, depending on where in Texas you live, but if the heat is anything like here, it’ll still be in the mid-90’s by 1000. Then, you may want to consider looking at a split-system air conditioning system. They can be installed on any wall, and the condensing unit connects to the evaporation unit through a couple of holes in the wall (2", or 3", IIRC). I have a friend who has one in his 2-car garage, and it does a pretty good job of keeping things civil in there. He has a two-story home with the second floor over the garage, so the ceiling is ‘semi-insulated’, but I’m sure the rest of the garage has typical tract-home inslulation (=probably nothing in the walls). He hasn’t bothered to insulate the garage doors.
Otherwise, you’re stuck leaving the door to the garage open, and letting the air from the house ‘leak’ in, but that will be less than efficient.
They make portable AC units that are not window mounted. These units are box shaped and stand on the floor. The heat is exhausted out of a hose which goes through the wall. Might want to check these out,
I’ve used these stand-alone units before, with good results. The trick is to find a suitable means to exhaust the warm air. The way I did it was to fabricate, out of cardboard and duct tape, an exhaust plenum that would allow me to blow the exhaust out of the door with it ajar. The exhaust hose came out of the AC unit, to an adaptor that I made, and the to the plenum. I got the idea from watching “Apollo 13” when the astronauts had to adapt the LEM’s air scrubbers to the Command Module’s. It wasn’t much to look at but it worked like a charm. It was a 6" round hose to a 2"X18" rectangular plenum if you can imagine what I’m talking about. Then I threw an old quilt over the door to keep out the heat from outside from getting back in.
get some 2x3s or 2x4s, build up the walls. then get a contractor in to blow in insulation in the walls. skim it down then panel it. it will add to the resale value of the house. then add a swomp cooler or a refer unit. the mitsubishi company has a good room and it is economical as well. tell the wife its that or the kitchen table
