Cooling work shop?
Tagged: Cooling heat garage
- This topic has 9 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 7 months ago by Brian A.
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25 July 2018 at 4:58 pm #549628
I live in Phoenix Arizona and we’re hitting highs of 109-120. My work shop is in the garage. I was using a evaporative cooler to bring the temperature down. But that causes the wood to warp during cooling or after cooling. Anyone have an idea to prevent warping. Or how do you cool?
25 July 2018 at 5:10 pm #549629You really can’t do much about wood movement if the relative humidity level is changing. It has the biggest effect on flat sawn lumber of course and we all tend to use a lot of that. Quarter sawn behaves a little better but it will still twist and bow. It just does’t cup very much. My shop is in the garage as well and I put a window mounted A/C unit in. Fortunately, I have a very large shrub that hides it from view. I think as long as you run an evaporative cooler, you’re going to have problems.
I used an evaporative “swamp cooler” for 7 years in central California. Not as hot and more humid than Pheonix. Highs of 110 not 120. The cooler was sized for my garage, 500 sq ft. I only used my cooler to take 20 degrees of my garage. I turned the water off as much as possible. The air was forced into and out of my shop. The fan blew in fresh dry air and the wet air was pushed out. I watched for warpage every time I used the cooler any significant amount of time. I found None. Zero damage to my wood. No raised grain, cupping or movement that I could detect. No rust on tools. I think as long as the air is kept dry when you are not using the space, the air flows through, (dry in – wet out)and your cooler is not oversized there will be no damage. My garage including the metal door was insulated.
25 July 2018 at 9:39 pm #549639I agree with that. Short duration changes in humidity (an hour or two) shouldn’t have much effect. But if you start out with dry stock that’s been in a low humidity environment and has stabilized and then move it to a wetter atmosphere, it’s likely to move. I’m in Tennessee and we only have two kinds of wood here – warped wood and wood that’s going to warp! Our humidity levels bounce around all over the map so we just have to tolerate it. If I’m going to be a while getting to glue-up, I’ll even wrap the material in plastic to try and keep it stable. That usually helps.
I’m near the Gulf Coast, so the dampest possible spot in the US. The shop is a spare garage with an insulated garage door and a heat pump (aka minisplit) for cooling while working. For the few indoor things I’ve made so far (3 tables, 2 desks, picture frames) I’ve been storing wood in the house whenever there is more than a day or so of storage needed, and nothing has visibly warped yet (knock on wood). I generally try to keep the door shut so the cooled wood has time to warm up before the room equilibrates with the 90% saturated air outdoors. Not the best system, but so far so good, aside from dragging everything in an out of the house.
26 August 2018 at 6:20 am #550574I live in Texas and have a typical two car garage. I use two 14000 BTU portal are conditioners. Not as effective as a mini-split but more affordable and easier to install. I get about 14 degrees of cooling from them. So when it’s 100, the garage will be 86. That surely would vary for the specific garage, but it’s a frame of reference.
@tmcclain – 86F ain’t bad, but I can’t stop talkin’ about the minisplit. When its 100 out, I can get to 75F in 10 minutes, and running costs seem like they might be less than two wall units, maybe. The installation requires a pro, ran me about $2500 all told, but then again…75F.
26 August 2018 at 3:51 pm #550584I agree mini-split is the way to go. Both these options don’t directly add moister to the air, they can dehumidify some, so they could address the problem here. When I priced mini-split it was $4100 all of installed. That included electric work. I ended up running more circuits in my garage to support the two portables anyway. They pull 12A each. In total I spent ~$US1400.
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