I’m about on my last nerve dealing the a shop that would serve well as a sauna. I say shop. It’s acutally our family 2-car garage, something I’m sure many of you are familiar with. I live in the Houston area where for most of the summer (May through October) the temperature is 90F plus and humidity is 70 percent plus. The garage has no type of air conditioning. It is detatched with T1-11 siding and no roof turbines, no insulation, no tree shade, and a metal door facing west. Even the surrounding concrete radiates heat onto the garage. I open the garage door as soon as I get home from work at 5:00, but have to wait until at least 9:00 at night before the temperature drops below 90F. And even then I become drenched with sweat, and all my work becomes wet. I dare not try to apply finish because of all the sweat drops. I’m also worried some of my finishing supplies will go bad. I need some sugestions I can do myself and won’t cost an arm and a leg.
Here is what I’m thinking so for:
1. Install sheet insulation on the garage door.
2. Install a turbine on the roof.
3. Install some type of attic fan.
4. Paint the door a light color.
5. Kick the kids out and knock down their adjoining bedroom wall. Well maybe not until they are 18. Child Protective Services is pretty diligent in my neck of the woods.
Will these improvements really made that much of a difference?
Do you guys just wait until it’s cooler and work like a madman to finish projects. Is the depths of summer really for catching up on all the fine woodworking magazine articles you postponed reading. Do I just need to man up and feel priviliged that I have some really nice power tools to play with. What do you do?
Replies
Insulation make the biggest change of all. I'm in NJ and the summers are hot around 90 for much of the time. I rented the blower from lowes and finished off the ceiling and tops of the walls with cells. the wall are 2x4 and i had these finished years ago. The 8000 btu A/c unit turns on and off now (it ran all day before the roof/ceiling work) and the 20x20 garage is nice to work in all day.
Go Figure,
I am in Phoenix and work out of my two car garage. It was 102 yesterday in the garage and has cooled down to 96 today. We don't have your humidity, it is only 30 to 40pct, but I still sweat and drip like crazy over my work.
I would insulate your entire garage, walls etc and put a plywood facing on them for hanging cabinets, instead of sheetrock.
Definately put in some fans sytem to move air out of the shop. Window out of the sun and fan on the opposite side that draws air across the shop.
I use a swamp cooler here which helps, but I don't think it would give you as much relief.
Plant a shade tree soon.
Vent the roof system also
Use ociliating fans around the shop to direct air at you.
Jump in the sprinklers, OK that wont help the dripping but it is fun!
Whine to your friends on line.... OK check you got that done!
I do my finish work in the early AM, 5 or so. It does not take long to dry and I work until noon. A nap and now I am on line talkin.... I have been drawing plans for a new master closet system, two end tables, a jewlery box and a bubinga table this summer. IN a few months I can get back to comfort and some better work conditions. I feel your pain!
AZMO
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I'm in the west, but we cool down in the evening to the high 60's so I can open the garage door and the side door to cool the place down. If I can keep the slab cool then it doesn't get that hot in the garage. Once it gets hot, I'm screwed. I insulated the garage door. Mine faces west as well. It makes a huge difference. I went to high 90's to the high 70's/low 80's with just that. We are a little humid now but no where near what you have. I'm considering a portable air conditioner
I consider a powered turbine or some type of whole house fan setup. I'll second what AMZO said insulate and add insulate.
Len
"You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time. " J. S. Knox
Insulation and drywall are your cheapest and best starting points. Whether spray in or rolls it should only take a weekend to insulate and drywall a garage. No need to finish the drywall, just hang it and move back in.
Check Home Depot or Lowes for attic fans that are temp controlled to go on automatically when the temp in the attic rises to a certain point.
Insulate or replace the metal door with an insulated door.
Add a window AC unit that is set to go on a couple hours before 5:00 so it starts the cooling before you get home.
Bring over a new AC duct from the house to add cooling to the garage.
Have fun.
<<<Bring over a new AC duct from the house to add cooling to the garage.>>>Not a good idea.............Keep your garage separated from your house with regards to fire............Rich
We have the same conditions in Alabama although you didn't mention the bugs around the lights when you leave the door open at night. I gave up and have an air conditioned shop. 75 degrees all summer long and no bugs. The biggest plus is there is no rust on my tools after two years.
Add the insulation, put in a power vents in the roof, put in a ceiling with good lighting, add a dust collection system and add the A/C with two levels of filtering. Then you can enjoy woodworking. It only cost money. :^)
bob
OK Bob so how much energy does that take? Did you have a monthly bill with the amount of KWH before and after. I would love to do the same, but I have been reluctant.
AZMO <!----><!----><!---->
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Actually I built a new shop several miles from my house. The total energy bill averages about $100 per month including two heat pumps, lights, water heater etc. Of course you know that averages can get you in trouble, last month was $170.
Bob
I'm in Humble and soon to be Orange, TX. My two car garage is my shop also. My garage is unfinished--open framing. I do have a turbine on the roof, but I think an attic fan would do wonders to get the hot air out and bring cooler air in. Fans blowing on you help also. I've not tried much detail hand work in my garage, like cutting dovetails, etc. because it's just too miserable at times. I also wear a bandanna around my head to catch sweat, and will go through three of them in around 4-5 hours. I also drink plenty of water. My dream is to have a shop that is air conditioned. Someday.
I too live in Arizona and I was in my shop all last week. It was a comfortable 78 degrees because I thouroghly insulated the 4 walls and ceiling, covered the roof and "sun exposed" side wall with sun shade screening, and put in the bigest window A/C unit I could find. I also moved my compressor and dust collector outside (they throw off lots of heat). My electric bill hardly notices. Years ago, I had a two car garage wiht full western exposure. I insulated the garage door with foam, which helped a lot. I had a large window A/C unit in the wall, but it only cooled the garage if I fired it up early in the morning. It would stay cool enough to work in all day. If I forgot and turned it on later in the day, it never got cool enough to work in. Moral of the story: insulate as best as you can, add shade, get the biggest A/C you can afford, and turn it on early in the day.
Move to NH but then again youd have to deal with the opposite problem. The temp in my shop in the winter months starts out at about 25F first thing in the morning. While the shop is insulated and is heated with a furnace ( oil at $4.65/ gal) and a wood stove, if I go out and get the heat going iat 7 am ts usually about 10 am before the shop gets to 50 F. That may sound cold but its actually comfortable when youre moving around and working. It does cut down what youre able to get accomplished if you do any glue ups. Usually takes a couple hours to thaw out the pan of water I keep on hand to whipe my hands of glue or wipe glue off a piece. All in all In rather be here then there. I can deal with cold......its them sweat balls running off my nose on to my work that I have a hard time with.
Wicked Decent Woodworks
(oldest woodworking shop in NH)
Rochester NH
" If the women dont find you handsome, they should at least find you handy........yessa!"
I'am nearly in the same boat, Today my shop got all the way up to 77 with NO AC. But winter is another story.Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Still,
I live in Spring, TX. My shop is in my attached garage. I work before 10:00 AM on Sat & Sun and after 8:00 PM Mon thru Fri, when I can stand the heat.
I do it in short bursts. I have a ceiling fan and a box fan to blow hot air on me, (there is no such thing as cool air in TX in the summer.)
I'll work for 10 or 15 minutes, then go in the house to water up and cool down. I wear bandanas, those funny tennis cuffs around my wrists and latex gloves most of the time. I keep a towel near at hand for wiping off my face, arms neck and safety glasses.
It is just plain miserable and not much fun. While I'm in the house I visit knots or work on the CAD drawings of future projects.
I'm really jealous of those with ACed shops. In a couple of years I'm going to retire and move back to PA. I'd much rather work in a cold shop than in a hot one.
You poor people. West Virginia doesn't get all that hot and not all that cold -- Almost Heaven! and they are looking for immigrants.
My shop got up to 79° last week. That is just a little too warm if I'm working. I like it 80° in the house but my bride obstinately turns the thermostat to 77°. We changed heat in the house from wood heat to geothermal. Picked up the basement which is an extra 1000 sq. ft. and added the cooling feature. Also added two security lights and the shop lights. Our electric bill went down about 150 dollars for the year. Can you figure that one out. I heat the shop with an outside boiler with tubing in the floor. That is a nice source for heat.
I live in New Mexico and I'm working on essentially the same problem. My roll-up metal garage door faces south, so it gets full sun for most of the day. I plan to add glue-on rigid insulation panels to cut some of the transmitted heat. Ceiling insulation is already installed in my case, so the transmission of trapped attic heat is minimized. A ceiling exhaust fan is a good idea, but that assumes you have a source of cooler air for the intake. That may not be the case, and you'll want to be able to close that vent if you add a window-style AC unit.
Another option is to swap spaces - move the shop into the already-ACed living room space (you'll also be closer to the beer in the kitchen refrigerator), and move the living room into the garage. That may not be a popular idea with spousal units and kids, though. ;-)
How warm does it get in the basement? I think that the basement is a great place for a shop, but it often has a few downsides:
1) Possible limited access. My basement ceiling is at ground level at the front of the house, but at the back, the floor is at ground level. The only difficulty getting stuff into the shop is contending with the distance to the back of the house and the sloped lawn. If your basement is completely below ground, you'll likely have to deal with a narrow flight of stairs. Depending on where abouts in your basement your shop is located, you may have to deal with 30" doorways. You'll have to contend with this when moving materials and machinery in and product out.
2) Dust. Unless you seal your workshop from the rest of the house, you'll need to clean your workshop regularly to prevent tracking dust throughout the house. Good dust collection is paramount.
3) Noise. I am told that the noise transfers through the floorboards well. Steps can be taken to reduce noise transfer (insulation, etc) but may reduce ceiling height.
4) Speaking of ceiling height, few basements have a full 8' ceiling. Even fewer have taller ceilings. Some have ceilings as low as 6' or less.
5) There must be more...
Another great benefit is that the breaker panel is normally located in the basement. That means that it's relatively easy to get 220V for your tools. Of course, in my house, the breaker panel is in the garage.
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I think the insulation and air flow suggestions are the way to go.
But perhaps rather then a ceiling turbine you could figure a way to
create a better cross venting situation. Passive air flow is always
preferable to $$ air flow.
also you might want to investigate radiant barrier insulation as
heating doesn't seam to be an issue.
Get off the wallet and have a company come in and insulate the walls and ceiling, replace (if necessary) the garage door with an insulated one, and install a small heat pump. You could do this for about the cost of a new table saw (a Unisaw - not a Sawstop), and it will be the most important woodworking tool in your shop.
The simple reason is that it's just not going to cost that much to cool a well-insulated garage, particularly in Texas with some of the cheapest electric rates in the nation, and you will be totally unable to build furniture with tight-fitting joints if you're constantly fighting swings in temperature and humidity.
It's fine to store your lumber outdoors and under cover, but what you're working with has to be inside and at a stable temperature and humidity for a couple of weeks for it to stop moving around.
In 1988 I was heavily involved in building a process area where we decided that we would attempt to keep the max room temperature below 30 deg C without air conditioning. The end result was that the room temperature remains 11 deg C below the max temperature for the day - with a 12 hour lag.Thus when the outside shade temperature reaches 38 deg C at 1400 the inside reaches 27 deg C at 0200.Essentially this is how we did it:
1. Minimise solar gain. Small windows, double walls with air-gap
2. Heavy roof with insulation. The roof sarves as a heat store, delaying the entryof heat into the building.
3. VENTILATION. Whenever the ouside temperature is less than the internal one, allow air to flow through the building. And vice versa.Granted that the building was custom designed (and pricey!) you may be able to implement some of the above. If you want more detail please say so.
"you will be totally unable to build furniture with tight-fitting joints if you're constantly fighting swings in temperature and humidity"
Not quite true. I did it for a living for ten years in Houston. I admit it required some careful planning and working methods, along with a thorough knowledge of timber technology issues, but I did manage to sell work to clients, do shows, exhibit at galleries and create items good enough to photograph and publish in journals, etc.
However, the Houston climate was probably the most miserable I've ever endured. I loathed living in that climate, although Houston itself and Texas had many plus points. In the end I could handle it no more, and moved ... to my native Great Britain where the climate is much kinder on the human body, ha, ha.
Wild horses, love, huge wads of cash, or any combination of those three, and perhaps some inducements I haven't thought to mention, would persuade me to live anywhere near the US Gulf Coast again, except as a snow bird between perhaps mid-October and the end of March. The rest of the year is just pure misery, ha, ha-- ha, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Well, there's no doubt I was making a generalization there with some assumptions thrown in. Those assumptions are:
1) That the individual doesn't have continuous shop time to build a piece of furniture all in one go.
2) That in the intervening time period between starting the project and finishing it the humidity may change substantially (in the US South, that happens frequently, even in the summer. It can go from weeks of 70% R.H. to 30% R.H. in less than a day as a front moves through).
3) That the individual doesn't want to wait around for the appropriate conditions for finishing products (obviously not an issue if everything is finished with linseed oil and wax)
There's probably a few other assumptions that I haven't thought of, and obviously much fine furniture was built before the advent of air-conditioning, but a lot of that furniture was built in a few days or less before weather conditions changed substantially, and I do notice that most pre-20th century furniture manufacturing centers seemed to be located in either the Northeast, or in mountainous areas that are cooler and dryer in the summer. Might be a co-incidence, might not be.
And finally (and most important, I think) is user comfort. Air conditioning and the power to run it has never been cheaper in history, and it's a worthwhile investment.
"(in the US South, that happens frequently, even in the summer. It can go from weeks of 70% R.H. to 30% R.H. in less than a day as a front moves through)."
In Houston it does that regularly, except that in a single summer day it wasn't unusual to go from 85%RH + (am) to anywhere between about 30% and 50% RH (about 6 pm).
Bear in mind that even professional woodworkers seldom see continuous workshop time. Running a furniture making business is only made up in part of making furniture. The rest, about 25% of a business man's, or woman's time, is made up of running the business.
I ran projects that went from just a couple or three days work to projects that required anything up to eight or ten weeks time under construction-- all in between running the business, eg, meeting potential clients, meeting the bank manager, collecting supplies for the next job, estimating for a job even further away down the line, etc.
Air conditioning would have been a boon I know. I didn't own the building and the landlord, another woodworking business, didn't have plans to install any A/C, except what he'd already got in the offices-- a sort of building within the building if you see what I mean. The rest of the building, a typical for that part of the world, all expenses spared tin shed was, if I recall correctly, something like 5000 ft².
When I lived in Houston I knew of only one woodworking businessin that area that had an air conditioned building. The rest all operated out of similar buildings to the one I worked in-- the cheapest tin shed possible, ha, ha. And those business employed anywhere from zero to over 300 employees. It was certainly unbearably miserable in every single one of those woodworking businesses whenever I visited them during the summer months. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Edited 8/6/2008 10:52 am by SgianDubh
I live north of Austin and our humidity is almost as bad as Houston.
I would recommend that you get some aluminum foil from the BORG and attach it to the bottom side of the roof rafters, aluminum side down.
Second, install a ridge vent to ventilate the attic without using energy.
Third, as a starting point, put aluminum paint on the plywood of you walls. The aluminum foil and paint, will reduce the radiant heat load to near nothing. I am assuming that you are not putting in AC. Putting insulation on the walls and then drywalling will do little to keep it cool, it will just delay the heat transferring into the shop and delay the heat radiation out of the walls at night.
Fourth, ceiling fans will reduce the effective heat by seven to 10 degrees depending on the humidty.
If there are any windows that receive direct sun, get some solar screen material and make your own screens to reduce the heat gain through the window. I hope these suggestions help you in your quest to make your shop useable.
My shop is 2 X 6 walls with R20 fiber glass. The ceiling in about R40. The floor is bare concrete.
It stays just right in there year round. I have a little 4800 watt heater that I keep on in the winter to keep the temperature around 4) degrees. When start working I turn it up, but not for long.
On the garage side, there is R20 wall and ceiling. The walls are 10 ft so there is a good area to keep warm. I have yet to see ice on the garage floor. The insulation contains the heat of the vehicle and it is seldom really uncomfortable.
In the summer, the days get long and my house gets over 80 for a good part of the summer. The house is not well insulated. My shop and garage, on the other hand are on the cool side. I think the concrete floor acts as a heat sink year round helping to stabilize the temperature.
You have the reverse problem, so I can say with some confidence, that first you insulate the crap out of your entire building, not just the door, then you can run a smaller a/c unit if required.
You don't say if you have a ceiling. If not, create one and insulate the crap out of it. You will never win if this area is open. Sheet it over and install R40 insulation. I had mine blown in for the same coast as buying the batts and installing myself.
The earth below your pad is cooler so once you remove the surface heat, the temperature of your pad will start to decrease - very slowly.
Only allow outside air into the building when it is cooler than inside the building.
It will take some time but I think you can get this under control.
Don
I live outside of Chicago, must be close to Texas weather here too. One day 95 degrees, R.H. 90% Heat index 105.Next day 79 degrees 50% humidity. I finally broke down and punched a hole in the wall for a 5,000 btu window A/C unit. Garage is insulated, including O/H door. Heating can be done with electric heaters, but only up to about 0 degrees. When it gets done to 20 to 25 below, better to stay in the house.
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