Cheap but cool building methods in Texas?

[pmiranda]

I'm looking at building a garage/shop outside of town, and while I'd like to build as quickly and inexpensively as the city will allow, I'm hoping to keep it from being an oven in summer without air con. A metal building seems inherently bad for this, but if it was insulated with spray foam is it really worse than other building techniques? Any suggestions?

 

[readhead]

Your right. An insulated metal building can hold a lot of heat. Install operable ridge vents or powered gable vents. Don't forget make up air.

 

[Imwalkin]

Hay bales.

 

[pmiranda]

I have an uncle that built a house with hay walls (there's more to it than that, but they provide the insulation within a stucco envelope), but I worry about that sort of thing near an angle grinder or welder!

 

[930dreamer]

What part of Texas? In Amarillo my fully insulated metal building stays 90 degrees in the summer with no A/C.

 

[Wes Tex]

I am sure you will have a lot of opinions about this. I have a 30 x 40 all metal garage in West Texas. The walls and ceiling are insulated with 3 inch insulation with the white vinyl facing the inside. The garage is bright inside with overhead lights. I open the north and south facing overhead doors in the summer for circulation. With a big fan running it is nice inside. I did not want the blown in insulation because I have seen how dirty it gets, and I did not want to add a sheetrock or OSB ceiling.

 

[pmiranda]

What part of Texas? In Amarillo my fully insulated metal building stays 90 degrees in the summer with no A/C.

Austin. 90 would be relatively cool on some afternoons, but I get what you're saying

I've, lurked, searched and just browsed around for a while on here but alot of what I found is from up north where they have something called "winter".

 

[Ironhorse]

I cool coated my roof...6000sq and it dropped about 10 degrees for the summer...you might want to look into that. With that and a portacool middle of the summer it runs in the mid 80's...my problem is humidy..that *****...so I run a huge dehumidifer..and Ice up the porta cool...but really AC will work the best.

 

[onewaydave]

Ditto hay bales, but here are some other ideas:

Tamped earth
Multiple walled cinder block
Geothermal (dig down below bed rock), ie shop in the deep basement
If in West Texas (read dry heat) just use a swamp cooler, if in humid Texas bite the bullet and AC
Clothing optional facility? Well, for a select few.

Dave.

 

[AndysMBgarage]

Your right. An insulated metal building can hold a lot of heat. Install operable ridge vents or powered gable vents. Don't forget make up air.

+1 for the cross ventilation.

There is some interesting principles on the subject of cooling here

Cheers

 

[camarotoolman]

block walls, light colored singles, insolate between the trusses.

 

[egnorant]

2 rules: Don't let heat in and DO let heat out!

Don't let the sun shine on your building. How is up to you.
But sun will shine so reflect the heat! Lighter colors and preciously mentioned coatings work well.
If the heat makes it past the shade and is not reflected...insulate.

When you provide for fresh air circulation, try to pull air from a cooler location.
If you are pumping hot out the ridges, it helps to not pull equally hot air back in!

Bruce

 

[pmiranda]

When you provide for fresh air circulation, try to pull air from a cooler location.
If you are pumping hot out the ridges, it helps to not pull equally hot air back in!

Bruce

Excellent point! The side(s) of the building next to blacktop are not going to be cool...

Thanks all... concrete block with a metal roof looks pretty durable to me, and if I want to get fancy, I've seen them done with a nice coat of stucco.

The hard part is still finding an affordable piece of land not too far from the house. I can find big chunks of land at reasonable cost/acre - even with industrial zoning - but I don't need that much space and I'm not sure I want to play landlord. I might have to learn about it or what sort of hoops you have to jump through to subdivide land, because I sure don't want to pay rent on a shop for 20 years and have nothing to show for it.

 

[MBfreak]

Hi.

Have lived and worked at construction sites in desert countries. Humidity was low but sun load was really high.

We ( or rather, the local building contractors) put sun roofs over our containers, which housed us and our workshops.
Sun roofs were built on 2 " steel pipes and consisted of white tarps that easily let air circulate but blocked out the sun really well. It has to be lightweight so that the shades do not accumulate heat that will radiate when the sun goes down.

A perfect example of this method is the large football ( well, OK , soccer) stadium in Riyadh , Saudi Arabia. Looks like an enormous tent and the design is a very interesting example of how to use FEM to calculate surface tension in very large membranes Was hitech in 1984! I have seen a couple of matches there and it is very pleasant even on an afternoon in August when ambient is above 52 C and sun load really high.

Best regards

Ola