Cooling for garage workshop in AZ

[LeChuck]

Hello,

I just moved into a new house with a 2-car garage that will be my woodworking workshop. It's only May but it is already extremely hot in the garage in the afternoon and that will probably make it impossible to work in. The garage is all finished, drywalled, painted.

I need to cool it down and I wanted to figure out some possibilities given that:

1 - It has to be as inexpensive as possible because money is very tight.
2 - There are no windows in the garage (attached) and I'm not a homeowner so I cannot cut the walls open.

It looks like the cheapest and most efficient solution would be a window unit, but as I wrote above there are no windows and making a hole is not an option.

What the garage does have is 2 openings/vents, probably each about a foot square on the side wall near the garage door, one at the bottom and one at the top of the wall, both covered with register type metal grids (I am planning to put mosquito mesh in there.

Would it be possible to install a window unit in front of one of the vents, even if it's larger, then perhaps use some ducting to adapt the back of the unit to the size of the vent? Or use a portable A/C unit and channel its exhaust through one of the vents (on a performance/cost basis, the window units seem better)?

I do not want to create moisture inside the workshop so I will not use a swamp cooler.

Does anyone have any idea on what I should do? And if I somehow attache an A/C unit to one of the vents, what do I do with the other vent? (heat is a concern, but dust as well, which still needs to be aired out...

Thanks!

 

[mjw930]

Look for a portable A/C with an external exhaust vent. Run the exhaust vent through the bottom vent. It will run you about $400 for a decent one and if that garage isn't insulated you're just throwing money away.

 

[Hurricane]

i had a portable one in my apartment and it wasnt worth a damn. if you werent standing right in front of it, youd never know it was on. i would look into a split unit, compressor goes outside, blows cool inside. just like what you probably already have in your house, only much smaller
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K11

 

[JohnZ]

I don't think there's an inexpensive solution, especially given your weather profile there; a ductless mini-split only requires a 3" hole in the wall for the refrigerant lines and condensate drain.

http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrowse.asp?folder_id=1411059

 

[oldgoat]

Since he isn't a homeowner I doubt that you would want to spend the money on a mini split and and the owner probably wouldn't want to spend anything or at best very little on one. From what I have heard the portable units are a joke. I don't think that you could vent the heat out the top vent very good, but it might be worth a try. You would still be hanging it and probably need one that has a remote on it to turn it on and also would it be close enough to a outlet that could run it. One other totally cobbled up solution might be to put the unit on one of those moving dollies and close the garage door on it when you want to use it. Put heavy plastic or something to block the rest of the open area. If no windows and not able to put holes anywhere that would be the only other thing off hand that I could think of.

 

[Turboragtop]

I would rethink the evap cooler notion. I run a small unit in my 2-car garage in Tempe, AZ and I do not notice excessive moisture. Sure the air is more humid, but since the outside air is so dry, the moisture never builds up inside. On a 110 degree day my evap cooler keeps the garage comfortable to work in, and delivers a LOT of airflow.
I crack open the garage door when I run the unit, since it just sits on a dolly, i.e. not permanently mounted.
Works fine for me.

 

[duggie]

In my previous garage (rental property) I put a window-style air conditioner on a rolling cart. I opened the main garage door enough to stick the "hot" side of the air-conditioner through it and block out the remaining opening with some plywood.

I turned it on about 1/2 hr before I got out in the garage and it cooled it enough so I can work.