Installing A Heat Pump
05/29/2004 Filed in: Garage
I have been struggling for some time with how to control the temperature of the garage and make it comfortable to work on the plane when the weather is less than cooperative. It gets really hot and humid here is southern Nebraska during the summer. We have already had several days in the low 90's and we haven't even gotten into June yet. It just makes the building process a painful endeavor. You spend more time wiping the sweat off of the aluminum parts than you do building.
So when I went looking for a solution to cool the garage, it quickly became apparent that a window air conditioner or a stand alone room air conditioner was not going to be enough. I have windows in the garage, but they are narrow and tall casement windows. Wrong dimensions for a window air conditioner. The room air conditioners still needed a supply and exhaust, but they did make templates to mount those ducts for casement windows. This solution became unworkable as they just didn't have the capacity to handle the heat load of the garage and I would have to leave the garage window open and unlocked all of the time.
I then came across an air conditioner known as a ductless, split-type, air conditioner. It has a standard central air external compressor and it pipes cool refrigerant to an indoor unit that has a self contained fan, "A" coil, and thermostat. Not only that, but these come in a heat pump version too. That is friggin' awesome as it doesn't usually get really cold here so the heat pump option would work well to heat the garage (most of the time). Last winter, I heated the garage with a infrared portable, outdoor propane heater. It is also this winter that our family lost some in-laws that were spending their retirement winter in Florida when their RV exploded in a propane explosion. My folks would probably cringe if they knew how I was heating my garage. The heat pump is a safe option as there is no open flames or gases and will not ignite vapors when I am working with the hazardous airplane chemicals and that makes this purchase also one of shop / home safety.
This type of air conditioner is a little more complicated to install than a window air conditioner, but it will be quiet and have ample capacity to cool the garage. So I spent the majority of Memorial Day Weekend running after parts to wire it up and mount it. I am just now waiting for Jeff (a friend of mine) to come by and plumb up all the refrigerant lines.
I am excited to see how well this works. I fear I might have bought one that is too big. I expected the garage door to be a huge loss for the cool air so I went one size larger than recommended for a standard house/room equaling the garage's square footage.
So when I went looking for a solution to cool the garage, it quickly became apparent that a window air conditioner or a stand alone room air conditioner was not going to be enough. I have windows in the garage, but they are narrow and tall casement windows. Wrong dimensions for a window air conditioner. The room air conditioners still needed a supply and exhaust, but they did make templates to mount those ducts for casement windows. This solution became unworkable as they just didn't have the capacity to handle the heat load of the garage and I would have to leave the garage window open and unlocked all of the time.
I then came across an air conditioner known as a ductless, split-type, air conditioner. It has a standard central air external compressor and it pipes cool refrigerant to an indoor unit that has a self contained fan, "A" coil, and thermostat. Not only that, but these come in a heat pump version too. That is friggin' awesome as it doesn't usually get really cold here so the heat pump option would work well to heat the garage (most of the time). Last winter, I heated the garage with a infrared portable, outdoor propane heater. It is also this winter that our family lost some in-laws that were spending their retirement winter in Florida when their RV exploded in a propane explosion. My folks would probably cringe if they knew how I was heating my garage. The heat pump is a safe option as there is no open flames or gases and will not ignite vapors when I am working with the hazardous airplane chemicals and that makes this purchase also one of shop / home safety.
This type of air conditioner is a little more complicated to install than a window air conditioner, but it will be quiet and have ample capacity to cool the garage. So I spent the majority of Memorial Day Weekend running after parts to wire it up and mount it. I am just now waiting for Jeff (a friend of mine) to come by and plumb up all the refrigerant lines.
I am excited to see how well this works. I fear I might have bought one that is too big. I expected the garage door to be a huge loss for the cool air so I went one size larger than recommended for a standard house/room equaling the garage's square footage.
Just a shot of the roughed in indoor unit hanging on the wall. This thing is cool (no pun intended). The blower dampers are controlled by remote control to blow the cold/hot air out of the bottom or out of the top.
2-Ton (24,000 BTU) outdoor unit. It is a little over sized for a house with the garage's dimensions, but with the huge garage door, I expect to lose plenty of cool air when compared to a well insulated house. The heat pump BTU's are probably about right for the garage size.
The best part about this is that I was able to obtain this wholesale!!! WooHoo!!!! And it was on-sale. DOUBLE WooHoo!!! It was one heck of a bargain (if it works the way it is supposed to).