How do you cool the garage when you park in it?
 

As summer gets rolling down here in Houston, I have started to notice how hot the inside of my attached garage gets within 30 minutes after I park and close the door. I have seen temperatures as high as 97 and the outside temperature is not that hot.

This might not seem like a big deal if it were not for two factors. Those being that I had a 4 way bypass last year and only have 70% use of my heart. This means I can't work in a hot environment and I have a wood shop also in that same garage so I need to be in it for extended lengths of time.

I noticed a small rise in temperature with my wife's old 4 banger in there, but the rotary puts out a lot more heat.

So how do you handle the heat in your garage? Exhaust fan? AC?(expensive), Open garage door?

I have a 5 ton blower sitting in a box that I could build something with, but I don't have 240 volt service in the garage and will need to also replace the motor. I was going to use it to build a dust collection system for the wood shop that is also in the garage. Now maybe I could design a way to use it for ventalation as well.

Re: How do you cool the garage when you park in it?
 

In Houston, I'd think your garage will be getting very hot regardless of the car, though I do notice the "warming effect" from the RX-8 also.

But when it's 100+ outside, ventilation isn't going to cut it. If you have central A/C, the easiest thing might be to extend a duct (or ducts) into the garage, with well-sealing louvers so that you only cool the space when you need to. Or, create some kind of opening between the garage and the living space and have an exhaust fan in the garage so you "pull" cool air from the house to replace the hot air in the garage.

When we moved into our house I discovered 2 ducts in the garage as it had been living space at some point. I plugged them up but now and again I think about re-opening them and doing the louver thing.

Well... if it's 97 in your garage with the door shut, and 95 outside (as high as 97 and the outside temperature is not that hot), why not open the door for a while or leave the car outside for awhile? If you don't have awhile, set up some fans and leave it open as long as you can. That 5 ton blower would even out the temps really quickly, and you might even be able to create a cooling mechanism for the car if you could pull cool air through the engine bay (put the blower blowing out of the garage behind the '8, and open the hood... that migh draw air through the engine bay and under the car and carry it out). Obviously the temprature outside is not too hot to do woodshop work in, or your condition would force you to move to cooler climates.

Unless you have A/C in the garage... If this is true, I'd consider not parking a car in it at all, as you would let a ton of cool air out by opening the door to let the car in (bye bye $$$).

In the end, the only sure-fire way is to build a meat locker, and park the car in it for at least 30 minutes until it's icy cold, at which point you could put it in your garage and / or use it to chill your drinks while you are wood working.

Re: Re: How do you cool the garage when you park in it?
 

Not really because it is attached to the house. Without the 8 in there it stays around 78 (I also insulated the door which is another reason the heat builds up in there)

I thought about that as well, but the house is so tight (new with only 5% infiltration of outside air) that I am concerned about creating negative air pressure in the house and all the problems that would cause.

The blower I have for the garage was sized to move 5 tons of cooling and that means it is as big as the current AC blower for the whole house. (Only 2900 sq ft.)


That would be nice if you can assume that the system was sized to handle the extra load. Unfortunately I know that mine wasn't.

When I measured 97 inside it was 85 outside. I didn't want to leave thee car outside to cool off to drive it in and turn it off again because of the hard start that the "M" flash is supposed to have fixed. Maybe it is fixed, but I would rather not tempt fate as many as 2-3 times a day.

That is what I am doing now, but I don't want to leave the door open all the time because it lets the contractors and anyone else still around working on a new house in the area look at the workshop. The construction trailer for the subdivision is across the street.

That is an option I have considered. I have also considered putting in a spot cooler to keep it cool when I am working out there.

Actually that is still an unknown. I was in and out of the hospital last summer and moved into this new house last September, so this will be my first summer with this garage. This was not so much of an issue at the old house because of huge shade trees.

That is why I was looking for a way to vent the garage with the blower and then when I need to work in it use a spot cooler.

That would work, but talk about cost. Now you see why I was asking others if they have noticed the heat build up and how they were managing it.

Thanks for triggering some ideas though. It is appreciated and I will post a pic of the final result.

what about a Evaporative Cooling Fan like this
Click here
and create a "Cool Zone" that you can stand in every 10-15 minutes?

I'd use the exhaust fan method. Seeing as garages aren't sealed perfectly, you don't have to worry much about neg. pressure in the garage. Plus there are few benifits to this:
- It'll cool the garage from the heat soak of the car
- It'll remove exhaust gases from the car from parking it
- You can attach it to a timer to come on when the garage door is open/closed. (if you have one)

It's probably the easiest and cheapest of all the methods too.

Evaporative cooling doesn't work very well in Houston where the humidity is already 90+% most of the time. It would also introduce moisture into the environment which is one thing I don't need more of with most of the wood I work with.

I had a friend that bought one of those and it really didn't do much good in our humidity. Besides my cool zone is the house.:D

No but if I use it to pull cool air from the house it could. Just moving air in the garage like you suggest is not a problem.

That would help and I could run the timer with a relay off the garage door opener delayed entry circuit that powers the lights.

I just have to figure out where to run the exhaust. Because of the flow of the blower, it will take a 16" round AC hose and then do I run it to the attic or fabricate a large vent over the garage door. (No gable end in any direction so this is a roof penetration issue) I also wanted to use the blower to power a dust collection system so I will need a damper to switch between the two uses and another input to the relay to start it. Humm, looks like an idea is coming together. Thanks.

One thing I'm seriously looking at doing in my garage is just putting in a window unit AC. There's a regular window in the garage, and it would be a cinch. Of course, if your garage doesn't have a window, that's another story :).

Might be worth talking to some AC contractors on the problem. Some method of pulling hot air from the top of the garage (an exhaust fan) and a fan to circulate outside air into the garage would work well. If you plan on working in the garage with the door shut (like using the woodshop) you could have the AC ducts in your house extended to the garage. Most newer homes have AC systems that are speced to move more air than the house they're in - they're overbuilt a bit. Adding the space of a two car garage would likely work. You'd probably need an air return of some sort in the garage as well.

All depends on if you want a fan-type system, or actual air conditioning. A lot of that depends on if you keep the garage door open that much. If you go with AC, you'd likely need a method to turn the system for the garage off and on, depending on if you needed it or not. You don't want the AC blowing with the garage door open all day!

Dale

Exactly. No windows. Just the one double door and the door into the house.

That is pretty much what I was looking at, only I wanted to use the 5 ton blower I have for ventilation as well as a dust collection system with a way to switch between them.

First of all, the house AC is barely sized big enough to cool the house. Adding the garage would be out and if the house AC was big enough to add the garage space, I wouldn't want to use it because of the dust when sanding and such. Even with a dust collection system, there would still be too much very fine dust that would get by most filters over time.

I think I have settled on using the blower for the dust collection and ventilation and for times when it is too hot to work in, I found a 12,000 BTU spot cooler for $600. I just have to figure out where to exhaust the hot air from both systems. If there is dust in it, I pretty much can't just send it to the attic, especially with a gas furnace and water heater up there. Talk blowing the roof off. It looks like I need to get it through the roof or through the header over the garage door.

I feel your heat! Two hot piston engines never raised the temp in my garage like one hot rotary, not even close.

Sometimes the best solution is the simplest one. I would suggest leaving the garage door open 6 inches to one foot. This should allow cooler ambient air in in the bottom and let the heated air escape out the top of the gargage door where it pulls away as it opens. The door should still keep prying eyes off your goods. Critters will be able to come and go as they please so you will have to plan for that. You will most likely have a layer of warmer air above the the top of the garage door, but unless you have living space above the garage, that should be no big deal. One could always install a fan up at the ceiling to disturb the thermal layer.

That is what I have been doing, but with the door facing East, it doesn't get much help from the South wind.

For moving the air, I am now considering a 24x24 wooden box with casters on it so I can move it around and use the 5 ton blower I have. Then with it blowing down and out a 4x24 grill that I can slide under the lip of the door and 2-12x24 intakes at the top that I can selectively open and close. One of the intakes will just be open and the other will contain a sub box that will hold my dust bag and a connector to my PVC dust collection plumbing.

This way when I need to get rid of the heat soak from the car, it will suck it in at the top and blow it down and out the garage with fresh air coming in. It's either that or put it in the corner away from the door and have two exhausts, one into the attic for ventilation and another back into the garage for dust collection. I just need a sliding damper to open up the proper exhaust/intake for the job I am doing.

It's probably going to be a coin toss as to which route I take. That and consideration on critters. Been a lot of wasps trying to come in as well as an old male cat that likes to curl up on the cast iron top of the table saw.

I would still get an AC guy of some kind to come out and give some ideas - there might be stuff you haven't thought of.

Really, the only way of keeping it cool is moving air if you don't go with some sort of air conditioning. The other alternative is a "swamp cooler" - we sell those here at work. It's filled with water, and blows air across the water. Doesn't add a lot of humidity to the air, just uses water as a heat exchanger, really. It'll drop temps around 10 degrees or so.

Our sister company has a 20,000 square foot warehouse with the counter for counter sales out in the warehouse. With the exhaust fans moving hot air out from around the ceiling and a number of large fans circulating air, it's actually semi-comfortable in there. Not cool by any stretch, but MUCH warmer than outside. This is in pretty darn humid Florida heat, too.

Personally, I think you'd be well off with some sort of "built in" solution that you don't have to drag out every time you want to do work in the garage. Something where you just come in, flip a switch, and get to work.

Dale

Ok did that with 3 AC contractors and got three suggestions;
1.To get the heat soak from the car out it was recommended to use a fan to pull the hot air out of the garage either into the attic (my idea) or through the outside wall (expensive because of brick construction). Permanent installation.

2. To cool the garage and help with the heat from the car another guy recommended a portable AC unit venting the exhaust into the attic and running a drain hose out the bottom corner of the door.

3. Yet another guy suggested running two copper tubes out the corner of the door and then bury them 12-24 inches deep along the side of the house. In the garage they would connect to a radiator and pump that would pump water cooled underground through the radiator which would have a fan blow across it. This system would run all the time and might still need the fan to pull the hot air from the car into the attic.

I asked about this and was told that it is a cheap way to cool the area down, but the very nature of a "swamp" or evaporative cooler is to cool by putting moisture into the air which is the opposite of how normal AC works which is to cool the air by removing moisture in the air. It works everywhere, but in high humidity areas, like Houston, it does very little good and can cause mold growth. It is better used in hot, low humidity climates, like Albuquerque where it can drop the temperature 20-30 degrees by putting moisture back in the air. It is also not recommended for woodshops where the extra moisture can warp woods.

Here iin Houston I moved a printing company from a 30,000 sq ft building to a 96,000 sq ft space and the humidity requirements were much the same as for a woodshop and it required refridgerated AC to cool the whole 96,000 sq ft and prevent moisture damage to the paper.

I don't disagree and it is why I am considering building the box into the corner with the ventilation exhaust going to the attic and using a portable AC unit for general coolling. The box in the corner would have two intake chambers that I could select with a damper to either vent the hot air into the attic or out into the garage area when the intake for the system is for dust collection. There will be two filter areas, one for ventilation intake and one for dust collection exhaust. The portable AC will exhaust into the ventilation side as well and the drain hose run out the corner of the door.

It will take the better part of the month to do it all, but I think that is my best option. I will take pics before, during and after the buildout in case someone else wants to follow my example.

I am still interested though about what others do to cool their garages down for their 8's.

Re: How do you cool the garage when you park in it?
 

might be out place here but what is wrong with your heart. I myself have seroius problems with my heart left side is enlarged and my heart is only working at 42%. When i was 8 years old 3 Doctors said i wont live past 18 i am now 20.

With the heat it kills me to, also alot fo walking up and down stairs. Im not aloud to play sports at all and if i do i ahev to be very careful and watch my heart rate. I was already in teh hospital twice for heart attacks.


I always take day by day if i worry it makes it worse. So im never negative about it.

P.s the first hear attack i had on may 30 03 i was thinking of all my faimly members and everyone that i love, And how pissed off i was that i didnt pick up my 8. i was thinking if i die let me drive an rx8 first.LOL

Re: Re: How do you cool the garage when you park in it?
 

That is what you have to do... keep proving them wrong. PM on the way.

Move to Canada...You won't have that problem for long...lol

That's for sure, but the doc said to also stay out of extremely cold weather as well.:(

Everyone seems to have overlooked the obvious: simply parking an RX-8 in your garage makes it cool! :D

No, parking it in the driveway for all to see makes it cool!

Parking it in the garage so only a select few can see when the door is open makes it Hot!

And when a friend drops by for a private viewing because the door is closed, you are Cook'in!

When that friend drives over in his Viper to see your RX-8 and he keeps shaking his head saying, "my Viper doesn't have that", you are Smook'in!

This actually happened to me. So now you see why I really need to cool that garage down a bit. I got a BBQ going on out there.

If my wife is riding with me, after I turn the car off in the garage, I tell her that the drive is as exciting as sex. That makes it really cold in there really fast!

Wouldn't work for me. If I said that to my wife, she would put the garage door down and jump my bones in the car to prove me wrong. Talk about heating things up.

I plan on using this in my garage:

http://www.brilliantcooler.com/condi...r_ma9000ah.htm

Bought it from that site (cheapest I found) and just received it today. It has a hose and window kit for the exhaust though I plan on simply cracking the garage door and running the hose out that way since I don't have a window in my garage. Haven't tried it out yet (still at work) but I did plug it in here and it seems to pump out some really cold air. It's also a dehumidifier and heater. Oh the actual unit is quite a bit larger than you'd expect and really moves some air on the high setting.

I agree that the 8 puts out a lot of heat in the garage, especially if the cooling fan runs for a while. I found if I turn off the AC ~30 sec. before entering the garage that the cooling fan is less likely to turn on after I shut the engine off. That helps a little.

Get one of these:

http://www.sunpentown.com/cart/wa-1210h.html

This is one of the units I was looking at, but a better price (Thanks). I was also looking at a 12,000 BTU unit to handle the summer heat load and the heat from the 8.

What size is your garage? Let me know how it works when you get it there.

I also still intend to use the 5 ton blower for venting the hot air as an aid to the portable unit as well as for dust collection.

I'd go ahead and build your dust collector and put a cutout on the ducting...so you can pull air through an open grate somewhere near the ceiling(where its hot), or by switching the cutout, through your dust collecting attachments. With that size of a blower, I'd guess you'd want to house it outside the garage, perhaps in its own shed attached to the garage (for sound isolation purposes and to keep the neighbors happy).
If you're worried about the negative pressure, I'd just open the garage door a crack.

I'm in a similar predicament. I have a three-story townhouse with the main living area directly above the garage. There are days when I can feel the heat coming up through the garage to the wood floors. I was thinking of installing two fans (on two different sides). One pulling in cool air and the other one exiting. They would be mounted in the walls between the two-by-fours. It would be possible to have these on a thermostat so they automatically kick on at a say 90 degrees.

Huh. It is not that big or noisy. This is the same blower that is used to move air for an AC unit in a 2500 sq ft or so house.

I plan to build it into the corner of the garage in about a 24"X24" floor to ceiling box with two dampers. One to switch the Intake from dust collection to a return air vent near the ceiling. The other will switch the exhaust from going into the attic to going out the return air vent near the ceiling. A single lever on the outside of the box will control them both and thus switch from ventilation mode to dust collection mode.

The portable 9000 BTU AC unit will sit next to it and exhaust it's warm air in the box above the exhaust damper into the attic. I have been able to determine that there is sufficient ventilation and insulation in the attic to handle it as long as I don't try to vent from the dust collection into the attic. If it is later determined that the attic ventilation is not sufficient to handle it, I only have to extent the vent 2 feet to a roof vent.

Do yourself a favor and insulate the floor from underneath.

I have insulation laid in between the ceiling joices. This is between the floor and the ceiling of the garage (sheet rock).

open the garage door ya idiot... lol what do you think you need to do. are you 12 years old? wear a t-shirt. or dont stand in it. or open the garage door. theres millions of things you can do. put a fan in your garage.. geez use your brain!

Sorry everyone, I can't stand the stupidity any longer.
 

If you had read the entire thread or at least the first page, you might understand the reason for this thread rather than to try to belittle others responding to this thread.

Since you reading ability is so limited I'll explain it to you again.

I had open heart surgery (that's where they cut your chest open to try to restore blood flow to the heart) (the heart is the thing that pumps blood through your body and keeps you alive) a little over a year ago and only have 70% use of my heart (that is because my heart attack happened over 2 years ago and I did not feel it) (heart attack is what happens when you heart cannot get enough blood to it to keep it alive and part of it dies many if not most people die when this happens). I had complications with my left lung (this was caused by the blood cells irritating the lining of my lung and causing the area around it to fill up with fluid and colapse the lung) as well and cannot tolerate 90+ degree temps. I also keep my 8 in the garage to protect it and so when I want to get in it, I don't have to put up with the 90+ temps outside. The 8 generates a lot of heat in the garage after driving it. I also like to work with wood and have a complete woodshop in the garage where I not only need to control the temperature, but the humidity because I use some expensive woods to make furniture and cabinets.

My original question was how others handle the additional heat from the 8 sitting in the garage. I ended up opting to use a 5 ton fan for an exhaust fan to get rid of the extra heat as well as use it for my woodworking dust collection system. In addition I added a 9000 BTU portible AC unit that is also a dehumidifier and an industrial floor fan to circulate the air all around. Now even without insullation on the garage door, it stays at 78 degrees or below. Next I look at insulating the garage door.

Now to put it into your own vocabulary;
1. If I stay in the heat, I die
2. I like to work in my garage
3. A garage is usually a place where you park you car
4. Some people use garages for other things and to put their car in
5. My garage was hot before putting my car in it
6. My garage was hotter after putting my car in it
7. It is even hotter outside than it is in my garage
8. Because of that I can't open the garage door to cool off the car
7. I asked others if they did anything to make their garage cooler
8. I used what I had and ideas from others to fix the heat problem in my garage

Now if you cannot get that into your head, go find a 5 year old to explain it to you.

To everyone else in the thread that has listened and even offered suggestions, I thank you. Even with all the fans and the portible AC unit my elcectric bill only went up $75 a month and the garage stays at a confortable temp. The portible AC unit exhausts through a hole I cut in the bottom left side of the garage door. No drain is necessary because the exhaust from the unit evaporates the condensate and blows it out the same hole in the door. Before I go anywhere in the car. I turn off the AC from the remote control, disconnect the vent hose, get in my nice cool car and open the garage door with my homelink switch on the mirror. Sort of like Urich's place on Vegas or the Omega man.

I live in Spring and have a pull down stair to the attic mounted in my garage. To keep the RX8 from heating up my garage I partialy pull down the stair giving the heat a way to rise out of the garage. Since your post says you have attic above your garage get a stair installed and you will get rid of the heat and have the bonus of a lot of extra storage space. It works for me.
P.S. do not dignify the people giving you a hard time with an answer to their post. Ignore them and you will be doing all of us a favor.

Actually I have an attic stair in the master bedroom closet. I have thought about putting one in the garage, but the combo exhaust fan and dust collection system will take most of the heat out. Then the portible AC unit can handle the rest. I just checked and the temp in the garage right now is 76 with the portible unit running. It was hovering around 82 before I started insulating the garage door itself.

As for the person you mentioned, I tried to ignore it but if you look at the dates, he killed the thread until I replied in public. I did try PM'ing him and also tried just raising a flag to a moderator. I apologize for feeling that I had to reply.

In any case, I think I am getting a handle on the heat. For now though, I have 7 more door panels to insulate. I am using R-13 paper backed insulation and holding it in place with some 12 guage steel wire used normally to suspend a ceiling. I have the design completed for the combo unit and when I get it finished, I'll post a few pics.

You sound like you still have a vigorous and ambitious attitude despite your condition and you still know how to get things DONE. A lot of work there. Makes me tired just reading about it :D

Thank you. It is not always vigorous. There are 16 21x48" panels in the door. I did three the first day, one the second, 2 the next and so on taking my time and stretching it out. Most of theem I have done in the late evening because of the heat, but with only 5 panels to go, the temp inside the garage is even bearable without the AC if I have not just pulled the car in and the AC cools things down pretty quickly when the car is first brought in.

It is just easy to work really hard when it never gets over 78. At least not for very long. It won't be too long before I'll be able to gat back to making the cabinets my wife wants for her china and still keep my 8 from sitting outside. It also makes a nice place to sit down and take a break with a cold beverage. It was all a snap once I got the bicycles hung on the wall and out of the way.

My fans not only cool the garage they also remove heat form the inside of the car. When I get home I turn them on and let 'em blow for an hour or so. It actually makes a big difference. The big one came from Sam's and cost $75.00.

http://home.austin.rr.com/atxrx/images/RX-8/IMG_70.jpg

http://home.austin.rr.com/atxrx/images/RX-8/IMG_71.jpg

http://home.austin.rr.com/atxrx/images/RX-8/IMG_83.jpg

I have the floor model of the fan you have on a pedistal. It does move a lot of air. I hadn't thought about the big black one, but I do have my own version for that as well. It is the 5 ton AC blower that I am building to use for hot air exhausted into the attic and for my dust collection system. Only it requires 240 volts and right now I only have 120, but my load center and outlets are in place and I am waiting for the electrician to run the 6/3 feed from the garage load center to the main panel. I would have done that myself as well, but the attic is too hot for me.

I guess it is time to post a few pics of the progress to date. It's not done, but it is bearable now. I'll take some pics and post them later.

Pics
 

In the attached pics you can see the garage door and how I insulated it, the portable AC unit, the corner where the 5 ton blower will go when I get the power run to the load center in the garage which is currently plugged into the outlet just below the load center.

There is also a pic of the AC temp. The top number is the air inlet temp and the bottom number is the temp coming out of the unit. And the floor fan I currently use to circulate air under the car when I first drive in. At the time I took these pics it was 96 outside and I had just driven the car inside. Within 2 hours the temp was 73.