Above garage HT room.... Very Warm... Need ideas to cool? (1 Viewer)

[T r o y]

I have a bonus room, 17x20, located above my garage, that I turned into a dedicated HT room recently. I took every step to combat heat that I knew would plaque the room this summer.... but..... it is not even late spring yet.. and the room tends to get very warm even now:frowning:

I know the heat from the garage is the perpetrator. With the heat rising up from the garage.

I need suggestions on how I can increase the coolness to the room without spending $1000's of dollars.

Does anyone know how these would work?
http://www.air-conditioner-store.com...o_pac_360.html

Do they work good enough for cooling a room down pretty good?

Looking for any suggestions yall can give me to help improve the room's coolness.

Thanks!
Troy

 

[T r o y]

Uhh... fellas... ideas please?

 

[Daryl RL]

Troy-
Our "under construction" basement stays pretty cool so I hope not to need extra a/c, but if we do I will look into ductless mini-split systems. I've seen them mentioned here and elsewhere. You can search on "ductless mini split" on google.com and get a lot of places to research further. One of the 1st ones: www.warmair.com seemed to have quite a bit of info. I saw a thread here a few days ago that linked to an ebay site where there were some on sale for close to $1000 but a quick search at google brought up several systems in the $600-1000.00 range.

Daryl

 

[Chad Anson]

Do you know if you have an insulated garage door? If not, it wouldn't cost to much $ to add foam sheet insulation on the inside. Home Depot sells some foam precut to the right size as a kit.

Do you have central air in the rest of your house? If so, an HVAC contractor may be able to add a register and return air (important).

 

[Brian tj]

Hi Troy
Try exhaust fan and thermostat in garage. Keep it cooler and dido the door insulation.
Good luck Brian

 

[LaMarcus]

My bedroom is on the top floor (attic), I really could benefit from this info also, for in the summer my bedroom is a sweat box, and in the winter it's the freezer. The one vent that is in the room (pure genius for whom ever had this idea) isn't enough since the room is 36'X16'.

 

[T r o y]

Unfortunately my garage door isn't insulated. It is one of the lightweight thin sheet metal type doors. With two windows on the side.
All these are really good ideas. I'd like to look into cooling the room using one of those split AC units or portable roll around AC units.

Does anyone have one of these or know someone who does?

Would be interested in knowing how well these work and how much of an installation process they are?

Thanks!

 

[marc]

GO to Sam's club. Portable A/C unit, don't know the BTU's, but it was $400

 

[Dave Milne]

Window AC units can often be snapped up for cheap from want ads. If you're handy with basic construction techniques, you don't necessarily need a window... just cut the proper-sized hole in the wall, install headers/supports, and seal/trim as appropriate. Make sure the condensate drain doesn't end up in the wall, though.

 

[Alfonso_M]

Troy, I recently installed a one room ductless ‘Tadiran’ system in a bedroom, other than a head unit low volume electronic switch ‘clicking’ noise when the compressor kicks in (that one learns to ignore and may or may not bug you in a HT) I’m very satisfied so far, air noise is minimum and the slim ‘clean’ look without the huge ‘Box’ appearance of standard wall units is perfect for a HT, according to my research (one year ago) the Mitsubishi and Toshibas and Sanyo are the best brands out there (not sure about noises) but pricey, the Goodman is popular and cheaper but with many reliability complains in online contractors’ forums I checked, maybe their new models are better now, Tadiran (made in Israel) is somewhere in the middle of the pack, they produce wall, floor and ceiling models and you can run multi ‘zones’ head units out of one master unit installed outside(depends on model and head units distance), installation is simple for the professionals and should not be expensive, ( depending on your rooms and locations), I supposed that if you are the adventurous DIY crafty type and research the installation process before hand, follow the instructions well and know basic refrigeration and electricity you could do it your self, basically you drill a small hole in the wall behind the unit, (they provide template), run 110V AC lines, copper pipes , control cable and a rubber water drain hose, you'd probably need a concrete base/platform for the outside unit too, I believe this units are pre-charged with Freon, not sure since I had a complete “duct” system installed and it made sense for me to have the contractor do the Mini ‘ductless’ install too, because of last minutes changes in my design and equipment used my separate final price for the ‘ductless’ is hard to say, the best quote I found for this brand by a certified contractor was $1800.00 USD , this included a 12 EER reversible 22K BTU unit with two heads installed. Hope this helps

 

[T r o y]

Alfonso,

Hey interesting reading you provided. So you like your Tadiran huh?
Is your system anything close to the Mitsibishi Electric System here http://www.mini-split.com/html/minisplit_models.htm
Look for model # MS09TW under the AirConditioners Only section.
This is the model I'm thinking of going with.

I'm having the installer come out in a few weeks to give me a free estimate on the actual cost of the unit installed so I can start saving up for it. It looks like I will have to get through this summer the best I can without the system. Wheww! HOT! :frowning: But definately next year's summer I will already have it working in there.

Thanks for all the great ideas and suggestions!

Later!

 

[ddjackson]

Troy

I have nearly the same configuration with a 15' x 18' bonus/HT room over the garage. It would reach 90+ degrees on an average day even with the house AC running. The same system that cools the down stairs area also cools the bonus room. I had looked at stand alone cooling options and even adding another small all-in-one unit that drained outside. They were either to costly or required a lot of installation to make them work. The solution I decided on was called zoning. It is where they put an inline valve in your current main duct work and a seperate thermostat in the bonus room. Then depending on if the bonus room or main house calls for cooling it starts the AC and flips the valve to direct cooling to the area that called it. It has worked very well and now the bonus room is as comfortable as the main house. This was done by a local heating and cooling company and cost about $900 for everything. They even came back twice to make sure it was correctly balanced. Hope this helps.

Dave

 

[AndrewW]

Dave, I have the same problem. I only have to ducts in my bonus room. It's an oven during the summer, but no problems in the winter. You don't happen to know what parts or brands they used to fix that do you? My AC guy hasn't heard of such a thing.
Thanks.