How To Resaw In A Hot Garage, Comfortably

[Julie Moriarty]

Set up a fan behind you, preferably at table height, and keep it on while resawing. The breeze from the fan will keep you cool and at the same time blow dust away from you. Clean and cool! :D Ask me how I know. :rolleyes:

[Nick Decker]

Julie, that's my MO for pretty much everything I do in the shop all summer long, except I have two fans. :)

[Bruce Volden]

Well I thought everyone who retires moves to Florida because of the "wonderful" climate.

Never mind, I guess that's a winter thing ;)

Bruce

[Julie Moriarty]

Well I thought everyone who retires moves to Florida because of the "wonderful" climate.

Silly, you know when you retire you're SUPPOSED to move where it's uncomfortably hot.

[Ben Rivel]

Mini split.

[Bruce Wrenn]

AC with air cleaner circulating cool air around the shop. Heat in the winter also. Used to do fan routine, till I figured that it was loading my shop with humidity. It's hard to stain something that has sweat drops on it.

[Bill Carey]

I discovered that if I keep the door to my office on the second floor open the AC upstairs falls down to the shop and keeps it at 75 or so when it's 90 plus outside. The whole building is insulated .Makes all the difference.

[Mitchell Garnett]

Bruce - just curious - what kind of AC do you have? portable, window, split unit, etc. I've just moved from the Pacific Northwest to East Texas and I'm wondering what to do to keep cool.

thanks.

[Dick Brown]

I use a large swamp cooler. I can hear it now! RUST YOUR TOOLS!!! Not in the desert side of Oregon. A few weeks ago it was 104 in the shade outside and 75 in my shop. No rust, pennies to run and 29 degrees cooler than outside! Love it! Just close the doors, open a window on the other end of the room, turn that baby on and work cool.

[Jamie Buxton]

Minimal clothing helps too.

[Edwin Santos]

Minimal clothing helps too.

True, but I wouldn't go naked around cutting tools. Even with a SawStop.

[Greg Parrish]

I can see a mini split in your future.................. :)

Being in Florida also, I love mine. Low maintenance, quiet, low power consumption and comfortable work environment. I run mine full time all year round along with a dehumidifier. Keeps interior very stable and my cast iron shiny and clean.

[Julie Moriarty]

I can see a mini split in your future.................. :)

Being in Florida also, I love mine. Low maintenance, quiet, low power consumption and comfortable work environment. I run mine full time all year round along with a dehumidifier. Keeps interior very stable and my cast iron shiny and clean.

You know. You can't really appreciate the crushing heat and humidity of Florida unless you live here year around. :cool: I don't have AC in the garage but it would be easy to cut open the duct and let the cool air fly. The air handler is in the garage. But the problem is I vent the DC exhaust outside and with it would go all the cool air I paid for.

The garage door is 2" and insulated, so as long as it's closed, the garage is cooler than outside. It's not so bad. The fan works well but I especially like the fact the dust is being blown away from me. I made up two box fan plenums that hold 6" of filter material. I use a 5" MERV 13 filter and a 1" standard furnace filter as a pre-filter. The air blown at me is filtered and I don't have to wear a respirator. :)

[Don Jarvie]

If you plan on working in the shop everyday then it’s worth the investment of a mini split.

[mark mcfarlane]

... I don't have AC in the garage but it would be easy to cut open the duct and let the cool air fly. The air handler is in the garage. But the problem is I vent the DC exhaust outside and with it would go all the cool air I paid for...

FYI, I think it is against code, at least in some areas, to share the same HVAC circulation with living space and a garage. Whether or not it is a code violation in your area, opening an HVAC vent in the garage is a dangerous thing to do.

Here's the root problem: Whatever air volume you blow into your garage must come from somewhere. Blowing air into the garage (which is outside the normal HVAC envelope) means creating a negative pressure inside the home, and that pressure must equalize, or your house would collapse. If you have an 8" duct in your garage that is blowing 150CFM, then 150CFM needs to get into your home some way.

Option 1: Replacement air comes from your garage: Recirculating air with garage/auto fumes (carbon monoxide being one particularly bad one) can kill you, or make you sick.

Option 2: Replacement air comes from outside.

2a) Fresh, but hot, humid air comes through bathroom vents, the kitchen range hood, and other building envelope leakage points. This isn't dangerous, but also isn't very energy efficient, will make your house more humid/less comfortable and will raise your cooling bill significantly.

2b) Unhealthy air backdrafts into the house, e.g. from a gas water heater flue which is full of CO.

I encourage people to never open any garage vents in an HVAC system used for living space, but if you do open a duct in the garage, I would encourage at least installing a few CO detectors inside the home.

Some mini-split info and benefits: The mini-split systems are very efficient, and can be DIY installed, and since you are an electrician you can run the electrical. I have 3 Mitsubishi systems. You can get a Mitsubishi system with a variable speed compressor that can run down around 15-25%, which means you get very cheap and efficient cooling AND exceptional dehumidification in the spring and fall. Fixed speed AC's take 5-10 minutes before water starts dripping out of the drain pipe. Dehumidification does not happen until this point: when the water is removed from your building. In the spring and fall traditional HVAC systems may not run long enough to perform much dehumidification, instead they cycle on and off frequently to just control the temp. The closer the outdoor temp is to the indoor temp, they worse they do at dehumidification.

The better variable speed mini-splits run at slow speed in the spring and fall, closer to 100% of the time at a very low power consumption, performing their dehumidification efficiently, making you feel more comfortable at a higher temp due to lower humidity, which makes them even more efficient and cost effective because you will feel the same when the inside temp is a degree or two hotter.

I think most people miss the dehumidification benefit of variable speed HVAC systems. There are also 2-speed and variable speed whole house AC systems. They cost more to buy and maintain, which is also a consideration.

[Julie Moriarty]

No car can fit in my garage, Mark. It's too filled with tools! Even the lawn mower has been asked to leave. :rolleyes: But it's not happening anyway. I've been able to get by without it. The fan works fine.

[Randall J Cox]

Live in central Calif (taxifornia!) and use a swamp cooler. Helps significantly and blows out what fine dust there is.... Randy

[Martin Wasner]

Silly, you know when you retire you're SUPPOSED to move where it's uncomfortably hot.


Florida, the newly wed, and the nearly dead....


I used to spend a lot of time in Clearwater. One of my first trips down there I commented on the red lights at intersections seemed abnormally long. After a brief moment of contemplation I came to the conclusion that if you're just waiting to die, what's another 10 seconds at a red light.

[Albert Lee]

make sure wife is pre occupied with something.... so you dont get nagging/screaming at your ear.

[Jack Lemley]

+1 mini split or a window unit. I live in S/W Arkansas and have plenty of humidity. I keep my shop at 68 degrees and use a dehumidifier (not the compressor type) and the humidity in there hovers around 40% and I never have tool rust. Even when humidity outside is 100%. I also have good dust collection ;-)

Jack

[Larry Frank]

You are spending big bucks on new equipment. I would spend some on air conditioning. It will protect your tools from rust and make it safer to work. Being really hot and sweaty can negatively impact safety.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

What, no one uses one of these (spacesuits)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P32j17Fl5L0


I go with light cotton... Also depends on how much protection I feel that I need..... Light cotton offers very little kickback protection (or similar).

[David Kumm]

I run a mini split in Wisconsin to take out moisture. Machines hate moist air. I imagine moist salt air is even worse. Dave

[Bruce Wrenn]

Bruce - just curious - what kind of AC do you have? portable, window, split unit, etc. I've just moved from the Pacific Northwest to East Texas and I'm wondering what to do to keep cool. thanks.My shop is 24 X 28, with the 28 direction running east to west. South wall has two roll up doors, and an access door. Other three walls are solid (no windows,) with only 1" styrafoam for insulation. Roll up doors are insulated, along with access door,. Ceiling is insulated with R-19. In east wall, I have a sleeve with an antique (40+ years old) 5K window unit. As we finally, after two years, got our new heat pump up and running this week, so window unit currently in our bed room will go into shop. 6K BTU unit that uses half the electricity on the old one, plus it has a remote, which means not having to plug and unplug AC

[Alan Lightstone]

Julie:

Being a couple of hours North of you, I know your weather well. I would definitely purchase a mini-split for your garage/shop. Any good solid rain storm is going to rust your beautiful new machines, as well as any tools you have around. The one I have in my present workshop may be the best money I spent down here.

I'm moving and building a new workshop from scratch. One of the first items I'll buy will be mini-splits for it.

[Pete Staehling]

I not all that long ago had to make the window unit, mini-split, portable unit choice for my two car garage shop here in Tallahassee Florida. In my case I decided the portable unit was a good way to go.

Installation was quick and painless, it was inexpensive to purchase, and the shop has been very comfortable with the portable unit. Over the long haul the operating costs will make it more expensive if we stay here long term, but there is a chance we may move before the break even point for the mini-split. If we move the portable unit can be taken out leaving only a small hole in the wall (with a presentable cap on the outside and an easily patchable hole in the drywall inside). If I had it to do over, I'd make the same choice.

[Jim Dwight]

I like Julie's idea and will give it a try once I finish on the house for a bit and get some shop time making furniture. SC is hot too but not for as much of the year. Sometimes I can just open the back door on the north and the garage door on the south and get a breeze and it is not bad. But in the afternoon, in the summer, when it's 90 plus both humidity and temperature, it is just uncomfortable. I'm sure a fan will help but I also think I will probably end up with a small portable, first in a window and if it works well, probably later installed in the wall. My shop is little and well insulated so I think a 5,000 BTU will be enough for me. If I run the AC in the rooms over the garage, the shop is OK despite the R-30 insulation separating the spaces. But I don't use that space until a kid comes home. Running a little portable will be cheaper and probably more effective than running the heat pump for the rooms over the garage.

[Peter Kuhlman]

I think that fire codes kill any thoughts of opening a ventilation duct connecting house to garage. A fire in a connected garage will be sucked in to the house much faster with the garage pressurized. I believe this applies in all states. A home will never pass an inspection (by a qualified inspector) prior to sale and this duct work would be required to be removed.

Yea - mini split all the way!! Ideal for Florida.