Evaporative Shop Coolers- Opinions?

[Chad1376]

I'm kind of slow to reply...

I have swamp cooler for my two-car garage. It works great, in dry 'Vegas, up to temperatures around 100, and is tolerable for an hour or two at a time when temperatures are above 110. However, I stopped using it. The humidity was creating rust issues on tools (especially cheapo Harbor Freight fodder) and since my project currently has a lot of exposed steel, I don't want to deal with surface rust before paint.

I also have a portable A.C., with a hose to vent heat out of the window. It knocks the edge of the heat, but isn't nearly as effective. It also takes forever to cool things back down after I open the garage door.
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[hitest]

thank you very much for the reminder about humidity and rust! Now I'll have to look further at my tools at work- they are in the direct path of our massive Portacool there.
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[Chad1376]

Thinking more about this last night...I had occasionally dumped muriatic acid in the sump to extend the life of the pads (our water here is exceptionally hard.) It seems likely that the rust issue was made worse, since maybe I was making the air acidy & humid (I don't know.) Maybe it's less of an issue if you have good clean water where you're at.
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[nsracing]

I am gonna install a used central airconditioner in my tiny garage this year.

I upgraded my home AC and will use the older unit in the garage. It is freaking hot in the summer. Cannot get any work done in the garage when summer comes.

[smokey503]

[theastronaut]

We have three 16" Portacools at our shop in the upper part of South Carolina and they only kinda help on days that aren't terribly humid. They've been useless the last week where it's rained a few evenings during the week and the humidity was high the next day. When the humidity is around 60% they'll drop the air temp inside the fan by 15-20 degrees. So if you're right in front of it they help. We can run two of them in a three stall shop and the temp inside the shop may be ~ten degrees cooler but the increase in humidity is high enough that it's miserable even with all of the doors open, so we don't use them unless we're able to work with the fan right beside us most of the time. I haven't noticed any rust from using them and I've done a good bit of metal/bodywork in the shop.

I have a friend from Arizona thathas an evaporative cooler for his house, and he says it drops the inside temps from 100 outside to 70 inside, so they definitely work much better with lower humidity. If you're in a more humid climate I'd recommend an A/C unit since it'll cool the air and lower the humidity.
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[oprn]

I have a neighbor who hooked up a Rabbit rad to his well water and put a fan behind it. The water comes into the rad in the house, then outside to water the garden and lawn. This does two things, it cools the house before it leaves and warms the water so it's not such a shock to the plants. The genius part is that hot days are when you need both!

Oh - it is a small house too and it makes a noticeable difference.

[Q-Dog]

[Dwayne1m]

This is kinda related to the topic. I don't have central air and my basement is my man cave but it gets hot and humid down there. I've had regular dehumidifiers for years but this year I bought a portable Honeywell 14,000 BTU A/C, dehumidifier, & fan unit to try. Unlike a regular dehumidifier this one exhausts the hot air out a vent whereas the regular dehumidifiers put the hot air back into the room. This system works so much better. Even with the current heat wave we are having I haven't put it on A/C yet and it's still very comfortable.

[djkeev]

Like Dwayne1m I have a home in Pennsylvania. I run a dehumidifier 24/7/365 to keep the basement dry.

While I didn't know they made hot air venting dehumidifiers (sounds great for the Summer, I'll be looking into this more closely) I depend upon the exhaust heat to keep my basement above freezing in the Winter.
It is a "weekend" home and sits empty for periods of time.

Here in NJ we can get HOT and HUMID. I have a two car garage that I keep cool with a 10,000 btu window unit.

As mentioned, any sort of evaporative cooler in areas of high humidity is useless. Even misting fans used outside just make you wetter and even more miserable!

Dave
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