Attached Garage Air Conditioner

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RobertC

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 27, 2012
Messages
292
Location
Winter Garden, FL
Having moved to central Florida two years ago, we found out how hot our attached garage gets in the summer. Going through the door from the house into the garage is like walking into an oven, and the interiors of our vehicles we keep in the garage are also like ovens. After recently purchasing two Chevy Bolts, I decided to install an air conditioner for the garage. I researched three choices: a wall unit, a portable air conditioner, and a ductless split system. I installed a MRCOOL DIY ductless mini-split system 12,000 BTU heat pump. The installation is do-it-yourself because the line set comes pre-charged. I have the temperature set to 79º F. Total installation parts cost was around $1,500.00. The unit is extremely energy efficient, 17.5 SEER in summer, and super quiet.

Cooling the garage should help prolong our EV's battery life, and now I can actually work in the garage in the summer. The air conditioner is sized properly to run long enough to remove the humidity which is usually high in Florida, and the air conditioner has no problem keeping the garage cool, even on the hottest days. When we get into any of our three EV's in the garage the passenger cabins are a comfortable 78º F so that we don't have to use our battery charge to remove the heat from the interior of the vehicles. Also, since our attached garage shares a wall with a bathroom, and shares a ceiling with the floor of an upstairs multi-purpose room, keeping the garage cool will result in our house air conditioning having to work less.

The attached photos show the outdoor condenser, the indoor air handler, our energy efficient heat pump water heater (that removes heat from the garage to make hot water - works well in Florida where winters are mild), and the insulation I used for the garage doors.

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Very nice installation and a great upgrade. Is the mini-split 120 or 240?

I've been meaning to insulate my garage doors, but so far . . . . .

I did install an 18,000 btu 240 volt window unit mounted in the back wall of our garage 3 or 4 years ago, but I only use it when I'm working out there. The rest of the time, I have an L2 EVSE plugged into it's outlet. Our garage has a double roof with about 3 feet of air space between the roofs, so it doesn't get nearly as hot in there as the outside ambient temps

I both admire and despise (because I can't seem to do it) anyone who can keep a garage as neat as yours - Mine is on the other end of the scale! :lol:

Don
 
RobertC, thank you for posting. Someone I know in California's central valley is buying an EV and their garage regularly sits at >100°F and the mini-split has been on my mind to do exactly what you did. Insulating the large garage doors is a nice touch! Agree with Don, a garage that 'clean' is alien ... is that a heat-pump water heater in the background (that also acts as an aircon)?
 
Looks clean and professionally installed. The only thing I notice is the extra coiled up line set behind the compressor but that's okay. The system was pre-charged for that amount of copper anyway. What kind of connectors do they use for the line set?

Nice work! Thanks for showing us.
 
We have a 440 sq. ft. two car garage that is our dedicated shop (my honey doesn't mind parking outside). The shop is fully insulated, including the door to R-13, and we put in a one-ton (12,000 Btu) Gree mini-split ductless unit Oct. 2013. It is a high-efficiency unit (22 SEER, I believe) and was about $2,300 for turnkey installation. I could have bought the unit for about $1,700 and done the install but I learned that the 7-year warranty would be null and void if I installed it myself. So I paid the extra and had it installed. We paid $500 to have insulation blown in two walls and the ceiling and I insulated the garage door. The common wall for the house was already insulated. The garage is on the west side of the house so it catches the full brunt of the summer sun and yet still stays comfortable even when it's 105° outside. The other day it was 9° outside but 70° in the shop.

The unit is so efficient that our electric bill has never changed even though the unit is on 24/7. It stays very comfortable year-round and has been well worth the initial cost. Nothing sweats or rusts in the shop, wood is always at a low MC, and the woodworker (ME) really likes the climate-controlled environment. I think the reason our electric bill never changed is that the door into the house stays open unless I'm really stirring up some dust and my guess is the mini-split takes some of the load off the main HVAC unit for the house.
 
Wow! 105 outside . . . . you must be in Arizona or maybe New Mexico?? Glad we don't have that here, although our 95 with 80% humidity probably equates to something akin to 105

Don
 
Just deleted two spam posts in this thread for air conditioning installers, one of which was for Dubai! Go figure...

This thread had prompted me to install mini-splits in my all-electric house 1-1/2 years ago and the results have been fantastic! Warm in winter and (rarely-used in our temperate climate) cool in summer at a fraction of the previous energy use. An added bonus is that I removed the resistive central-heating furnace in the garage and now I have a dedicated 100A 240vac circuit for car charging. :geek:
 
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