Shopsmith Forums

I need some input from you guys and gals on the forums. I am considering adding some kind of heat and air to my shop/garage. I have been looking at the heat pump systems and was wondering if any of you have had any experience with them and whether they are workable in a shop environment. I do have a dust filtration system, but was wondering if the dust environment would be too much for these units. My garage/shop is around 400 sq. ft. so the 14k BTU units should be sufficient without breaking the bank. Thanks in advance for any replies and/or suggestions.

curiousgeorge wrote:I need some input from you guys and gals on the forums. I am considering adding some kind of heat and air to my shop/garage. I have been looking at the heat pump systems and was wondering if any of you have had any experience with them and whether they are workable in a shop environment. I do have a dust filtration system, but was wondering if the dust environment would be too much for these units. My garage/shop is around 400 sq. ft. so the 14k BTU units should be sufficient without breaking the bank. Thanks in advance for any replies and/or suggestions.

If you are concerned(or as a 'backup'), add an (additional)filter to the air intake.

If the dust filtration system is really effective, that is probably unnecessary.

I assume the 'dust filtration system' is a stand alone unit(not a 'dust collector').

For 400 sq ft I would get a through the wall unit (think holiday inn etc.)

Thanks JPG and yes the filtration is a ceiling mounted unit and works pretty good. I have been looking at the ductless, split, heat pump systems with the outside AC and inside fan/heat units. They require only about a 3" hole through the wall for the pipes. There are also portable units that are vented through a window, but I would prefer the wall mounted for space considerations.

I just had a 15,000 btu Mr Slim installed in my two car garage and it works great. When it's 100 outside, it's 78 in my garage and the unit isn't running at full capaticy. I did install insulated panels on the inside of my garage doors and blew in 20 bags of insulation in the attic space above the garage.

I had it installed high up next to the ceiling to try to keep any stray dust from overloading it's filters.

It took 2 professionals 3 hours to install it and it cost me $4,200 for the whole thing about $3,500 for the air conditioner and $700 to have 2 new 120 outlets and 1 220 outlet installed as well. Not cheep but looks great and has a SEER rating of 21.

You can buy the unit and all the necessary supplies on the internet for around $1,800 if you can do the work yourself.

Here is the Mr Slim web site.

http://ductlessac.com/products/userSpecific.asp?Commercial=0

Thanks, Fred. That's just what I needed to know. I have already insulated the doors and blown in more insulation over the entire attic, so at least the cheap part is taken care of. We recently added a screen room that we will add windows to a little later, so I will probably have one of the split minis installed that can handle more than one inside unit. It would probably be cheaper to have it all done at once rather than coming back later.

Bruce it can get rather cold here in north central Texas. We don't usually get much snow but do get our fair share of ice and sleet. It gets into the single digits and has been known to drop into the minuses on occasion. I can also relate to the heat shrink since it was a cool 109 here today.
I do use a space heater but that only works for the milder days, so I thought I might get more shop time in with a complete system.

A gentleman who posted here for a long time (8iowa) suggested a Reznor dual chamber heater for my shop. It runs on natural gas and electricity. The dual chamber is important as it heats in one chamber and blows the heat thru the second chamber into the room, thus lowering fire danger. I have mine mounted beneath the ceiling in the north east corner of the shop. It maintains my 500 square foot shop at 70 degrees all winter. As I desire an even temperature 24-7, I am thrilled with it's performance. Okay I confess I like it so well I added a second one to heat my garage if and when needed. For the hot summer days I use a wall mounted AC unit in the shop. So far this summer I have turned it on 10 different days, man its nice to have a well insulated shop. Jim

I have a 14,000 BTU heat pump unit installed in one window of my 600 sq. ft. shop. It does a great job of keeping things cool in summer and warm in winter (which is quite short here). I have to fire up the small space heater about twice a year to help when it gets REALLY cold (about once every three or four years).

I recently started to have a problem with the unit freezing up. The only reason I know of for that is a dirty filter which restricts air flow. I'm going to add another layer of filter material to the filter and change it more frequently to see if that will eliminate the problem.

For $1,400 I'm quite pleased with how it performs. However, if this freeze-up problem continues I'll look into a split unit in the future.