We purchased a pre-owned home in TV 3 years ago. The garage is facing West. Original owner insulated doors and added one of those attic fans that pull air from outside thru garage door vents. This set up, in my opinion, is a Total Waste Of Money. If it is 95 degrees and humid outside, it is just as hot and humid inside. That is too uncomfortable for any activity in the garage.
Since I spend a lot of time in my garage the only sensible solution was to yank out the attic fan, insulate attic above the garage, and installed a high efficiency Mitsubishi mini-split. Since my garage is 3 stall I installed a 24,000 btu unit. I have one summer's worth of experience with this set up and can honestly say this is the best possible solution. These mini-splits are very efficient and costs little to operate. Maybe $30 extra per month for electricity. Not bad considering I only have to run it for about 6 months per year. I can set it on 78-80 degrees and it is very comfortable because the humidity is greatly reduced.
My next project will be to purchase new insulated garage doors with windows. Good garage doors have a much higher insulation rating than adding the insulating kits to the inside of these cheap builder grade garage doors we have in TV. The extra light coming thru the windows would brighten up a dark garage.
|