AC in the casting/reloading rooms.

[JonB]

Gonna be hot later this week, could top 90º
I installed the AC today.

First, some background, I have a 100 yr old 2.5 story house, just barely fit for a unfussy bachelor. The entire 2nd floor was an apartment, but I have made it a casting/reloading shop and storage.

I have two AC window units, A 5K BTU for the bedroom and a 8K BTU for the livingroom. I haven't used the 8k BTU unit for years and I have never installed one in the second floor, I just toughed out the heat, or didn't use that space during the 10 to 25 HOT n HUMID summer days we get every year. I've been out of work for the last 4 to 5 weeks and expect the trend to go through most of the summer, which is fine by me. So I figure, I'll be wanting to cast and reload...and NOT be sweating it out. SO I mounted the AC unit in a east facing window, figuring It'll be better than south and west...and and there is no north facing window The happy part of the story, the AC unit fits about perfect in that window, mounting it in the livingroom giant picture window was a Pain, and required a piece of plywood to fill the extra space and looked Hobo-like.

I'm not sure why I shared this, as it was an un-eventful story...but that's the way I prefer them.

 

[Ian]

I cast in the AC too. We get a lot more than 10-25 HOT n HUMID days a year here, more like 10-25 that are NOT that way.

 

[RBHarter]

The swamp coolers keep things cool for me ......for now . How's this work with the exhaust fans ? Do the coolers keep up well ? 30 months till the big move to the wet lands from the desert west .

 

[JonB]

exhaust fan ...What's that ?

 

[RBHarter]

I see. Just playing safe.

 

[Hawk]

When we bought our home in 1991, I made sure it had a large bedroom that is my gun/reloading room.
At the time it was fine. Now I have a path that goes to and from the door to the loading bench.
All casting is done outdoors.

 

[RBHarter]

I will likely have a room set specifically aside and up for the loading etc .

 

[Ian]

The swamp coolers keep things cool for me ......for now . How's this work with the exhaust fans ? Do the coolers keep up well ? 30 months till the big move to the wet lands from the desert west .

Ouch. That would be a tough move for me, I love all of the North American deserts. Dry air and a little bit of altitude (4-5,000') agree quite well with me, and one day I'd love to move out of the semi-arid to full-arid. Swamp coolers are pretty ineffective above about 70% RH, and not great above 50%.

 

[Intheshop]

"HVAC".....the "V" is ventilation.

Having grown up in the world of million dollar houses.....uhhh,from the builders side of it.I can say with certainty that the V part is sorely missing.Heck,could write a book on the subject.My dad was a very well respected contractor in Wash. D.C. from pre war to about the 1970's when he'd had enough and "moved back home" to the mnts of Va.I gladly,and respectively,picked up where he left off.

So,cool deal on the 100 y.o. house.We live in an 1810 "repro" federal period,with ALL the amenities.Spent 10 solid years doing historic pres. work.Old houses are the chit.

Cool deal on the window units.It's amazing what they do.The part that you're missing....guessing,but would take any wager I'm right.Is the "V".There's a very good chance the original structure had/has it.It possibly got "messed" up with attempts over the years to,"improve" the buildings living conditions.Vernacular architecture refers to the notion that we,as builders,learn from our mistakes.It's the whole idea that crafts,in this case building....gets passed down from one gen. to the next.Which is the case in my families history.

The notion also concludes that what is proper construction in one area may be,and in most cases here in the U.S.,is not going to work in another.This idea got blown out of the water in the post WWII,"one size fits all"...."urban expansion" movement.

The short,and long answer is....work on your house's ventilation system.You've made a step in placing your window units on a friendly side.But try to think 100 years ago,before A.C.How did they(the builders,owners)deal with ventilation....read that as cooling.Winter heat is a tangent to this discussion.Pick times of the day...early morning,late evening and figure out which series of windows you can open that gives PREDICTABLE air movement through your casting rm.

Try to envision about a 1-2 mph breeze.Putting yourself on the upwind side of whatever fumes we're trying to protect yourself from.Just sayin,runnin your AC,window unit or whole house is probably not the best approach.We don't want to recycle the fumes.For that,you have to look into much more sophisticated approaches.Nope,open the windows and let nature take it's course.

I explain it to people....usually when concerning spraying noxious paints....that if you were sitting by a campfire,would you sit on the downwind side or the upwind side.That is exactly what you are trying to accomplish.Sorry for the novel,but I deal with this everyday.Told my guys the other day about how much dust we were exposed to,on the job....."gotta go home to a cabinet/millshop to get some clean air".That's how bad it is,in the filed....and how serious we take ventilation in our shop.Best,BW

 

[fiver]

in the winter I run a wood burner with water on the stove.
in the summer I used to run an AC unit with water in front of it.
the humidity makes casting better and easier.
I gave up on the summer AC when I found I could keep the shop at about 65 all year around pretty easily.

 

[Brad]

I cast in the garage so in summer I sweat. Reloading is done in the basement so I have AC in the summer.

 

[Intheshop]

fiver,contrary to what every gauldang insurance geek ever imagined....a common woodstove is about as efficient of noxious fume evac as ever been devised.

To test....take a woodstove and put it out in the yard.Hook up your Sata spraygun....you do have one right?And with a ripping fire in the stove,spray some lacquer thinner right at the air inlets.Heck,take handfuls of wood dust and throw it into an open woodstove door.

If you go back in history and pay attention,those big incinerators that every manufacturing facility had.....them big masonry "stacks"....what do you think those boys were throwin in there?They are extremely efficient at removing fumes and unwanted particulates.Just sayin.

All cautions apply here,the views within are in no way supported by this site or anyone in particular.....this is pure brain food,for entertainment purposes only.

 

[quicksylver]

My 2c.....a breeze is a breeze...if it's hot..a breeze will make you feel cooler...that being said...get a good cross breeze going and watch your pot tempt go down.....when you are done casting close everything and turn on the AC and enjoy the fruits of your labor....

Tha's what I do anyway......

 

[fiver]

that stove will pull air out like crazy if I have a fire going and open up the flue and the bottom air vent.

sometimes I burn clinker coal in it and end up opening the door to the house and turning a fan on to blow the extra air in from the shop.
then I turn the fan on to the furnace ducts and heat the rest of the house.
it's kinda funny to not even run the furnace and see everybody come down stairs in shorts and stuff sweating cause it's up over 80-f in the old place in mid january just cause I built 2 fires instead of one out there.

 

[RBHarter]

I grew up in a split level house with a half basement. The house was 2200 sqft at 4,12,16 ft above grade ceilings it heated all 2200 with a small airtight stove rated for 1200 sqft . At Christmas the garlan would lean out about 3" from 3' up in the stairs . No fans just flow . The swamper dumped into the top floor hall with the bedrooms . No vents or opening windows in the basement but with the damper wide open the basement would stay around 65-68 degrees. The top floor would get 80-85 late in the afternoon, the bare stucco and rock work would dump the heat almost instantly when we would hit it with a little water at sunset. Loved that house. We built it footers out about 1978.

I chase all the flow I can . The area of the intended move seems to be dry by the standards of "oh that. It was just a little ol 5.9 inch storm ...." yeah cause that's a whole years worth if it happens to hit the rain gauge. Anyway the house and site are layed out to "draft" through and flow warm air with a booster fan only .

 

[KHornet]

I cast in the garage winter and summer, with a fan blowing from behind me. In the summer it is with the garage door open, and in the winter with it closed. I sweat in the summer, and cast in the winter the day after I have fired a kiln so it is still warm in the garage. Load in the basement so AC in the summer and warm in the winter. Kind of a best of two worlds for both.

 

[JonB]

Good Grief, I just got called back to work

Monday, I started cleaning reorganizing my kitchen, a long over due project. I donated 7 boxes of kitchen gadgets and cooking utensils and pots and pans that haven't been used in years,and delivered them to my buddy's church Youth garagesale fundraiser tuesday morning...I never finished cleaning/re-orgainzing..I got kitchen stuff all over my livingroom floor. Because I wanted to get these AC units in yesterday...I was so successful yesterday with the AC unit in my reloading/casting area, I decided to continue a re-organizing project that started two years ago in my casting room and storage area, with mounting some shelves. So yesterday, I took everything off the shelves and tables and such, creating a mess what'll take several days to go through and clean up...and this morning, I get called to work...sounds like for most of the summer. I guess my weekend will be busy cleaning up this mess and putting everything back unsorted also, I was hoping to go through six drawers full of J-words, and get most of it ready to sell. SO I could put other stuff in those drawers...Maybe next year ?

 

[JonB]

"HVAC".....the "V" is ventilation.

Having grown up in the world of million dollar houses.....uhhh,from the builders side of it.I can say with certainty that the V part is sorely missing.Heck,could write a book on the subject.My dad was a very well respected contractor in Wash. D.C. from pre war to about the 1970's when he'd had enough and "moved back home" to the mnts of Va.I gladly,and respectively,picked up where he left off.

So,cool deal on the 100 y.o. house.We live in an 1810 "repro" federal period,with ALL the amenities.Spent 10 solid years doing historic pres. work.Old houses are the chit.

...SNIP

Sadly, My 100 yr old house isn't "ALL THAT".
Basically, it is one of those Cube shaped farmer houses, with no closets, patched in plumbing and heating. Along the way, there have been 5 additions to this cube shaped house. It's a Whale of a house for a Bachelor.

The Previous owners who bought it right after WWII, had a large family, hence the additions, then when the kids left, they modified it, into a duplex to rent out the 2nd floor. when the Husband died in the early 1980's, the wife quit renting out the appartment. The Wife pasted away in the late 80s and left it to the grand children,,,it sat empty for a few years, cause none of them wanted it. After it was on the market for over a year, I bought it.

First thing I did was remove the three vintage kerosine space heaters and put in a gas forced air furnace in the crawl space and then I lined one of the unlined chimneys for a wood stove in the livingroom. I did put the cold air return right next to the wood stove, and use a second thermostat on the furnace to turn on the furnace fan when the livingroom gets hot, to circulate the heat throughout the first floor...the only thing that fits into your "V"

Oh, the only plumbing in the house was a toilet on each 1st floor and 2nd floor...same with a kitchen sink on each floor. I put in a shower and sink/vanity in the one bedroom that had the toilet...turning it into a legal bathroom. I also put in a gas cook stove, gas clothes dryer. As houses go, this is an abortion...but it's cheap living for a Bachelor...I bought it for $19K (paid cash) in 1993...Living mortgage free really allows a bachelor to save money and/or not work so hard.

 

[Intheshop]

Think about a bathroom vent for a second...

900cfm ,or whatever they're pushing these days?And with the door shut how much makeup air you think is coming from under the door....ain't much.So the room becomes a dead air zone.Obviously depends on the shape,size,location but,I've seen brand new houses with rot and mold in less than a cpl years.Find places in adjacent rms to pull air from,preferably to evac these dead zones.

Another area of concern is crawl spaces,you can pump/push air out of open foundation vents by supplying air from your attic.Pumping air out of an attic( good thing) in Summer is only getting half usage if the house has a crawl space.Choose a nice central location for an 8" snaptite duct,hidden in a corner(cheap sheetrock chase cvr)to pass from attic to crawl space.Get appropriate size duct fan or rig up sumthin,set it on timers or temps.Pull air in attic vent from a friendly side.

Basement,king of dead air zones.First thing is a digital point N shoot temp gun.look at the temp difference in one spot,vertically.Check your floor vs ceiling temps.This also rears its head when folks are painting in their shops in colder months.Hanging the thermometer at eye level tricks you into thinking that cold chunk of luber sizer we're painting is up to temp.

Good luck with work,I work too much,sposed to slow down when we get older....I'm busier than a one armed boolit caster.

 

[fiver]

I took our bathroom vent and turned it around.
it pulls warm air in from the heated shop and pressurizes the room forcing everything out.
otherwise it would allow moisture to build up in there.