Can you feel that breeze?

One thing that's been bugging us is how hot the garage gets during the summer. It didn't come with any roof exhaust and sometimes we may not want to open the garage door or side door for ventilation. Then, even if we do open it, the slight occasional breeze doesn't remove the hot air from near the roof which gets to around 100-110 F during hot days.

We decided it was time for some forced ventilation in our cave.





Here is the blower. It came with a capacitor which was mounted in a cheap $8 outdoor electrical box bought from Home Depot and gutted. The blower is rated at 150 cfm (cubic feet per minute), which from rough estimates of the volume of the garage, can remove the entire volume of air in 30 minutes.



Nick working on the wiring and mounting.



Leeder measuring and cutting the exhaust duct and louver.



I (not included) cut a hole in the wall, using a large drill bit and sawzall, creating clouds of dust.



Running and mountomg the duct to the top of the garage, from where the hottest air is exhausted.



A clever solution to dust Leeder brought to us. The cheap filter stays put from the pressure of the fan and filters the air.



The whole blower assembly is ready to be mounted.



After some work in getting the duct through the wall, in part because it wasn't cut exactly circular, the fan is mounted and the duct is run from the blower to the top of the garage. The extension cords temporary until the conduit runs to the different parts of the garage are made.



The exhaust louver.



As part of our goal to be a truly sustainable workshop, we started thinking about ways in which we can produce almost no waste. This is pretty difficult as most of the hardware we purchase comes in tons of little plastic bags and cardboard. There is also the problem of getting rid of small pieces of metal, aluminum, and wood. As a start, these are reusable grocery bags we will bring to hardware stores, compliments of Kelli. One of the many things to come.

At the end of the day, Nick quickly jotted down an equation that calculated how fast the wind was blowing through the window if the fan is pushing out 150 cfm. That turned out to be a whopping 0.17 mi / hr.