Garage cooling

He was referring to @bravenel's rules for his exhaust fan plan.

I have the same rule for the Small Garage fan. Either coming on turns both on, but each has their own 'off' logic.

As far as temp sensors go:

For those using outdoor temp sensors, what are you using? I do not like the weather underground, it does appear to be accurate for where I live. I can be raining and they say it is sunny.

--Don

There are several options. I have a qubino dimmer sitting in an outdoor gang box - it has the option for a temperature probe - you can either buy one from them, or get a waterproof temperature probe from Amazon - it will tie into the qubino
Qubino also has a flush on/off thermostat

I'm using the Hue outdoor motion sensors, but they're kind of useless as temp sensors, as their primary purpose for me is luminance! Since they're basically in direct sunlight, they tend to read crazy high.

S.

Over the weekend I wanted extend the laziness (isn't that the point of the IoT?) and have the garage temperatures be available on my phone when I asked Siri. Exposed the sensor via HomeBridge Maker API to HOOBS - which I've been using for voice controls over iOS phones. Worked flawlessly and I was able to get the temps via voice. Here is where the problem started. The rule that ran the fan periodically to cool the garage down, stopped working. Recreating the rule, troubleshooting etc was useless! Nothing worked for this rule - just this one - all other temperature based rules from other sensors triggered as intended. After much thinking about the issue, realized the problem - I have HOOBS & my phones set on Celcius - which is what Siri was reading out when I asked for the temperature in the garage!!! The rule that kicks the fan on, was set to run if the temperature is above 85F - now, it was looking for 85 (which was in Celcius), because of the mixup! If it is looking for 85 C, I'm living in the wrong place :upside_down_face:

Removed the sensor from the list of devices exposed to HOOBS, refreshed HOOBS, so that it's not looking for that anymore. Had to delete and recreate the rule - now it's working as intended!

Lesson learned - either don't keep multiple measurement modes or don't expose devices across multiple measurement modes!!!

Reading this older post, i have two problems. Two rooms over the garage or touching the garage attic have quite a bit temp differences than the rest of the house. One being my office, really recognized this over the past 14 months.

Hot in the summer (90's), cold in the winter here in MN. I know many others posting here are in the AZ, NV areas and are mostly dealing with cooling it down, mainly at night. How have others dealt with this, and any automation tricks for both heating and cooling?

I have a similar situation with the room above the garage and realized a couple of problems, which have significantly improved the temperature situation in the room:

  1. The garage below the room is an open environment, with not much of insulation
  • adding the garage exhaust fan improved the situation in the summer
  • changed out the insulation from the builder installed insulation to foam insulation - this had an added benefit of reducing the sound & vibrations from the garage door opener & providing a better feeling floor (not hotter or colder than the rest of the house)
  1. The length of the air duct from the AC unit to the room above the garage is the longest in the house, the room is warmer/colder than the rest of the rooms on the same floor!
  • Added an in-line duct fan from AC Infinity to one of the two vents in the room & hooked it up to a GE Z Wave plug, triggered by a Lutron pico remote (trying to find a better solution to trigger the fan on, when the AC unit blows cold/hot air). I turn the in-line duct fan on when the room is in use. It has been doing good over the last winter and now thru the summer

Curious how this was done as I face same issue with my bonus room. Did they open garage ceiling and spray in foam? Did they have to remove all drywall or just hole in each joist bay? I have an I beam that spans my garage so this would complicate it too.

I have a beam too in the middle of the garage & the garage was unfinished. The insulator contractor pulled down the drywall on the garage ceiling stating that the foam will push against the drywall & floor of the room above, if it is left in place - it needs someplace to expand freely. They put the drywall back after the foam was dry and cut/shaved the foam to the joist levels & then I finished/painted the garage :slight_smile: . They removed the drywall covering the beam as well & foamed behind it

1 Like

For some reason I thought they left existing sheetrock up, and poked holes in it to inject it.

I have an attic above the garage & next to the bedrooms, so I'd only have to spray between the floors and ceiling, and maybe spray the walls of the rooms within the attic.

Thx. This is also something to explore further. The single duct/vent in one of the bedrooms runs to the floor of the wall furthest into the garage with exposure to heat/cold running along ceiling from garage, and it's also undersized in my opinion. So additional insulation, and potentially a duct fan may help here.

Wow I long for the day with 58% humidity... as of this post it is 86% Humidity and an air temp of 93 and we haven't even reached our high temp today. The heat index today is supposed to be 112 and this weekend 120.... Typical summer on the Gulf Coast.

If you have a floor register, you may not even need to cut the duct to add the in-line duct fan... take a look @ the register fans @ AC Infinity

Ordered them yesterday, I'll try them out. I'll need to expand my duct openings a bit, originally 3x12, so may need to expand an inch without destroying the carpet.

My garage is also hot now, but cold in the winter (as noted above), so I'm considering what/how I want to do with that. Exhaust vents are potentially good, but also thinking of the frigid winter.

If you turn it on when you are using the room, it will pull in more air from the vent - this way, in summer or winter, it is pulling cold air or hot air, depending on what your indoor ventilation is pumping :+1:

1 Like