Question: Air Conditioning System

[pastorables]

Go to the Pawn shop and buy some cheaper large A/C window units and install those if the blown insulation doesn't work.

Some of the newer ones even come with remotes to turn them and adjust from a distance.

There's really no good way to do that. The front of the building is block and commercial glass. The sides and rear are metal. The building isn't really conducive for a window unit, although that would be nice.

pa

[MacUser]

PA,
Contact the owner and suggest that some holes be cut in the walls or rear of the building... then would leave them if you ever moved etc. Surely he could not argue with that.

[dolfan]

There is another option, PA. Mini-splits. They're small and powerful. My uncle is in the A/C biz, and I've seen one he installed at my brother's house. It works, but this was in a house, of course.

You can get an 18,000 BTU one that'll cool 750 square feet very nicely and spend less than $1,000 on it. You do mount the compressor outside, but the smallest of holes is required to feed the coolant to the fan unit that is wall mounted (and extremely quiet) on the inside. Combine this in your stock area with the insulation throughout, and put up a 2X4 framed partition (it doesn't even have to be double walled if you can stand to see the back of it from the stock room) and seal just one of the vents from the stockroom to push more cool air into the shopping area.

[TC]

DO NOT BLOW over a drop celing... could cause a ton of problems and OSHA would blast you for that. GO will the roll, you could go above the drop and that would help alot. Ins would be the first step, if not everything else is just a stop gap

make sure your current unit is cleaned. There is an "A core" that the air blows thru. IF it is dirty it will totally kill your system

NOW the expensive (not really that expensive) you can get portable AC units. they use the the air in the room (no holes) come can even get are 120, Home Depot has them. You buy that and if you move to new building you take it with you.

At Camp one year after a storm our main building was unusable so we closed off an open air building and used two with 150 people in the room and it was comfortable.

[TC]

Just a thought, If you are renting the building, it should be on the landlord to repair the AC. Call and tell him it is not working correctly and let him get his ac guy to try to fix it, he could get you a bigger unit or at least clean the one you have. I know in my rental if the ac was not working well I would get a call every ten mins until it was.

ALSO... does the building heat well? if the unit was not strong enough it would also not heat well, and would lose heat as well. If it does have good pressure the unit could not be cooling well.

[pastorables]

TC,

The landlord will not fix anything. The rent is offered at a rate that I am responsible for all updates, etc.

As for heating, I believe it's a heat pump and it does heat better than it cools. The system is wired to where I have to kick the breaker on the air for the heat to work properly in the winter. Don't ask for any explanations on that other than this is what the air conditioning man shared.

pa

[TC]

TC,

The landlord will not fix anything. The rent is offered at a rate that I am responsible for all updates, etc.

As for heating, I believe it's a heat pump and it does heat better than it cools. The system is wired to where I have to kick the breaker on the air for the heat to work properly in the winter. Don't ask for any explanations on that other than this is what the air conditioning man shared.

pa

Our business has to deal with those "updates" and everyday wear and tear. So when a toilet that is 20+ years old does not work it is wear and tear so a business that has been there a few years has to buy the owner a new one....YEAH RIGHT....

Tell them it is a repair. It is not an update. Be careful, because it they are saying it is working correctly when you started the lease and now is not and you are expected to bring back to correct condition. I have seen it happen on business leases.

ALSO the main questions is how long do you plan on being at that location. If you are out in a year or so go with the portable AC and clean your old one don't put too much money into something you will not get much of a return on. ALSO Anything you do becomes part of the property and the owner gets to keep it and you can not remove without his permission. SO make him an offer to do some of the stuff and him give you a discout or a % of that money.

[oletimer]

TC wrote:

NOW the expensive (not really that expensive) you can get portable AC units. they use the the air in the room (no holes) come can even get are 120, Home Depot has them. You buy that and if you move to new building you take it with you.

For as much cooling that is coming out there is that much heat going out the other end. With a unit total in the same building, you will get a postive and a negative, thus cancel out the whole. To see what I'm talking about stand behind a window unit while it is runing, there is a lot of heat. Do you want that in your building?

I have just installed a fan in a warehouse for local bank. Big building with open all the way bay. The results were amazing, dropped the temperture quite a bit. Might be the way for you. I found the fan assembly at the local Farmer Co-Op. Good luck

[TC]

I thought that would be a problem but when we used them at Camp, I was shocked at how little heat they generated. I was told that we actually rented ours for the camp. That might be an option just to see how they do. I do know that once you get into the 12000+ range most have to have a 120v 15aamp dedicated line.

[TC]

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