The upstairs of the garage build is going to be an office/spare bedroom. It's going to be about 250 square feet. I need to figure out how to cool/heat it so my inlaws can stay out there. The easy button is to build in a spot for a window AC unit and use a space heater in the winter. While I was in a hotel room this weekend, I wondered if I should use something like hotels use instead.
I'm in east Texas. Summer is hot. Winter seldom hits freezing.
Any insight?
mini split a/c unit is the norm for this sort of thing if you don't want to use a wall unit or portable (which suck)
window ac your primarily used unit and an electric baseboard for heat?
Our rooms and b huts overseas used those ductless Samsung or LG units for heating and cooling. They're super popular in emerging markets like India and China. Not terribly expensive, pretty efficient, and quiet.
Pretty sure Mitsubishi, Carrier,Samsung, LG and a few other companies sell them in the US.
My parents have 3 of the wall mounted Carrier units in one of the additions to their house, two smaller ones in each of the bedrooms, and one big one in the main room. They were originally going to get the Mitsubishi units, but availability was sketchy at the time they were remodeling (~9 years ago), seems like there was another reason or two they went with Carrier, but I can't remember.
The little units, can freeze and/or burn you out of the bedrooms they are in, the remote controls to operate from bed are nice too. The big unit seems to struggle to keep the main room cool during the hottest parts of the day in the summer, but it's cooling a huge room, with a lot of windows without blinds on either end. Even with the larger unit going full tilt all day, the loft above the two bed rooms is a sweat lodge (hot air rises). However in the winter time, the heat keeps the same room comfortable throughout, we're talking central Arkansas here, not the Arctic Circle, so it's rarely ever extremely cold, the addition is constructed mainly out of SIPs so it's fairly well insulated.
I know they had warranty service work on the larger unit done a few times, and I know it's been worked on at least once out of warranty. The condensation drain seems to be prone/susceptible to clogging. I don't know if that's due to a manufacturing flaw, or an installation flaw?
the ductless units bigdaddy and The0 are talking about are the mini-splits... they work well and keep the noisy compressor outside the house... they get used just about everywhere in the world... some have both heat and a/c... the remote control can be a nice feature... just like all units you need to match the BTU to the room size/demands
Mini splits are probably your best bet as mentioned.
Thanks to all. Now I have things to look at.
http://m.homedepot.com/p/GREE-High-Efficiency-9-000-BTU-3-4-Ton-Ductless-Duct-Free-Mini-Split-Air-Conditioner-with-Inverter-Heat-and-Remote-115V-GWH09KF-A3DNB1A/203536865/
Here are some pictures, everyone loves pictures! The "big one" I was talking about can be seen in the first two pictures. I don't know the BTUs, it does great in all but July-August in AR, it's apparently good enough for my folks but if I lived there I'd have to do something about it. Good luck sleeping in the loft in the Summer, very warm.
This is the addition over the new carport and mud/utility room, you can see part of the big HVAC unit peeking around the banister in the background above one of the bedroom doors.
Here's a better view, it lives behind the ladder to the loft. There's another smaller unit about 1/2 the size of this one in each of those bedrooms and they work great.
In that larger unit's defense, it's probably being asked to condition way more air than it's designed for. It's in a pretty large room. This is standing on the ladder to the loft in front of the larger unit looking back into the larger room. Basically the HVAC unit's point of view.
The classic hotel room unit is called a PTAC (Packaged Terminal Air Conditioning Unit). My manufacturer of choice for PTACs or one of the mini ductless units would typically be Carrier.
Get a Mitsubishi - they work great. We use them for cooling IT closets and telephone rooms - they last and cool well.
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