heating & cooling small loft

5873 Views 2 Replies 2 Participants Last post by Master Brian, May 22, 2009

Master Brian

Discussion Starter · May 21, 2009

We have a small 20' x 24' loft above a garage/old carriage house and are looking for an efficient way to heat and cool this room. It's an old garage, so it's not real well insulated, but an approx 17"t x 26"w window ac/heater has done a fairly good job of keeping the area heated and cooled. Problem is the a/c is no longer blowing cool air.

The unit is about 5-6yrs old and not thermostatically controlled, which has been a bit of a pain. It's not a living area, just somewhere we use during the days.

I know another unit of about 12000BTU would do the job, but I am looking for other options. I have also seen some "portable" heat pump units that look/sound interesting and they seem to be about the same cost of about $400-$500 as the window units. I just don't know how they compare

Does anyone have some other viable options? Currently this is on a 20amp 220v circuit, but I also have 110v available.

Winter temps get down in the single digits and the current unit does struggle on the colder days, but a radiant space heater supplements nicely. The summer sees 100+ temps and the a/c has been fine. Most of the year, the unit has to be turned on/off all day to keep it a good temp. I know most of the newer units are thermostatically controlled so that would be nice.

I'll step back and wait for some feedback....

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yuri

· #2 · May 21, 2009

A minisplit unit with heat pump may work very well. Check out:http://www.fujitsugeneral.com/products.htm

There are other good brands like Sanyo, Mitsubishi out there as well. Fujitsu is the Lexus and has some of the highest SEER/efficient units.

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Master Brian

Discussion Starter · #3 · May 22, 2009

Those look like very nice units, but in a fairly quick search I haven't been able to find a price. I'm guess they aren't on the inexpensive side and they'd have to be "professionally" installed, I'm sure.

I may keep that in mind for my house on the 2nd floor, as I have no heat/cool there either. This is actually for my parents house and they aren't wanting to spend that kind of money. Really looking for something like a window unit, portable unit, etc... Should be able to get something for $600 or less. I just don't know the pros and cons of the window units vs. portable heatpump units. I've also been told the hotel room units are kind of nice, but not sure where to find them. I've been told people pick them up on online, maybe ebay?, not really sure.

The other problem I/we have is that this is a double bricked building with plaster walls. Not that I couldn't punch a hole out the side, but it isn't something we'd like to do. When I say double bricked, I mean it is somehow framed with a large brick block, not cinder, then faced with the typical brick you'd see on a house. I don't believe there is any wood framing to the walls. At least there wasn't when we replaced a door several years ago....

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