3 Reasons Why A Ductless HVAC System Is The Best Choice To Keep Your Garage Comfortable And Cool

It's becoming increasingly common for homeowners to use their garages for purposes other than parking cars—people often convert them into workshops, game rooms, or spare bedrooms. While the extra space is nice to have, converting your garage does have an annoying downside—the poor insulation found in most garages and the fact that they're typically not connected to any form of air conditioning often makes them oppressively hot and humid during the summer.

What should you do if you're trying to keep your garage cool and comfortable enough to work or live in? To help you out, read on for three reasons why a ductless HVAC system is the best choice for your garage.

1. Central Air Is Likely Not Possible to Install

If you have an attached garage, it's likely not connected to the rest of your home's central air system. There's a good reason for that—people use their garages to park their cars, and car exhaust contains carbon monoxide. Connecting your garage to your home's central air system carries the risk that carbon monoxide will circulate throughout the rest of your home whenever you start your car or park it in your garage. In fact, attaching a garage to a home's central air system is against building regulations in many areas for this reason.

However, what if you don't park in your garage and attaching it to your central air system is allowable by local building codes? For example, you may have converted your garage to a game room and simply have no longer have space to park inside. In this case, central air is an option for you—however, installation will be quite expensive. When a home is built, its ductwork is carefully planned so that its central air system works efficiently. Changing the ductwork in your home may require you to purchase an entirely new central air conditioner in order to condition the additional space that your garage adds. Overall, adding central air to your garage is a very expensive option.

2. Window Air Conditioners and Portable Air Conditioners Are Inefficient

Window air conditioners are inexpensive and are excellent at cooling small, self-contained spaces such as a garage. Unfortunately, most garages simply don't have windows that will support a window air conditioner, which means you would need to add one. The process of adding a window to your garage will be much more expensive than the cost of the window air conditioner itself, which makes it an unattractive option. 

Portable air conditioners are a more realistic choice for cooling your garage. They generate heat when they run, so they need to be vented outside in order to give them a place to release the heat that they generate. However, this only requires you to drill a small hole in the wall of your garage rather than add an entire window.

Unforuntately, both window air conditioners and portable air conditioners share the same downside of being very inefficient compared to other options. This is a particular downside when you're trying to cool down your garage. Since garages are most often not designed to be conditioned spaces, they often feature poor insulation. Combining the poor insulation found in most garages with an inefficient window air conditioner or portable air conditioner means that the air conditioner will likely run constantly, which causes it to use large amounts of energy. Over the long run, this can make a window air conditioner or portable air conditioner a deceptively expensive option compared to its low initial purchase price.

3. A Ductless HVAC System Can Be Easily Installed in Your Garage

Overall, the perfect option to cool your home's garage, whether it's attached or unattached, is a ductless HVAC system. In one of these systems, a condenser sits outside of your garage that's connected to an air handler inside via a conduit that is run through a tiny hole in your garage wall. The conduit supplies power and refrigerant to the air handler, which uses them to cool your garage. Condensation created by the air handler is suctioned back through the conduit to be drained safely outside near the condenser.

Similarly to portable air conditioners, a ductless HVAC system requires you to drill a small hole in the wall of your garage in order to create a space for the connecting conduit. However, ductless HVAC systems are much more efficient than portable air conditioners—you'll save money in the long run by choosing a ductless system.

The features of a ductless HVAC system make it the best choice to keep a garage comfortable and cool in the summer. Additionally, most ductless HVAC systems also function as heat pumps, which allow them to warm the garage during cool weather. If you're interested in the best form of cooling your home's garage, contact a company like Universal Refrigeration today.