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General => General Discussion and ??? => Topic started by: alan802 on July 27, 2017, 12:32:35 PM
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I thought of having a few more options to vote for but I figure that we can discuss those rather than a simple vote and that will keep my main goal of this poll uncluttered.
After many years of dealing with the heat it seems like we were on the verge of A/C'ing the shop but I think I need to do a little more work to push this over the edge. Of course looking to others for their experience and opinions on the subject is always helpful.
Some background is in order. It hits 99 at the loading area of the auto usually before lunch most days. I will admit that many of the things we've done over the years have helped with the heat but working in 100-105 for 6 hours straight every day will wear down even the hardest of people. I know if it's dragging me down it's probably much worse for the others. I've lived in it all my life and have been able to just block it out and work as hard in 105 degrees as 75 but it does hurt me once I leave the shop. 5 years ago it was WAY hotter and at the end of the dryer 115 was normal and the area at the presses was usually 110 during the hottest parts of the day. Right now it's 95 at my desk and it doesn't feel that bad. We have fans everywhere and overall 5 small portable AC units at the main stations blowing 50 degree air. Bad part about the portable AC units is around 2-3pm every day it gets so hot that they simply stop blowing cold air and it's just nasty, humid, hot air coming out of them. We have 2 different brands and 3 different sizes and all 5 of them crap out later in the day.
Of those who don't have AC, do you plan on getting it some day? Or do you feel that it is a waste of money? I've had 2 local shops that we do their embroidery look at me like I've got a dildo growing out of my forehead when I tell them we are putting in AC so it's not as cut and dried as I thought it would be.
Thoughts???? OR just vote and leave it at that.
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this is a long and somewhat sore topic for us. The good part is, yes, we do run the AC and when everything is working properly temp maxes out in mid to high 80's.
Problem is that due to the fumes generated by the dryer and flashes, we have to move the air out of the production space so we are blowing most of the cold air out. When the AC is not on, it will be in the high 90's, potentially over a 100, so the difference is very, very noticeable! It does make the working conditions much better and thus the moral and productivity are higher. Our electric bill goes up by more then $1K per month during the summer. That is the bad part, but in reality, the higher productivity does cover it.
Proper way to do it is to install makeup air so the fumes pulled out are not also dumping the cold air out of the space. We started on the install last year (the complete system with makeup air), but is stalled due to press purchases. My estimate on the total cost (not counting the AC we already have) is $12k-$15K. This would be similar to a restaurant setup where you could walk in and not smell anything while the temps are very comfortable.
pierre
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I am interested in this as well, our issue right now is power, we are maxed in our box and we continue to kick that issue down the road but I often consider this.
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We got lucky as our building was a restaurant before we moved in, water drain vents in the floor in the back and full air throughout the place. I thought at one time shutting down all the vents in the back and just cool the front but our A/C guy said nope don't do that it would cause a back flow in the system or something like that, but other than that I enjoy having the production shop cool, but we still close the vents above the dryer. Allan you all which you might have already is fans but I think all that does is move warm air from one spot to the other, plus if you have large open space and bay doors you'll never cool that anyway.
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Problem is that due to the fumes generated by the dryer and flashes, we have to move the air out of the production space so we are blowing most of the cold air out.
That's the issue I've always seen too.
I think if you go bananas with makeup air and spot ventilation you can make it work but it's hard to simultaneously feed make up air and vent it out on something like a flash. I guess it should technically work if the flow is in balance and the placement is right.
I really want to explore this but without ownership of the site or a very long term lease, no way. Also, it's difficult to find industrial, quality air mechanical engineers in our area to do the project holistically and correctly. We do run spot ac units in office and screen room out of sheer necessity.
Pierre what type of ac unit do you use? I've often wondered if mini splits are the way here.
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I was told I could ac my 6,300sqft print area for under 20k I was all about it but nobody could get me a straight answer on what the bill would look like and if id see issues like you guys are mentioning with fumes in the area.
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108 to 110 in my shop from about 2pm on for the past few weeks...
Honestly, I just print earlier and try to finish up earlier. I know thats how lots of other businesses handle it too, starting at 4am and finishing at noon or 1pm. Not always doable, but mitigates the heat.
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i saw these neat things that exchange the air but they have baffles on the inside with a thin membrane that allows the air to equalize in temp so you lose less energy.
I have no idea if they make them for commercial applications.
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I was told I could ac my 6,300sqft print area for under 20k I was all about it but nobody could get me a straight answer on what the bill would look like and if id see issues like you guys are mentioning with fumes in the area.
I was just informed that the install will be next week :). We'll see.
Hopefully within a few months I'll get you some numbers. The 2 units and install was well under 20K, but we're doing minimal duct work. Our square footage is around 7K with high ceilings and I don't know how the fumes are going to be but I hope with the high ceilings and a ridge vent up there directly above the dryer we can mitigate that. We also have a ventilation fan on the south side of the shop that pulls air out but I didn't plan on running it for obvious reasons but if we're doing some stanky stuff I'll run it.
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I was told I could ac my 6,300sqft print area for under 20k I was all about it but nobody could get me a straight answer on what the bill would look like and if id see issues like you guys are mentioning with fumes in the area.
I was just informed that the install will be next week :). We'll see.
Hopefully within a few months I'll get you some numbers. The 2 units and install was well under 20K, but we're doing minimal duct work. Our square footage is around 7K with high ceilings and I don't know how the fumes are going to be but I hope with the high ceilings and a ridge vent up there directly above the dryer we can mitigate that. We also have a ventilation fan on the south side of the shop that pulls air out but I didn't plan on running it for obvious reasons but if we're doing some stanky stuff I'll run it.
Report back we are about 6,300sqft out there with 25-30ft ceilings. Curious for sure.
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we are almost ready to move into our new facility. 13K sq ft of AC'd space....all i know is our electric bill is gonna be very sad.
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In Ohio, we installed a exit vent on the roof to one side of the dryer (10 ft away laterally) - keep everything shut except a filtered opening on the wall opposite the fan from the dryer. (sloped roof helps here). we rarely bust over 99, even when it's 90 outside (and also when it's 60 outside :() which I find tolerable. keeps us from sucking it too much dirt and dust, vents the dryer fumes/excess ceiling heat (12' ceilings, 3,000 sq ft). customer meet area and screen room both have window AC units dumping their heat into the production area.
my next step if needed was to investigate swamp coolers, like they use on NFL sidelines. anyone doing that as opposed to Alan's opening the refrigerator door method (you're running window units without exiting the hot air somewhere else??)?
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We use a restaurant sized swamp cooler here. Definitely takes the edge off. Also nice for air exchange. Your climate needs to be pretty bone dry for it to be effective.
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Ours works well. You do need a lot of airflow.
Kitson was amazed at how well it worked in the south here.
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our first year in this building, we didn't have a furnace...that was one cold b*tch of a winter too....summer? you get a fan. piss off... ;D
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that's one thing that I hate about our place there is no ventilation except for the exhaust on the dryer and opening the back door, fumes are tough at times. does it seem like it's getting hotter every year?
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You're just getting older
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We have 2 large garage door we open. So whatever it is outside its still a little cooler in our shop. We keep the lights off when hot, but our press is right by the one door so p[lenty of light.
We have centrel air, but we were maxed out on power so we disconnected it.
Being in upstate ny we just use the fans like Jay said. BUT...if I was down south like some of you guys, I would absolutely go ac.
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In Ohio, we installed a exit vent on the roof to one side of the dryer (10 ft away laterally) - keep everything shut except a filtered opening on the wall opposite the fan from the dryer. (sloped roof helps here). we rarely bust over 99, even when it's 90 outside (and also when it's 60 outside :() which I find tolerable. keeps us from sucking it too much dirt and dust, vents the dryer fumes/excess ceiling heat (12' ceilings, 3,000 sq ft). customer meet area and screen room both have window AC units dumping their heat into the production area.
my next step if needed was to investigate swamp coolers, like they use on NFL sidelines. anyone doing that as opposed to Alan's opening the refrigerator door method (you're running window units without exiting the hot air somewhere else??)?
Our swamp coolers move slightly cooler air than our regular fans but there are days we don't go through the trouble of filling them up with water because the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
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Just moved to new space. It has low drop ceilings and full a/c via roof top units. Hope to be able to keep the a/c on. We have a large HEPA air cleaner with charcoal filter that I hope will take care of some of the fumes. If it does not work or if I see my electric bill goes wild, it will be back to printing in the heat.
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We are about 4400 sq feet. 12 foot ceiling. Full A/C
2 Autos and 4 flash units. Dryer venting outside and small fresh air input from outside. No fumes. We keep it at 75 degrees, no problem.
Its so hot in Fl right now my employees are loving it.
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May be partitioning your shop floor with air curtains.
https://youtu.be/he3hN14zOew (https://youtu.be/he3hN14zOew)
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
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We won't be installing a/c in the production area but we are thinking of installing a decent sized shuttered attic fan. The bldg has a drop ceiling so I'm hoping that will at least pull out some of the heat.
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We have a louvered wall fan. It works well to pull the heat out. It's at the top of the wall. I'd recommend this before punching through the roof, more rain resistant.
That being said, we are still working on that dryer hood vent project. There was a miscommunication between the guy doing the work and the company fabricating the roof curb that held it up for a couple weeks. It should go in next week though. That should help alleviate a ton of heat in the warehouse. Capture it from the source.
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We have air tubes that provide AC to each station on the floor. It's not the best, but does provide some relief when it's 100 degrees inside the building.
Step outside of the air tube, it's like getting kicked in the face.
We also have two wall fans, 3 small ceiling exhaust fans, and a ton of box fans all over the shop.
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We have air tubes that provide AC to each station on the floor. It's not the best, but does provide some relief when it's 100 degrees inside the building.
Step outside of the air tube, it's like getting kicked in the face.
We also have two wall fans, 3 small ceiling exhaust fans, and a ton of box fans all over the shop.
This sounds like the most practical approach for really large spaces..... why air try to condition the whole space, when installing cool zones (with higher air velocity, like an "air curtain") would use less energy.
I'd be looking at trying to get the return air from the floor height, where the air is cooler and exhausting as much air from the top of the ceiling as needed.
..... says the guy, who prints from his 400 sq' basement shop (72 degrees year round)
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Those air curtains are rad. I didn't know they were so effective.
Regarding spot cooling, our swamp run is big and effective but yes, step outside the blast zone and it's pretty rough.
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AC for sure. We just installed a second 5 ton. unit for our production area (5 ton being the largest on-the-ground residential unit we could install, as roof units are not an option because of weight... already got solar panels up there). The second unit had been discussed for years, but I'm really glad we finally did it. Beforehand, we hit 100+ regularly during hot & humid Virginia days. It had gone on so long the printers' regular hours are 7-3:30pm to avoid more afternoon heat.
With the second unit we're still hitting upper 80's on hot days, but even with a little cloud cover we are now below that. Overall, the best thing is that I know its helping our printers. We've got one over 25 years, two at 19 and 18 years, and one pushing 10) so in my opinion, they deserved it and it was the least we could do..
The fumes are definitely an issue, and we do run two SmokeEater air filters and an outside exhaust fan when needed, but now I sometimes go down to production to cool off as my office gets the least AC in the building! Overall, I'm glad we did it. Took some research on different units, duct options, but overall I don't have to avoid my people anymore when its so hot because we both knew I was cooking them.
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We have 3,000 sf of production and office total with 2 central heat and AC units.
We keep the temp around 73 year round. The cost of running both units in the summer
is around $150 a month and the same for gas heat in the Winter. Well worth it for the comfort.
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Little update on the AC. Just got it all running on Wednesday and yesterday was the first full day with it. I need some ideas. Does anyone have pictures of their dryer setup in an AC setting? Right now it's literally 70 degrees in the production area (80 outside and the dryer has been on for only 10 minutes) but yesterday by 10am I opened the doors and turned the AC off because it was getting hot FAST. We have a sprint international dryer but we don't have the infeed/outfeed hoods ducted so I want to do that, but I wonder if that's going to make enough of a difference. I say that only because yesterday was such a colossal disappointment. The dryer is very well insulated and it only radiates heat in the in/outfeeds so perhaps properly ducting those areas will be all we need, but something is telling me to stop farting around and go big instead of nitpicking things. Why use a hammer when you've got a sledge. I've got a BIG idea on the dryer but it's going to take some work and time, oh and probably some more money. I just know Charlotte was devastated yesterday, she wanted so badly to help us after watching us melt each and every day.
Does anyone do anything special with their dryer other than ducting the infeed and outfeed hoods?
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If the A/C can not keep up with the dryer the unit was undersized. They may have not calculated the heat gain from the dryer. Our dryer is out on the floor with the vent thru the roof. It is not covered or put in a separate room.
We had multiple compressors installed that are staged to come on 1 at a time as the demand warranted.
We have a Fusion Dryer that has 10 feet heating and 4 quartz flashes plus 4 16x20 heat presses that can all run at the same time and keep the temp at 75 degrees with no problem. The outside temp has been in the mid 90's here in Florida.
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We have an Adelco dryer, it is well insulated and has a 12" exhaust pipe that we put through a high window.
Ours is a gas dryer, I wanted to run before we installed the exhaust and was told that it was dangerous to do that. Not clear to me why some dryers don't have exhausts.
The Adelco also has a exhaust at the inlet and outlet that goes through the same pipe.
You can easily rest your hand on the unit while it's operating.
I think our flashes generate more heat than the dryer.
For cooling the work area I find that fans make a big difference.
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Though I don't have any particular solutions, we are in the position of having to move, and the place we have 99% settled on has full AC. We were walking through it Friday afternoon, and totally empty, it was 65°, I imagine a couple of dryers will change that. I'm really looking forward to it, as I'm old, and have been in heat since '75, though mostly I'm in the office for the last 20 years, I'm no stranger to nights and weekends out there. I'm sure a lot us have had new hires magically disappear after a day or two...
Steve
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Just understand you will spend thousands in electric/ac to try to out cool flash units and dryers. Just pipe a 12" pipe over each station. We have 6 pipes for 6 stations. Keeps it 65-70 right under the station...but 110 in the rest of the shop. 10 Ton AC.
See pic of pipe from ceiling.
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Though I don't have any particular solutions, we are in the position of having to move, and the place we have 99% settled on has full AC. We were walking through it Friday afternoon, and totally empty, it was 65°, I imagine a couple of dryers will change that. I'm really looking forward to it, as I'm old, and have been in heat since '75, though mostly I'm in the office for the last 20 years, I'm no stranger to nights and weekends out there. I'm sure a lot us have had new hires magically disappear after a day or two...
Steve
We've had a couple new hires that left for lunch and did not return due to the heat, AND we tell them at least 4 times during site visit pre-hire visit that it gets really hot. All pre hire site visits are at 2 PM on a hot day and they still don't appear to listen. BTW it gets hot in our production area, did I mention it gets hot?
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I forget how hot it is down in our shop at times, I did 3k impressions Saturday...I remember now. Haha.
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This facility was built/engineered for screenprint production so of course air temp/flow was a consideration. Two five foot high velocity fans pull air through louvered vents from west to east. And to industrial 20' Casablancas made from helicopter blades. So no........no AC but it can get pretty breezy if we want it to.
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What kind of temps are you seeing with that stuff done Tony?
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Maybe 5 degrees cooler than outside but we're just moving air around. It especially helps when we get the ludicrously hot/ humid standing weather. But sometimes too much breeze can cause production issues of course.
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Though I don't have any particular solutions, we are in the position of having to move, and the place we have 99% settled on has full AC. We were walking through it Friday afternoon, and totally empty, it was 65°, I imagine a couple of dryers will change that. I'm really looking forward to it, as I'm old, and have been in heat since '75, though mostly I'm in the office for the last 20 years, I'm no stranger to nights and weekends out there. I'm sure a lot us have had new hires magically disappear after a day or two...
Steve
We've had a couple new hires that left for lunch and did not return due to the heat, AND we tell them at least 4 times during site visit pre-hire visit that it gets really hot. All pre hire site visits are at 2 PM on a hot day and they still don't appear to listen. BTW it gets hot in our production area, did I mention it gets hot?
End of day Friday "So, see you Monday then?", reply, "Well yeah, of course." No show on Monday. It's not for everyone, that's for sure.
Steve
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Next Update: I came up to the shop on Saturday around 10:30, it was 93 degrees in the shop with nothing on. I cranked the AC down to 75 and started doing some work without the dryer running. It took an hour but it got down to 83 and by 3:30 it had held steady at 84 but it felt great. The humidity was 35%. So now I think if I can continue to insulate the bay doors and search for cracks and areas where the heat is flowing in or cold air is going out, I'll just need to fix the dryer. The dryer doesn't put out much heat from it's shell, but it won't take much work and money to slap some insulation around it and also duct the infeed/outfeed and also insulate the ducts that should keep it below 90 fairly easy. And saturday was absolutely brutally hot. Heat index was 107 and I'm not sure about the humidity but it's never dry. I also covered one of the three air outlets on both units so that the air coming out of the other 2 is travelling much faster and further.
I like having the high ceilings but I think a drop ceiling, maybe compromise to a 12' ceiling, properly insulated along with doing the work on the dryer it might keep it below 80. But looking at how much work would need to be done to put in a ceiling I bet it would cost as much as the AC did. Maybe next summer.
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MUCH smaller space here, but I insulated this past year, and it makes an obvious difference in interior ambient temp. Before turning on a/c or dryer/flashes, the space stays noticeably cooler than years past. Once everything's running, it's just a battle between my current a/c (which is underpowered) & all the heat producers. The heat wins by early afternoon, but still, nothing like no a/c or insulation. Next "to do" here is to better insulate the dryer and vent to evacuate heat and fumes - the fumes are a much bigger problem now that our doors are closed.
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Next Update: I came up to the shop on Saturday around 10:30, it was 93 degrees in the shop with nothing on. I cranked the AC down to 75 and started doing some work without the dryer running. It took an hour but it got down to 83 and by 3:30 it had held steady at 84 but it felt great. The humidity was 35%. So now I think if I can continue to insulate the bay doors and search for cracks and areas where the heat is flowing in or cold air is going out, I'll just need to fix the dryer. The dryer doesn't put out much heat from it's shell, but it won't take much work and money to slap some insulation around it and also duct the infeed/outfeed and also insulate the ducts that should keep it below 90 fairly easy. And saturday was absolutely brutally hot. Heat index was 107 and I'm not sure about the humidity but it's never dry. I also covered one of the three air outlets on both units so that the air coming out of the other 2 is travelling much faster and further.
I like having the high ceilings but I think a drop ceiling, maybe compromise to a 12' ceiling, properly insulated along with doing the work on the dryer it might keep it below 80. But looking at how much work would need to be done to put in a ceiling I bet it would cost as much as the AC did. Maybe next summer.
If you put in a drop ceiling, check your local fire codes, you might have to lower sprinkler heads through the drop ceiling.
Steve
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Broke down and bought a little cheapo portable AC today. Worked pretty well to keep me "cool enough" when the rest of the shop was hovering around 110.
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It's been brutally hot this week. We bought the ducting for the in and out feeds. Double-walled, high quality stuff it looks like. We have a small ridge vent in the middle of the building and the AC guy told us the air flow up there is strong enough that if we get the exits within 5 feet or so of the ridge vent opening the hot air will be gone. It will also act as a pull to extract the air from the ducts. I just put a 5' piece on just to see what the airflow was like out of it and there is a lot of hot air coming from it. I really hope this makes a big difference. I'll keep everyone updated as we progress.