Hot workshop

just move to Wigan - no such troubles!

Blinds on the inside are not much use - once the light has got through the glass it is too late - that's why it's called the greenhouse effect. Extending the roof at the correct pitch for winter sun to come in but to exclude summer sun is the preferred option (and is a common energy-saving architects trick) - and could be the makings of an attractive verandah. Correctly angled louvres on the outside are the next best thing.

To be honest, the average garden shed is far from ideal as a workshop without a vapour barrier on all walls, floor and roof plus decent insulation and draft-proofing. You need all the sunlight you can get in the winter, and a means to prevent it getting through the glass in the summer.

Of course for a quick fix you could use the white stuff you paint on greenhouses in the summer. Be a good test to see how much of the problem is the windows although the almost certainly are the main culprit.

regards Martin

If the garden is big enough put up some trees.

They absorb heat in the summer and keep frost away in the winter

Posh houses in the Highlands of Scotland use them a lot

So yes, short of moving up north, or extending the front i can't stop the windows heating the place.

Thank you all for your suggestions i'm surprised how many people have responded to this considering how non engineering it may seem, i guess we've all got to get the basics covered before we can turn, mill, spark, shape, file, saw, cast, weld, fitting/assembly etc...

I myself am going to buy a decent air cooler, basically just a tank of water or ice passed over an internal fan, alot of people SEEM impressed, doesn't mean it's great but i'll have to have a punt at something and my main gripe with fans was that they didn't cool the air that passes through them so this seems to get around that.

I expect a hot summer ahead and i don't want to get caught out or abstain from the workshop.

Thanks again,

Michael W

Hi Michael,

What do you call a hot summer? Right now (in autumn) it is +30C outside the workshop and that is cool for here. In peak summer it gets to just a tad under +40C. But it is the winter which is the killer, goes as low as +5C overnight, but warms up to +20C during the day, but that is Africa!

A very good insulation is thick polystyrene sheeting, like 25mm thick, fastened under the roof and a thin plywood covering to make it look neat. Otherwise fibreglass wool as used for loft insulation is also good but I hate FG wool as it makes me itchy!

In our previous house we had the ceilings in the loft covered with shredded newspaper blown in with a big blower. This is soaked with a flame retardent solution and then munched up into paper mache format and dried. A 100mm layer dropped the house temperature by almost 20C in summer and kept it nice an toasty in winter. About 1/3rd the cost of FG wool and much simpler to apply. The company that did the job have a huge blower and they just open the loft trap-door and stand on a pair of steps and hose it in all around the loft. Less than an hour to do a three bedroomed property.

Roughly where are you in Africa, John ?

If the garden is big enough put up some trees.

They absorb heat in the summer and keep frost away in the winter

Posh houses in the Highlands of Scotland use them a lot.

Who you calling posh, I got trees in me garden wot  keep the shed cool and my house is a ex counsl semi hoose wif newspaper insilatin

Edited By Dod on 22/04/2016 20:47:08

A model engineering type solution might be to find some single radiators in the scrapyard and burry them in a shaded corner about a foot to 18 in deep. Link to an ex car heater system and you can waft some cool air around. Sort of inverse of ground sourced heat pump system.

Or obtain the old hot water tank from another post on the forum, plumb to radiator on north side of shed and circulate water at night to cool it down, then use to cool shed in day.

.

Is it only me that is thinking that it is only April. Yes we have had some nice looking days for the time of year recently but the max temp that anywhere in the UK has hit this week is 17/18 deg C

Confused from Warrington.

use this kind of structure to permit solar gain in winter and reduce it for the rest of the year when you probably don't need it.

**LINK**

Internally line with PIR foam (Celotex/Kingspan) Celiing only if you can't do the walls. While more expensive PIR foam is far more compact than anything else like polystyrene or rockwool or fibreglass. Don't be tempted by thin bubble wrap type insulation, it is crap.

Ventilate the structure separately , both the interior volume you use (fan or windows) and the roofspace with ventilation grilles)

Forget swamp' coolers they dump heaps of moisture in the air and barely work in anything but a low humidity environment like a desert.

SHADE INSULATE VENTILATE

Edited By Martin 100 on 22/04/2016 21:53:05

Edited By Martin 100 on 22/04/2016 21:53:24

In the last 10 mins. I've had snow ,rain and hail, back to snow now. Please send some surplus heat up here.

How about covering the windows with the reflective sheet you see on cars to bounce some of the heat away.

Martin P

Solar film, it goes on the outside.

Frank

Michael - as other have said, insulation is really the key - add as much insulation to walls and roof as you can. Those evaporative coolers might sound good, but they increase the amount of moisture in the air a fair bit, which is not really what you want in a workshop where rust could be a problem. Also, on a hot and sultry day, do you really want to increase the humidity in your workshop? I'm not regretting fitting a fixed air conditioner in my workshop - £400 to buy, I installed it, then paid a local company £100 to commission it. The bonus is that it's also a heat pump, which keeps the shop warm in winter.

Gordon

A bit of a late contribution to this thread but having heard about the added humidity i'm reconsidering an air cooler and instead may just get a big fan. I can't do any work to the building at the moment.

Michael W