on 6/29/2005 2:44 PM Steve Peterson said the following:
My garage (shop - don't tell SWMBO) is 24' square, and the walls are about
11' high, supporting a standard ^ roof, no ceiling. So it is 576 sq. ft.,
and a lot of cubic feet. It gets morning sun, but there are trees on the
west that start shading by midafternoon. The 11000 BTU AC can cool it down
quickly, maybe 15 minutes, and the compressor goes off when it reaches the
set temp. Biggest thing is it removes humidity, which is 90% today. It has
only been in service for a week, so I don't yet know how much it costs. As
I said, I am trying to figure out insulation.

My shop is insulated and ~ 336 sq ft. I found a one year old 8600 BTU
A/C for about $125 that I mounted thru-wall. Even though it's
insulated, the shop really can heat up if the A/C is not on and it's hot
outside. Still, I find that by flipping it on high, I can bring it down
from the low 90's to a really comfortable (relatively speaking) 75 in
about 10 minutes or so.

Nice feature on mine with the digital controls and remote is that if the
unit's off (say in the morning) and I plan to work out there when I get
home from the office, I can set the timer to kick it on in X (1-12)
hours. If I plan to spend most of the day there, when I turn it on, I
can set that same timer to turn it off in 1-12 hours.

I don't know what it will cost nor do I care. It's only going to be
running when I'm out there enjoying it so... I'd be more concerned if
it was running all the time when the shop's not in use.

I put electric heat in the shop this past winter (after 20 years of
messing with an insulated shop heated with a Kero-Sun heater or
Redi-Heater) and was able to set the thermostat to keep the shop above
freezing and then bring it up to shirtsleeve temperature when I want to
use the shop. Same thing: Uncomfortable to comfortable in about 20
minutes tops. We're total electric and I never noticed an increase in
the electric bill.