Humidity?

[Rumrunner]

Hello all…I do my reloading in my garage and living in Texas it has been over 95 since mid July, 27 days over 100. So I have lost most of July and August from reloading. Just too hot.
So there are portable AC units I can use but hesitate to buy one. The compressor type require to be vented and I can raise the garage door enough to allow the vent hose exit but then I’ll lose cool air out the bottom and hot air in the top. Not ideal and pricey for a 4 car garage. There are evaporative coolers that don’t require ventilation but would add some amount of humidity. It would only be running while I’m reloading so not a huge amount of humidity.
I do put the little desiccant packs in my powder and dies to keep them dry.
Does anyone have experience with reloading when an evaporative AC unit is running? My typical time reloading is about 4 hours, I would most likely give it an hour or two to cool things off.
Is this enough time to make a difference?
Thanks

 

[Schüler Jumbo]

Stow your powder and primers in a cool dry place. Do not leave them in your garage.

 

[Rumrunner]

Stow your powder and primers in a cool dry place. Do not leave them in your garage.

Understood. Not the question but understood.

 

[Daryl S]

Don't know the answer to your question on air conditioning units. It is too hot (uncomfortable) upstairs for me now as it's about 76F.
I do all my loading in the basement where it is 65F all year long. Being summer, the humidity is high at
70%. In the winter it drops to 28% to 35%.

 

[Ray B]

short answer: It depends
Longer answer- The "swamp cooler" cools by adding cool water into the air. this reduces the temperature but raises humidity. Humidity is that it is a measure of the saturation level of the air. The measure of how much water is actually in the air is shown as "dew point"- the temperature at which the "relative humidity" reaches 100% and gaseous water turns into liquid. When running your cooler keep in mind that the moisture evaporated into the air will at some point turn back into liquid. One option would be when done in the room and you are going to turn off the cooling unit, open up the door and run a fan to circulate the moist air out and replace it with "dry" air. Some areas of the country have high temp and high humidity so even circulating outside air into the room may not change much regarding the water level in the room.

 

[Hyde Hunter]

I built a 12x12 loading and gun room out in my barn. To cool it I bought a 5000 wall mount ac unit it works great. I also have a Dehumidifier I run to keep the room at 40% humidity. Now since you do not have a room for this and it is just open what I would do is to buy 500 or 8000 wall mount and built a stand for it to sit on and put a bucket under the drain hole or hose to catch any water that might drip, mine has never dripped any and that way you can set it to blow cold air on you. Now these units do put out a little heat but a small fan blowing on it should work fine to move the heat away. I live in central So Dakota and we have 80-90 % humidity and temps running around 95-100 quite often. I think this set up would make it bearable for you to work out there. Then this fall I would get a 10x10 Tuff Shed and insulate it and use the a/c unit in it and put the shed in the back yard close to your house.

 

[uplander01]

I don't have the answer regarding a/c equipment, but I will say you are asking for trouble keeping any of your reloading stuff in that kind of environment for long periods of time. I would at least store the powder, primers, and dies in the air-conditioned house. Surely you have a small space somewhere that is climate controlled.

 

[C.W. Richter]

Q: What's the square footage of the garage and is it insulated (prob not in TX, but...)? I had a similar situation for my mom/dad's old cabin (pre-fab, insulated about 750 ft2/floor x 2 floors). Like said above, IF you have a basement annual ground temps (in the N) run about 50-60F constantly. Even in 100F weather, it's naturally 60F in the basement (but sometimes a bit humid, so there I'd go with a dehumidifier (which are often cheap A/C in disguise.) Upstairs, however, it gets uncomfy when temps are in the 90s+, so my solution (for just those days when it's TOO much) was to purchase simple, mobile (on wheels) A/C units from HD. I first got one rated for 750 ft2, but after closing a bathroom and bedroom door, it's more like 400 ft2, so I downgraded to a smaller unit (1st was $450 and 2nd was $220 on sale. Ist used a LOT of juice and the 2nd is $60/mo IF you turn it on when it's really hot and simply rotate it into different rooms as necessary (i.e. bedroom at night.) They are cheap enough I deem 'em "disposable" units-the small, 1-room jobbers. IF you reload a lot each year, consider insulation (traditional, or quick/cheap foam job) and the proper size room A/C unit. They work well. 'Almost forgot to say, when it was 97F out I was able to keep the main space (350 ft2) plus a 250 ft2 bedroom addition cool via a floor fan transferring the cool air from the larger to smaller space (of course it ran more, but the bill wasn't too bad. We did not run it 24/7, just during periods of heat >90F. I realize you have more heat and likely less insulation to deal with.

A friend on the VT/QB border has the opposite issue-he loads in his garage when it's extremely COLD out. He has a woodstove but is not comfy doing so while reloading, so he uses an electric heater inside a big camping tent inside the garage (he used to use a camper w/ heater inside the garage but sold it)! (We both made portable benches long ago so we could reload anywhere-I did it in my bedroom as a teen-could watch TV, listen to music, etc. but now I can flip it from home to cabin, etc.) GL!!! You could do the very same w/ a small A/C unit.

*One thing I've been meaning to experiment with (aspects of work gave me the idea)...IF the ground temp is ~60F at a certain depth below grade...you could install a vertical or horizontal slotted pipe (well or drainage) to the appropriate depth, rig it up to a small blower (like a radon fan that uses very little e) and simply blow that cool air into your garage (it'll certainly be dry down there!) I would NOT do that in an area with underground vapors from nearby oil tanks, gas stations, industrial spills (they EXIST!) and naturally occuring radon gas (in select areas of shallow bedrock)-for those, i'd make a closed loop system where the incoming air goes through a radiator (with another, low voltage fan blowing cool air from the radiator (heat exchanger) to the garage space. IF properly sized, this would work for an entire house. The second version also keeps humidity to a minimum in areas with shallow groundwater and/or moisture in the soil. They use similar principle geothermal systems (but the aformentioned idea makes the industry no money, so they need to sell you the complicated, overly expensive version-essentiallly to save $ on heating/cooling something that's always 50-60F.