Keeping A Room Without AC Cool to Protect Gear While I'm Away?

Gerber1232

New member
First post! So I just started recording in a closet in my garage because its acoustics are just great and it is in a position in the house where any noise from the outside world is blocked out. The only problem is that there's no air conditioning. The room does seem to stay much cooler than the garage for whatever reason and at night (when I'm usually recording) the room is cool enough to operate comfortably in, but the issue is the day time. I live in Florida so the heat can be sort of unpredictable and I'm just worried that it's not safe to leave my gear in the room while I'm away.

So my question is, are there any cost-effective ways of keeping the room cool while I'm away? Is it as simple as running a fan to keep the circulation going? And are there maybe more expensive options that involve a silent way of cooling the room so I could record during the day and not have to worry about the noise? I'm open to any ideas at all!
 
The gear is fine. I just sit in a pool of sweat when it is hot. We just had about 26 days of 100+. In Arizona, our Monsoon Season has started and we can be around 90, which is a lot easier to take
 
Hey Gerber1232.........and welcome to the place where your budget changes daily. I too live in Florida and I know first hand how hot it can get for sure...............but...........not that heat isn't an issue...........the humidity at some point is likely your biggest problem. It's easy to put a thermometer in that space to read the temp. You actually don't mention how hot it gets in that space at it's peak. Also..............how humid is it? Get an actual reading and let us know. Lots of equipment and instruments are affected by humidity.
 
So I just started recording in a closet in my garage because its acoustics are just great....

Really?
What exactly is great about the acoustics in a closet, in a garage? :)

Besides the heat issue...how do you breathe in there, there's probably no air vents of any kind?
And yeah...humidity will kill your gear faster than the heat...and with no air conditioning or air circulation...the humidity just hangs.
 
So a dehumidifier may be a good investment. I didn't consider that, I'll have to look into it. I'll see what I can do to get a direct number for the humidity and get back to you.
 
I'm not sure what it is exactly but there was very little treatment that had to be done for echo maybe because of the shape of the room (there is a part of the wall that slants upward to the ceiling that I covered with acoustic panels that alone makes the room sound nice.) And I've been recording at night so it's been cool and comfortable to record in actually.
 
People never put where they are in the personal information so we can not look up the weather conditions.

For example, where I live I would not worry about the temperature at all, it gets hot but inside a room closed up for the day its fine as we don't usually get high humidity. Where in our the state of Queensland it is almost tropical and humidity is a big problem. So if you are in a tropical area I would worry more then if you are in a dry area.

Alan.

Just an edit, sudden changes in temperature and humidity are the worst thing, inside it's not a problem as the room slowly heats and cools through the day, for example I have a storage area for my old tapes under the stairs in a metal cupboard the temp there does not get very cold or very hot and it is very dry, best place. The studio rooms through the fact they are heavy insulated do not get extremely hot or cold, a bit like the garage you were talking about.
 
Your gear will be just fine up to about 140F ambient. Florida, while hot, isn't really even close. If it's powered down, there's basically nowhere hot enough to hurt your gear including Riyadh or Death Valley.

Humidity won't hurt your gear. However, what will hurt your gear is condensation caused by temp changes in humid environments. (Days, not locales.) This can cause shorting in certain circuit boards. Condensation (not big drops, mind you, just a very light amount) can attract particulates that keep things 'wet' sometimes causing corrosion, again in certain circuit boards.

I have some heat here (been >100F lately) but the dust is worse. I've learned that to retain reliable performance -- in computers, especially -- about twice/year, I take pieces down to my air compressor and blow out the dust. Sometimes, there's a lot (CPUs, especially), sometimes nothing visible.


Ponder5
 
From my slight knowledge of Florida weather, I suspect that sitting turned off in the heat shouldn't be problematic so long as things have cooled down before you use them. However, I suspect your bigger hazard is humidity and it might be worth investing in a de-humidifier.
 
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