The two car garage is heated and air conditioned. It has what is called
an "in-wall" unit. It's very similar to a window unit, except it's
designed to be installed in an opening in the wall. It's installed high
on the wall - for two reasons. One, it's high and out of the way, and
two, it makes it not very noticeable on the outside of
the house. I can't remember what size it is, but I know it's about
twice as big as you would normally use for that size space. The reason
I opted for an oversize unit is, when you open the garage door to pull
your car in or out, once you close the garage door, the
larger unit will quickly replace the hot/cold air (depending on the
season) that escapes.
One of the garage walls is an exterior wall (the wall that the air
conditioner is in). The sheetrock was removed to insulate it, then
professionally
re-sheetrocked, taped and bedded, textured and painted.
Some other features of the garage: Below the AC unit the photos is a
small shelve with AC outlets to hold battery chargers for cordless
drills,
dustbusters, etc. It will hold up to 4 chargers, and is quite
convenient for this task. Also, there is a small air compressor in the
attic that's connected to an air hose reel mounted on the garage
ceiling. Compressed air is immediately available to run air tools, and
for it's best use - blowing stuff off. It's an extremely handy cleaning
tool, and I use it for that purpose all the time. Beside the compressed
air reel, is an AC extension reel. No hunting for an extension cord to
do a little work in the garage. Just go grab it and reel it out. There
are also extra AC outlets that were installed while the sheetrock was
removed. There is no lack of AC outlets in the garage. You'll never
want for an outlet. It also has 4 lights on ceiling instead of the
normal one. It's very well lit no matter what part of the garage you're
in. I guess it's obvious I like to work on stuff and build things. If
you
like that sort of thing too, this will be your dream garage. It's
definitely mine. :)
It has a new heavy duty belt drive garage door opener. It has a
lot of features and is very quiet.
The projector on the ceiling is higher than the garage door opening, so
any vehicle that's tall enough to hit the projector, won't fit through
the garage door. So, the projector is mounted very high up and is
completely out of the way. The the screen and
audio cabinets stick out from the wall 1". I
stress this to make it clear that the projector, cabinets and screen in
NO
way interfere with normal use or the garage. Two cars can be
parked as normal. It's still a fully functioning normal garage with
ZERO compromises. That was a design goal that was worked out before any
construction began. I didn't want lose my garage, and I made sure I
didn't.
Pic of the outside wall of the
garage. Note the in-wall air conditioner/heater.
A close up of the air conditioner/heater. Below it is the shelf for
charging batteries.
Here
you can see the AC outlets built into the top of the shelf.
And
a large hole drilled in the middle shelf so charger cords on the bottom
shelf can reach the AC outlets.
An
extension cord reel and air hose reel mounted on the ceiling near the
back wall of the garage. As noted earlier, there is an air compressor
in the attic that air hose reel connects to. The air was not hooked up
to the compressor in this photo. It is now.
Pic
of the back wall.
Another
pic of the back wall.
Pic
of the wall adjacent to the home theater room.
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