Can Your Central Air Conditioner Be Inside Your Garage?

Registers

• If you are hoping to cool your garage, you can install central air conditioning registers in your garage. Many garages are not insulated, or are minimally insulated, and will need to have their wall and ceiling insulation beefed up to make cooling the garage a feasible endeavor.

Air Handler

• The air handler portion of a central air conditioner, or the area where indoor air is actually cooled and humidity removed, can sometimes be kept in the garage if space permits. Typically air handlers are installed in attics so that gravity can assist in the movement of cold air and the disposal of condensation. This is not a hard and fast rule, and some models of air conditioners can have their air handlers be readily installed in garages. They require sufficient sealing so as to minimize the risk of fumes from chemicals and automobiles being pumped in to home.

Compressors

• Compressors are basically large pumps that compress refrigerant, keeping it moving through the system. They generate quite a bit of heat and, as such, are typically not located in an enclosed space. They can be kept in a garage if need be but are not because they are usually located nearby or are actually installed in the condenser, which cannot be kept in a garage or any enclosed area.

Condensers

• The condenser in a central air conditioning system is the mechanism that actually does the heat exchange. Heat absorbed by the refrigerant inside the home in the air handler is pumped to an outside condenser, which is a large coil of copper lines with a fan in the center. This fan cycles air across the copper lines and helps disperse the heat stored by the refrigerant. Once the refrigerant is cooled sufficiently, it becomes gaseous once again and returns to the air handler to absorb more heat. In a garage, this exchange cannot easily occur, and the efficiency of an air conditioner will decrease dramatically.