Big...uhh...fans for the shop

My new shop is 30x40 with a fairly high ceiling. It's an insulated steel building but has no cooling other than a ceiling fan.

The current fan looks like an industrial-styled home unit, something I can probably find at Home Depot. It's about 25 years old. I'm interested in something that moves more air.

I'm a big, umm, fan of Big Ass Fans. We've got a couple of their Haiku units in the house and they're smart, very effective and silent. BAF recommended their E7 for my use, but that's pretty close to $3k worth of fan.

Any suggestions for alternatives? I don't need intelligence, just a dial on the wall. I don't need a light. I'm not sure I have cross-beams to hang more than one, but I'll take a look.

Nope, get the BAF.  They are an American company (actually headquarters is about 1/2 mile from me) and a very cool bunch of people.  A buddy of mine works in their IT department and drives a Miata, maybe there is some quid-pro-quo action to be had.

Dayton makes some with an easier to swallow price tag (7DX27 for the 7' one.) They're a bit louder though, those BAF fans are seriously quiet.

A friend of mine once said "Buy once, cry once"

A world class facility deserves world class fans.  

http://www.humongousfan.com/8-foot-hvls-industrial-fan.html

or

https://www.grainger.com/product/DAYTON-9-Blade-Ceiling-Fan-Combo-7DX28

Jeremy, BAF has been nothing but great to work with and I've got a lot of respect for the company and the parts. Maybe your buddy needs to drop me a line

The0retical, thanks for the tip. I can accept a bit of noise in the shop, that's not an issue.  Looks like Dayton makes a big 9-blade that might do the trick. I'll look into it.

A couple smaller (~36") Dayton fans from the Grainger catalog will probably work as well and will be a lot less expensive.  They also sell a single speed controller that will run multiple fans so you can run two or three fans from a single dial.

I don't think I have the ability to easily hang multiple fans. I'll have a look tonight, but from what I remember of looking at the roof structure a single fan in the middle will be a lot easier. Plus it's already wired, but I have to wire in a lift anyhow so that's kind of irrelevant.

I'm a big believer in buying well and buying once, but I also like to do my due diligence.

Jeremy works fast, I've already had a chat with his IT friend!

Go big, or go home.

I priced some from a company called Rite Hite for a large gym.  The BAF was about double of these.  Might be worth a look, not sure if you have a rep close to where you live.

https://www.ritehite.com/en/am/products/industrial-fans/hvls-fans

If you have any heating requirement for your shop, I'd just get a small furnace and a bit of ductwork. Run just the fan when you need circulation. Add a cooling coil and condenser when you finally need A/C.

The BAF is a great product no doubt, but in my mind, it's like a Coach purse. Sure it's well made but there are way more effect way to get the job done and at better price point.

Thus my question, Ross. I'm looking for actual product suggestions. Like Rite Hite, thanks for that.

Instead of AC, I'd be more likely to put in an evaporative cooler. The advantage to those is that they're a lot cheaper to run and you can leave the door open. If you're running refrigerated air, you have to close up the box and it costs more in the long run - plus I lose all my natural light. 

The concept of a fan is to create an actual breeze and let my onboard human refrigeration system do the job. We're blessed with a strong sun and low humidity so if you're in the shade and the breeze it's quite effective.

The shop already has an IR heater. That's probably going to do the trick, although we'll find out next winter.

I know it's dry where you are, but do you have personal experience with evaporative coolers in shop/garage setting? We don't get to use them here, so I don't have any personal experience with them but I've heard they can produce surface rust on exposed metals quickly.

And in terms of leaving a door open, it's a losing proposition with regards to all tempering (heating or cooling), but if it's cheaper for you to run a swamp cooler than a direct expansion system, and you want to leave a door wide open that's your prerogative. 

I didn't realize you had IR heater, those work great in this application.

I tend to design system that can do more than one task, so if you need to move air and cool, I'd pick something that does both. But we all have to work with what's existing first and foremost. Sorry for the design tangent.

You have to leave a door open with swamp coolers - they rely on air exchange. Or I suppose you can consider them a constant loss system - regardless, they pull in outside air, cool it and ram it into the building. If there's nowhere for it to go, then the air just doesn't move. I think they have to use outside air because it's dry, if you recirculate then you'll have less evaporation and thus less cooling.  They are considerably less expensive to run as you're just powering a squirrel cage fan and a small pump. They're also less expensive to buy and install than refrigeration. The downside in this case is that they need a water supply, which does not currently exist in the shop. It's in the long term plans, but for this summer we will need something that works without it.

They do increase the humidity in the air, but they don't cause significant surface rust in my experience. We use them at Flyin' Miata for the 25,000 square foot building and we have mild steel parts that sit on the shelf without problems.

I remember reading about the relative operating costs of ceiling fans.

Apparently, ceiling fans are one of the least efficient appliances in common use.

The BAF fans were far cheaper to run than anything else. I think that was the first time I heard of brushless motors. 

Metal buildings cool very nicely with a water sprinkler on the roof. 

Can you run a soaker hose across the ridge, and rig a small pump to recirculate the water once it drops down the downspouts?

Now that's an interesting idea.

Do you think the cooling is from evaporative effects or simple heat transfer from hot steel to cold water? If it's the latter, recirculating the water probably wouldn't work but if it's the former it would. Basically turn the roof into a giant evaporative cooler. I'm thinking the insulated roof may limit how much that cools the interior (kinda the whole point of insulation, really) but it's an idea I hadn't come across.

As for efficiency - BAF doesn't post power draw for the E7, oddly. But the 7' Dayton specs 0.5A (240W) at full tilt boogie. The Hunter I yanked out of my bedroom apparently pulled up to 0.41A. The Haiku that I replaced it with is 15.6W at full throttle, but I usually run it in the 5W range. Interesting. It's going to take a looooong time for the decreased operating costs of a BAF to compensate for the price difference, but like buying a diesel truck there are other attributes that come along with it.

It is both heat transfer and evaporative cooling.

An evaporative cooler would work very well in Colorado due to the dry climate.

You could even rig the recirc pump up to run off solar, only would need it on hot sunny days.

Oh, we know all about evaporative coolers here! I've got two on the house. If I want to go for temperature control as opposed to moving air, it will be a swamp cooler.

When I lived in Texas the ice houses on the lake would set up fans that were about 5-6 feet in diameter and had to be solidly anchored, moved a large amount of air.  Had sprayers that are very similar to what I use to water my tomatoes, probably higher pressure, in front of the fan.   Some nights I doubt it could help much, humid as it was.

You could always try the box fan cooler trick.  You can set it up to be gravity feed.  Ha, just thought of a goofy cooler my buddy hung off the side of his bug, worked pretty well, actually.  Car probably the same horsepower as a box fan too.

Is the roof vented at the top?

I've seen those automotive swamp coolers around here at car shows. Pretty clever, actually.

The roof does have some vents around the eaves as well as an exhaust fan at one end. Not a big exhaust fan, but it's something. It's worth noting that this shop was built in 1994 and looks to still have the original ceiling fan installed, so either the PO was a tough guy or he didn't work there in the summer.

But I'm not looking for a swamp cooler right now. I know them, I know I'll probably install one someday, but for the time being I'm looking at fans.

As sexy as the BAF stuff is, I'm thinking I'll go with a 6' Dayton for $2000 less as I just don't need the extra capabilities of the BAF for this application. The lower power draw is not a big factor because it's a home shop and  I simply won't be running it as often as I would in a commercial appliation. The low noise is not important - I'll be making a lot more. I'll quite likely go back to BAF for another Haiku for the house because it's a different set of priorities.

You put a decent exhaust fan at both ends of the roof it will help quite a bit

That will exchange the air in the shop but it will not dry the sweat from my brow. I personally like air movement, it makes me comfortable.