Arizona, the good and the bad

[jpaz]

For those of us in the Southwest, the summer heat is here. I've noticed the vehicle is a bit noisy when I first get in and drive off and presume it is the battery cooling system doing its thing. So far, ,it has been as high as 117 Fahrenheit, based on the thermometer reading on my dash panel, and that is not unusual. The good news is that the traffic is down to "summer light" (school is out and winter visitors have gone home) and my commutes are almost a pleasure. The bad news is it is hot.

Now my question. We've moved into a new home and the garage door faces the setting sun. The afternoon temperatures in the garage are remarkable. I've taken to leaving the car plugged in (have 50 amp NEMA plug installed in wall) and have turned cabin overheat protection "on" when I park in the garage. Anything else I need to worry about? I would like to believe the Tesla takes car of the battery in the heat as long as I am plugged into the wall.

Thanks.

JPAZ

 

[P85_DA]

Tesla BMS will take care of battery plugged in or not ...overheat is limited though if not plugged in and low SOC

 

[ewoodrick]

Thought...

Question: Where does the heat go that the air conditioner takes out of the car?
Answer: The garage.

That's only going to make the overheat situation worse. Options are to look for better insulated garage doors. Paint the doors a lighter, reflective color. Add ventilation to the garage.

You may want to turn off the overheat protection until you can keep the garage cooler. Also remember that a warm garage is probably connected to your house and that increases the inside cooling bills as well.

 

[jpaz]

So looks count.......we have a very fancy garage door with frosted glass in the panels. The dreaded HOA will not let us change it. Door insulation is out. Garage to house walls are very well insulated. I am contemplating a vent with fan to the outside. That will be costly.

My biggest concern is the effect on the battery. Appreciate the reassurance @P85_DA


Probably will get a fan to leave running in the garage, but that might turn the oven into a convection oven

 

[TSLA Pilot]

JPAZ, I do hope I missed the sarcasm and that you weren't serious re: the fan in the garage, right?

Obviously, a fan in the garage will only add even more energy to the garage, making it even warmer, not cooler. The fan must actually remove the hot air so as to allow it to be replaced by cooler air (meaning ambient air at ~117F+, unfortunately), if there is a path for exterior air to enter the garage

We have a similar situation vis-a-vis a West-facing garage door with uninsulated garage doors made of glass. (And the builder could have installed insulated glass as this is a new home, but builders, in general, aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.)

Temps in the garage can approach 130F--or possibly more; we're looking for other options as well. Evaporative cooling is one, but it will involve a lot of water and cost. One neighbor has gone so far as to install an entire HVAC system just for his 4-car garage, as his first attempt (split ductless system) was too small to cool sufficiently.

He has no solar panels so I suspect his electric bill approaches 4-figures every Summer month . . . .

 

[azdryheat]

I'm in Mesa so I feel your heat. I turned off the cabin overheat for the reasons others have said. It basically will just run on and on forever. Batteries are not an issue.
I just looked into a heat pump water heater. When mine bites the dust, I will probably go that route. When it heats the water, the by product is it expels cold air. They are about $1200, but for free cold air I will probably go for it.

 

[jpaz]

@azdryheat - Really like your name.

 

[xyeahtony]

So looks count.......we have a very fancy garage door with frosted glass in the panels. The dreaded HOA will not let us change it. Door insulation is out. Garage to house walls are very well insulated. I am contemplating a vent with fan to the outside. That will be costly.

My biggest concern is the effect on the battery. Appreciate the reassurance @P85_DA


Probably will get a fan to leave running in the garage, but that might turn the oven into a convection oven

Dont worry about all the heat, it won't get any hotter than you driving the car in the desert. That being said, when I lived in Gilbert, our garage was ventilated to the outside with air vents. Worth exploring.

 

[AudubonB]

You write: “Door insulation is out”.

I take issue with that statement. Why don’t you take a look at the rolls of foil-coated “bubblewrap”-style insulation that Lowes, HDepot and so forth carry. Supremely simple to install on the interior of any kind of garage door, most particularly the standard segmented vertical roll-up type. I don’t know their rated R-value, but you will find they do quite a credible job of lowering the heat transfer into the garage space. And inexpensive, too.

 

[TLej]

When I was a kid, we had an uninsulated garage door (here we insulate to keep heat in, not out, but same difference). My dad added some rigid Styrofoam SM to the interior of the door. Looks-wise, not the greatest, but it does work. About R4 per inch, doesn't add much weight so the door still works the same. Could probably glue it to the glass panels. Just a thought.

 

[roblab]

Swamp coolers, ie: evaporative cooling, are the way to go in dry heat. They can be mounted on roof or beside the garage, the temp drops nicely and the humidity goes up. Putting a vent in the roof to remove the hottest air is not unattractive, and some of those are electric fan boosted with a temp switch. A swamp cooler on the roof might not be attractive enough for the HOA, but on the ground beside the garage, with some hedging or fencing, you'd never see it. Swamp coolers are about all anyone uses where my brother lives in Nevada. I can't say they use a lot of water. It just evaporates, doesn't run down the drain.

All of this can be done by someone with moderate do-it-yourself skills.

 

[gregd]

When I was a kid, we had an uninsulated garage door (here we insulate to keep heat in, not out, but same difference). My dad added some rigid Styrofoam SM to the interior of the door. Looks-wise, not the greatest, but it does work. About R4 per inch, doesn't add much weight so the door still works the same. Could probably glue it to the glass panels. Just a thought.

+1

I did the same here, and it made a HUGE difference on the temperature inside the garage. It did not affect the operation of the door, but I did tweak the weight sensors slightly so that it would stop on an obstruction, and not stall quite so easily.

I wouldn't do the windows (sunlight is there for a reason), but the rest of the door panels are probably worse than R0, since they are actively capturing heat from the Sun (not just the air) and radiating it inside the garage. (I'm assuming they are simple metal panels, not wood or something else.)

 

[arcus]

I applied this to my garage door: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RGZ9C10 coupled with this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009XCJA2, it was completely un-insulated before and I would see temps as high as 98 F during summer (the door is facing West, which only makes it worse). After this the temperature didn't exceed 85 F.

I wish I had asked the builder to insulate the other 2 walls, I am sure it would make additional difference.

 

[Drumheller]

Leave the overheat protection on. The interior getting too hot leads to the main screen bubbling over time. I'm on my second screen because of the bubbling, and I live in the Phoenix area. Have had my Model S since Jan 2016, when overheat protection didn't exist.

I see a significant increase in "phantom drain" during the very hot months, but that's really just the cooling running frequently to keep the cabin below 105F. I also see increased energy usage when I'm driving around the city in stop and go traffic as the car works to keep the battery cool.

 

[Evoforce]

Evaporative cooling is the reasonably cheap way of venting the garage.

 

[Electric700]

You could get a portable AC like the one linked to below and just set it to 89 degrees, the maximum for that product. You could use it in the single exhaust hose configuration and open the garage door slightly. This way it will pull in the outside air. If you don't want to do it that way, use both hoses. One hose connection is for compressor air intake, and the other is for the exhaust.

You could also just continue without any garage cooling / ventilation, but I think you'd want to leave the car plugged in especially with such high temperatures. It should maintain the ideal battery temperature either way since Teslas use liquid cooling / heating for the battery.

Link:

Whynter Elite ARC-122DHP Dual Hose Portable AC & Heater