Building a Temperature Controlled Shed - Part 3
The hardest part is always at the end. I'm not sure that's always true, but it was this time. A friend and I decided we'd dig the 18" deep trench from the garage to the shed for the PVC and electrical lines to connect into the house. Luckily we already had conduit running about 10 feet, so that saved some time, but the other 30 feet was pickaxes and trench shovels for 2 days - we got about 80% done and then gave up. We luckily found a local high school athlete looking for work - and he finished it off beautifully! Thank goodness!
We ran 3 lines from the house to the shed - one for the A/C, one for the outlets, and one for a future A/C if I decide to add it - that way I can cool each side of the shed at different temperatures as shown in the "future" diagram below:
I wanted to make sure that to never "blow" a circuit.
A/C installation
So glad I had help with that. It was HEAVY. We had to pull the guts out of the AC to screw the shell into the windowsill, then lift the guts back up and slide it into the casing - the window is 5' off the ground - so it was an exercise in strength, dexterity and balance. We plugged it in and voila it worked!
Coolbot installation
About a week later I got up the initiative to install the Coolbot. I was hoping it would be plug and play, but it took me over 2 hours troubleshooting to get the WIFI working. LATER i found out that there were login issues for the service - it wasn't me!! Eventually the wifi was working - whew!
I turned on the A/C and Coolbot in the shed and monitored the temp on my Govee - and I saw the temperature rising - how can this be? The fan was blowing air around, but the compressor wasn't turning on. Troubleshooting again I found the heater cable on the Coolbot has a very specific point that needs to be aligned to the AC thermometer cable, and they were about 1/2" apart. I put them right on top of each other, wrapped in aluminum. Bingo - the compressor turned on. YEA!
i set the initial temp at 40F degrees, with 1 degree diff in either direction (turns on at 41F, turns off at 38F). Lastly, I needed to make sure the Infrared heater, attached to a thermostat outlet, and the Coolbot didn't trigger at the same time. I ended up with this config:
- Heater ON at 36, OFF at 38
- AC ON at 42, OFF at 39
That will do. I'm really glad I got it working and stable - the weather here is 60F in February. Nuts.