Air Conditioning for the Great Outdoors

Cue “Tim Taylor Official Primal Ape Tool Time Grunts”

Do you have one of these in your garage? No? So sad.

How can you resist a massive device called the Cyclone 3000?

My wife claims that it will make the area much more comfortable for practicing ballroom dance steps during summer months, but I can assure you that’s it really for very manly, possibly dangerous, activities involving spinning blades and screaming metal.

Oh, wait. That’s just my blender. Hey, mechanics get thirsty, too.

Of course, as with any of my DIY projects, this one wasn’t without its challenges. First, I failed to read between the lines of the fine print, and missed the fact that this particular unit can be filled only with a garden hose (I was hoping to be able to fill it with a bucket and funnel so I could minimize the use of tap water, which will quickly gunk up the works*). Then I discovered that our only hose was hopelessly bonded to the sprayer that has been attached to it for the past four years. (And let’s not discuss the fact that the only hose bib close enough to the garage is underground, meaning that I have to brave huge deadly poison-spitting spiders with bad attitudes in order get a water supply.)

After buying a new hose, I attached it to the unit and discovered that the inexplicably split rubber washer isn’t particularly effective, even after tightening the hose strongly enough that I had to disassemble the input valve to separate it from the unit after filling the tank. In other words, it took me an hour to get the air conditioner running, a task that would take a normal person about four minutes. But in the end, the unit worked beautifully, and it will indeed make the garage a more hospitable place for…whatever.

*This is a highly technical term. Look it up.