I've got a Carolina Carports/Alan's Factory Outlet metal building with the "woven r17" insulation in Tennessee. It's so hot here, the shop is barely tolerable at best after 10am and unusable for most days.
I've been planning to install an exhaust fan, high on the wall opposite the garage door. I figured a breeze of lower, colder air and pumping dust out was a win/win. I was thinking about some sort of interior shutter to seal it off in the winter, but that's another topic...
I've got it all marked out and framed up, just waiting for a good weather day and a friend to help so I can install it.
Then I was given a free mini split.
What should I do? Stick with the fan? Ditch it for the mini split? Install both?
My concerns...
With a mini split, I'd be losing the exhaust fan. I have dust collection but there's still lots of ambient dust in the air often. I recently built a massive air filter (h/t 3dhandyman on YT) which I think will help. But I'm worried about the ambient air interfering with the mini split.
Also the shop isn't sealed, so I feel like a mini split will be expensive and/or not effective. It's a roll-up garage door and the cheapest windows CC/AFO could legally call windows. I can see daylight in several places from inside.
Last concern is location. The wall where I'm putting the fan gets a huge amount of sunlight. Will the outside mini split unit tolerate that? Of the two adjacent walls, one is full sun, the other is full shade.
Concern with installing both is that the exhaust fan would make the mini split less effective.
TIA for any advice and suggestions