Tampa 928s

Metal garage rounded 1,500 Square feet.

I am getting close to priming my car and wanted to build a temporary paint booth.
I have researched what I want to build but not sure what size Pvc I should use. A 15x20 is sufficient and looked at 1" to 2" pipe it seems the lighter the better so the 1" would be inexpensive and easy to construct. Has anyone don this and could recommend a pipe diameter.

Air conditioner:
My son gave me a $500.00 home depot gift card for a portable air conditioner for the garage. Looking at 9-12 Btu.s from $400-$600 price range. Looking at a wall unit for the same money a 23K Btu is available. The problem is cutting the wall on the garage is not feasible. Has anyone run some type of duct work for the air in take of a wall unit and made it work.
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123quattro

Can you paint the car in your garage? Mine is set up to do this. The back half gets sectioned off with plastic sheet taped forming an air tight seal on the floor, wall, and ceiling. A good furnace air filter is cut and taped into that plastic sheet. There's a big exhaust fan that then pulls down that half of the garage through the filter. After say half an hour you can assume their is no dust and get to painting.

dr bob

Depending on how high your garage is, how it's insulated, and how often you plan to open a big door, you might be happy with a couple of those 10-12kbtu portables. You'll be much happier with a couple of those wall units on opposite sides of the work area. I know it never gets hot or humid in Tampa, and your building is always in the shade, the car you work on will never be heat-soaked from running recently or just from sitting outside in the sun. The wall units can be pretty easily mounted high on a steel building. I'll bet that your local metal-building vendors know someone who can fab the supports and the outside grillwork to make that work for you. Don't forget to plumb power and a thermostat conduit to control them from floor level.

For your spray booth, how will you hang the support piping? Cables or similar from the ceiling? Then use 3/4" EMT, with appropriate fittings. Shower curtain rings hold the plastic on the ends so you can drive in and out. Sides stay up with duct tape unless you plan to use the plastic again.

FWIW, body and paint places around here are really hurting for business. You might be able to coax a nearby shop to do the spraying for you legally in a booth for low $$ right now.

Tampa 928s

Please excuse my ignorance but what is Emt, this will be a temporary solution and will come down after the big event. My thought would be to construct a full 15x20 using t's and pipe with top supports like a big erector set. I will use a light vinyl sheeting and enclose it and use the fan/filter type set-up. My question is what size will work with out it collapsing or falling over either due to weight or lack of size of the piping. I like the shower curtain idea .

The air idea; if I moved my lift I do have a window in the front and the yard is cover in large oak trees. Just having any cold air blowing on me would be better than none at all. I would never try to cool the whole garage ceilings ar 14" high.

RicerSchnitzzle

Auto stores like PepBoys sell portable canopies. They take about 30 minutes to put together. I paid about $69 for a 10x20 canopy. Comes with metal poles. They also have a kit to add the sides for about $50. A lot cheaper than a DIY set up and you can usew it over and over.

aggravation

The 24k btu wall unit will definitely be better and from the sound of the size of the room even that will be less than you need. The condenser fan that discharges the hot air won't be suited to pushing the air through any kind of duct to get the air outside, the fan motor and it's blower wheel/blade wont be up to the task and the air that enters the condensor portion shouldn't draw from the conditioned space otherwise you'll be removing the cool air you are creating....
So some kind of installation like Dr Bob mentioned would be necessary....and well worth the effort to get double the capacity that the window units you mentioned deliver.

dr bob

Tampa-

EMT is the guy that rescues you from paint-fume intoxication in your overheated garage. OK, in this description it's really Electric Metal Tubing, thin-wall conduit. The connections, elbows, etc, are commonly available and pretty cheap. The compression-style connectors are generally strong enough to carry a little weight, so you can hang the tubing and the tarp weight if you dangle the thing by those points. Plus all those conections disassemble for re-use, unlike PVC conections. EMT comes in 10' lengths generally, and cuts easily with a hacksaw, Sawzall with a metal cutting blade, or even a medium wheel-type pipe cutter. I like it better than small PVC for stuff like this, since PVC seems to bend under whatever weight I seem to try with it.

Landseer

Remember, static discharge is not your friend.