Cooling Calculator

Industrial baseline runs ~25 BTU/hr per square foot of floor space for moderate cooling load with standard 8-foot ceilings. Adjust upward by 30-60% for heavy equipment load, by 10-25% for direct sun exposure, and proportionally for taller ceilings. The calculator above runs this math for you.

BTU/hr (British Thermal Units per hour) measures refrigerant air conditioning capacity — how much heat the unit can remove. CFM (cubic feet per minute) measures air movement — how much air an evaporative cooler can move and evaporatively cool. They are different sizing units for different technologies.

Evaporative cooling (Portacool APEX, Vector Climate) works in dry-air outdoor spaces or well-ventilated indoor environments. Refrigerant portable AC (MovinCool, OceanAire OWC) works in fully-enclosed conditioned spaces or humid environments where evaporative wouldn’t be effective. The calculator’s environment + humidity inputs determine which technology to recommend.

Yes — evaporative coolers like the Portacool APEX series are designed precisely for open-bay industrial spaces, workshops, loading docks, and similar high-airflow environments. Refrigerant portable AC won’t work in non-enclosed spaces because it depends on closed-loop air recirculation.

CFM requirement equals the cubic feet of your space multiplied by an air-change multiplier: outdoor or fully-open spaces ~×2 (faster air turnover), open indoor spaces ~×1, partially-enclosed spaces ~×0.5. A 40 × 30 × 12 foot workshop (14,400 ft³) open indoor would need ~14,400 CFM.

Cubic feet drives the calculation. Tall ceilings (over 10 feet) add roughly 10% to required cooling capacity per 2 feet over the 8-foot baseline. A 12-foot ceiling adds ~25% to the standard sq-ft-based BTU number. The calculator handles this via the cubic-foot calculation automatically.

Air-cooled portable AC (MovinCool Climate Pro) exhausts hot condenser air through flexible ducting routed outside the cooled envelope. Water-cooled portable AC (OceanAire OWC series) circulates condenser water through site-supplied piping. The choice depends on your building’s existing infrastructure: water-cooled requires a building water loop; air-cooled requires a vent path.

Yes. Industrial portable cooling is engineered for off-grid power compatibility. Smaller Portacool APEX evaporative units run on 120V 15A or 20A breakers. Larger evaporative and refrigerant-based units typically require 240V 30A. Mining and large industrial applications may require 3-phase power. Generator sizing should account for inrush current at compressor startup.