Fed up with moisture in all the wrong places!

[fv1609]

I’m fed up with condensation oozing from everything stored in my sheds! I have 4 vehicles in 3 sheds, for many years I have had a dehumidifier running continually in each shed. Every couple of years one packs up & I buy another, the frequency of them packing up has increased in recent years as dehumidifiers get better “designed” (Apparent design that is, so that they look smarter & no longer resemble a metal box on wheels)

 

It is so depressing to find everything dripping wet, vehicles & tools rusting away, leather, overalls & gasket paper etc just going mouldy.

 

 

 

Although these machines have been on continuous drainage, I have reverted to collecting the water in the machine itself. This is to assess just how much water is actually being collected & the results have been alarming.

 

Some smartly designed dehumidifiers at work.

 

 

 

 

The problem is that these compressor machines act in a similar way to a fridge. The result is that at temperatures below 15 deg C they are very inefficient. Most garages & sheds are well below this sort of temperature for most of the time. In my sheds this afternoon the temperature has been 5 deg C falling 1 deg C tonight. During a 5 hour test period I collected not one drop of water! The reason being that the insides are frozen up by the way in which the thing works, with a low ambient temperature the chance to defrost is nil, unless it is a sophisticated model with a heating system to aid defrosting.

 

However desiccant dehumidifiers work on a different principle & can function satisfactorily down to 1 deg C. (I’m not referring to desiccant crystals that fit it a plastic container & put in a wardrobe to absorb moisture by then turning damp & dissolving)

 

I had one desiccant dehumidifier & had that running this afternoon. I also bought two more of these yellow things.

 

 

The yellow ones are made by Ebac & are marketed by different companies often with different model numbers. But these from Wickes were up to £35 cheaper than some suppliers. During the same period these three machines collected about 1.5 pints each. These three were in the larger shed where a fancy white one collected nothing.

 

Also in the shed was one compressor type & that managed to collect about 1.5 pints as well. The difference with this one I think is that it is about 15 years has been designed as a machine first & foremost, then a metal box has been fitted over it. Looking at the rear the coolant pipework is well spaced out, not the case in the workings of the white designer ones where the works are crowded inside, so much so that in cold weather sheets of ice smother the output holes confirming its inability to cope.

 

 

I had been thinking of forking out for an industrial unit, however all but the very expensive ones (over £1k) are compressor types. So I think tomorrow I shall be buying a third yellow one whilst I look forward to warmer times.

 

How do other people cope?

[gritineye]

I had customers complaining of the same problems went round and saw a couple of dehumidifiers standing in a shed with huge gaps everywhere, not saying yours is like that but.

 

To avoid trying to dry the entire planet, you have to eliminate gaps to the outside, damp floors and such, money spent on this would pay dividends.

 

I have done this and my shed is now dry apart from a few drips from the single skin plastic roof, I have noe dehumidifier.

Edited January 19, 2011 by gritineye

[N.O.S.]

One way to get rid of the gaps is to go to the bother of insulating the shed - not cheap but compared to commercial dehumidifiers, money well spent :-)

[fv1609]

Insulation & attending to gaps is certainly important. One shed for one vehicle had a corrugated steel roof, last winter I put 4in of polysterene held up with sheets of ply. I had to put up more cross struts to support the ply sheets as there was a limit to the size of sheet the two of us could handle. So that cost nearly £500, but that is only 1/5 of the total shed roofage. But it helped a lot, although the bodywork of the vehicle in there is not wet the chassis is dripping.

 

Gaps under the door are a problem as the sheds although level have sloping ground outside. So in order to open the doors fully they are not flush with the floor when closed. The gap is made up by strips of PVC flooring battened along the lower edges. Although that starts off ok, the trouble is that UV & frost takes its toll & you can see in the last photo where is has become brittle & fractured. The gaps around the outside are at present covered with folded up tarpaulins.

 

I know for optimum results I should insulate all the walls, doors & ceilings. The point I was really aiming at was the poor performance of compressor/CFC machines at 'garage' temperatures. It was reading this that made the penny drop:

 

http://www.dehumidifiersuk.com/g/48014/guide-to-garage-dehumidifiers-.html

[ferretfixer]

Clive, Its small consolation but. All the Water you gather from inside the collection containers in the De Humidifiers. Is Distilled & can be used in vehicle batteries! Also as a bonus for the Wife, it's also a VERY good idea to use in the electric steam irons indoors! (It prevents bunging them up with a limescale deposit that forms!)

[Tony B]

My vehicle stores outside. I bought about three years ago a breathable caravan cover. Everything has been and still is bone dry inside and out. My shed is lined with plastic sheet of the type used for advertising on the side of buses. Light easy to work very durable made of little box sections. It is also great to lie on under the vehicle.

[MiketheBike]

I find that just leaving a low wattage light on keeps out the worst of the damp...maybe my garage is exceptionally dry anyway?

 

So..the water is distilled? So if I leave some rotting apples in the garage, with the humidifier on, would that distill the apple laden moisture? That could be interesting (if my logic wasn't so badly flawed)

[trustmeimamechanic]

Trying to make the storeage "airtight" would I think compound the problem , if you have an airflow around the vehicle it will at least get dried out again , think how on a cold frosty winter just a few days of wind realy dry the ground up ... you would need the worlds biggest dehumidifier to take all the damp out of the air in a reasonable size building .

Its condensation of the warm moist air on the cold steel of the vehicle so the only way to stop it would be to keep the vehicle and the air above the dew-point of the moisture .

 

Its strange stuff ....

I built a shed for my motor bike and spent hrs insulating it etc .... its snug and warm and a refuge from the mrs .... however my RD and the mountain bikes all at times get damp.

My Jeep lives in an old concrete garage with a road-plannings floor and a badly fitting door, and roof that leaked so its got a sheet of plastic over the top held down by some logs.... it never gets condensation :shocked:

[mike65]

Temperature differential is the problem.

My 109 lives out doors but my car lives in the garage.

If their is a temperature differential opening the door can cause damp/moisture to form on the car.

Put it away wet and it can still be wet long after it has dried up outside.

Mind you it froze in the garage just before Christmas when Chesham made the news at -19.6

 

I suspect the only real way to protect everything from moisture maybe to put it in a large bag and vacuum seal it. Probably not practical.

 

Mike

[ruxy]

Long-wave heat radiation during the night causes such as corrugated steel roofing (without bonded / uninsulated) surface temperature to drop below the ambient air temperature - this is a major problem. I don't know if this radiation can also affect a vehicle below the roof line as well ?

 

Once your vehicle temperature gets down to overnight ambient , it will not warm up in the morning as fast as the building structure - if the air is water laden then you are going to get condensation.

 

Steel , alloy, concrete,brick are cold materials and good condensers. Wood is a warm material , I line timber garages inside with cheap tanalised fencing boards , the gap with slab poly. The extra timber adds to cost but increases security , the joints allow breathing. Rather than some ventilation - I think better to seal - all the extra timber absorbes moisture until it dries out , I have come to the conclusion this is better than a single cladding.

 

Some people do bag their vehicles , such as made by Cocoon , my cousin has his Morgan in a Airflow bag.

[marmon]

My science is probably wrong but I used box fans and it seemed to work a treat, The worst condensation seemed to be when it warmed slightly after a very cold night so I thought it was because the vehicles were still colder than the air, like a beer say, I plugged in a few 2' x 2' fans blowing over them and I have no more condensation, something to do with wind chill or possibly just warming the vehicles up quicker or possibly just blowing them dry? Not sure why but so far it works a charm.

 

Q

[rbrtcrowther]

My garage is concreat with a concreat roof. when the weather warms up after a cold spell i have huge problems with condensation, it runs off the walls and and cast iron equipment. i have stopped this by fitting a small solid fuel stove which i light when the wather is set to change. all condensation problems solved. Nice to work in the shed too and then i fuel it up and close off the air to slow the stove down when i go in the house. It will burn for several hours through the night and stops any condensation forming while the weather sorts itself out:)

[ferret1958uk]

If the air is moist and it hits something cold you will have condensation. You need to find a way of stopping the damp getting in to start with. If it is already in then you need to dry things out.

 

For my own workshop I made good the concrete floor and covered it in floor paint. Took some time to dry but it did help to seal the floor - good for dust control alone. What I was not expecting was that it seemed to make the place warmer. I use a space heater in there with the doors open so I don't die from carbon monoxide and it really dried everything out. Condensation does eventually build back up, but it takes around a week of no heat to get bad.

[onthecorner]

As it's only for a few months a year, why not hire an industrial one from somewhere like these people? They even say suitable for "tank" drying