shed heating

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

  De-Humidifers in cold rooms. Try doing a simple google search, refrig ones are not worth running,
 
  http://www.dehumidifier-reviews.co.uk/best-dehumidifier-garage

Mine is a dessicant type I believe the Ruby Dry is the same type they do put some heat out as well.  It never fails to produce the condensate from operating at all winter temperatures.

That's correct Ted. Mine runs fine in zero and lower temperatures. The heat is produced by a small heating element inside the Ruby Dry to dry the condensate from the spinning disc. I understand the water collected in the tank is deironised and good for the ironing whatever that is🤔

I use mine for watering my carniverous plants - ironing pray tell me what that word means is it something to do with heating iron (Fe) then fashioning it into arrowheads?

[PHILIP2908]

I speak from bitter experience on the subject of condensation, the formation of mold and chrome decaying before your very eyes and the strange feeling of depression all this brings.
It’s all to do with airflow and keeping the inside air temperature close to that outside. If there’s a big difference, and by opening a door and the two air masses meet, there will be a formation of condensation.
I had one of those Compton garages once, made from pre-fab concrete panels; these just didn’t ‘breathe’ and help equalize the two temperatures. So, at about 11.00 in the morning on a bright spring sunny day, the air temperature had risen but that in the garage was pretty much as it was during the cold night. On several occasions, I would open the up-and-over door, the warm air would rush in, meet the cold air and believe me a cloud would form momentarily.
Now I have a garage constructed from breeze block and brick; this allows the garage to breathe. A vent in the window is key and I no longer have to bother with a dehumidifier. If I go out to work in there, I just shut the window, turn on the heater – a 5kw job from Machine Mart. And when I leave, it’s heater off and open the vent/window again. It doesn’t matter how cold it gets in there as long as the temp matches that outside.
So to me the key is always ventilation and keeping the temperatures as equal as possible.

[SumpMagnet]

@Macabe-Thiele .... never thought to use dehumidifier water for carnivorous plants.... my collection usually gets rainwater, and when i moved house...I ended up transporting several gallons of manky rainwater from the water butt to make sure I had some.

Still .... the Dionaea like the nice sunny windowsill they got now, and are still growing strongly when they ought to be dormant. The sundews and pitchers don;t seem to be fussed. Need to repot my 'B52' before Spring gets going....its a monster

[SteveD CB500K0]

Photos of these please!

I have no idea what a carnivorous plant looks like.


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[Orcade-Ian]

Steve,
I think the lead singer with Led Zepp is a carnivorous Plant 

But seriously, on the subject of shed heating, even in Orkney, I don't use any and don't have any corrosion issues.  We get plenty of natural ventilation around here (read WIND) which keeps the inside and outside temperatures reasonably equal.  When I was in Lancashire I had the Devil's own job keeping things like the lathe and milling machine free from the four-letter word.  We used to call those February and March days 'instant damp days' when the day warmed rapidly after a frosty night.  That hardly ever  happens here - a handful of times in the 16 years we have enjoyed our life here.

Ian

[MrDavo]

I agree with what’s been said - nothing ever got rusty by being cold, it’s condensation that makes cold metal stuff in the garage get wet. I have one of those concrete garages as well, but I drilled air vents into the wooden gable ends. My attic used to get wet through, until I removed a large amount of old clothing stuffed into the eaves by the previous owner to cut draughts, never had a problem since. A customer who owns several houses told me that if he leaves a house empty he always cracks open a window to keep air circulating.

I have a dehumidifier in the garage but when it’s brass monkeys cold it doesn’t work at all. Sudden temperature change is the enemy.

As a kid I had a Venus Fly Trap for a while, I used to feed it flies and bits of sausage. I think it lasted as long as a fairground goldfish.

[allankelly1]

Trouble is modern houses lofts tend to be so well insulated that there is no air flow in the loft area

My parents had a old cottage and it was so open under the eves birds used to nest in the loft and mice would come in for the winter too

Like I said earlier the north side roof felt on a frosty cold day used to drip condensation like this as there was no air flow and no sun to warm this side of the roof




(Mates place was the same and he had puddles on the boarded area

We both fitted these and problem is complete resolved




Yes may be a slight bit of heat loss but now the ventilation is much better( you can now feel a slight draft in the loft area) And better than a damp loft / roof joists etc


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[Spitfire]

For our bungalow we fitted one of these in the loft, the bungalow used to suffer terribly from condensation, especially after we upgraded the insulation. We made sure that room and soffit vents were clear fitted one of these and have had no problem since.
https://www.juiceelectricalsupplies.co.uk/nuaire-drimaster-eco-positive-input-ventilation-piv-unit-hall-control.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIy_yA9vfP9AIVS-vtCh17CgL6EAQYBSABEgLusfD_BwE

Cheers

Dennis

[Green1]

I have spent most of my working life trying to stop condensation in customers homes. Hardly any of them understand when I tell them you need airflow. Most rentals I look after suffer badly because people insist on blocking every gap they see and then drying there washing on the radiators.

I once worked on a new build care home that was filled with mosquitos 🦟  Every night before I went home I would crank up the heat and open windows and every night the site agent would shut them behind me. In the morning water would be pouring out of lights and sockets. The paint on the walls would be wet for days.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Heat pump heated homes will  need something close to a sealed house in order to work. I believe new homes need to pass some sort of air seal test to meet regulations. Roof venting seems to be a thing of the past. When our house had the roof rebuilt after our fire it had to meet current building control regulations that included not only Kingspan type rafter insulation but all the upstairs ceiling  plaster boarding was bonded with 50mm Kingspan. Our house retains so much heat that in the summer it's tropical if we do not open our upstairs windows. only real venting we have is a double air brick behind a radiator in our lounge a remnant from our old back boiler plus an air brick behind our kitchen cupboards for the gas hob.

[Laverdaroo]

Must'nt grumble Ted, ........your garage sounds warmer than 'our 'ous', it's bitter down here at the moment!

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Must'nt grumble Ted, ........your garage sounds warmer than 'our 'ous', it's bitter down here at the moment!

To hell with my carbon footprint I'm a nesh individual at the best of times turned our thermostat up again today. It's a toasty 74.3 F in our front lounge (23.5 C) - I turn it down a couple of noches at bed time. Really could use a decent time adjustable  thermostat to turn the temperature down at night then ramp it up again automatically when we get up - even though we have a water bed I feel the cold in the night if it drops below 70 F.

Still waiting for my speedometer drive seals from DS so I can get the new front wheel in for the winter recess.

[Laverdaroo]

To hell with my carbon footprint I'm a nesh individual at the best of times turned our thermostat up again today. It's a toasty 74.3 F in our front lounge (23.5 C) - I turn it down a couple of noches at bed time.


Oo, yer devil Ted

[Green1]

Air tests on new builds are a complete joke. I have had to tape and cling film windows and doors shut to make them pass. They only test a couple on the plots and sign the rest off.
I once worked on a new build Jewish place of worship you know the one begins with an S. I can't spell it so not going to try 😂.
The tall ceilings were designed to allow air flow to prevent still air.
To get it to pass they wrapped the entire roof with pallet wrap and then it only just passed. 😮

Your all softies it's currently  15c in my lounge.

[Arfa]

Not sure if i should go back to the subject.... I'm lucky enough to have a garage where the bikes (and my lovely wife's car) live and I tinker with them, and a modern well insulated workshop. Before I lined the garage (its a sectional building) it was both cold and damp. I have one bike for day to day use and two (used to be 3!) which don't go out in the winter. Before lining the garage the "stored" bikes were bagged up in a Vac Bag which basically used a large dessicant charge and a big plastic bag. I found these worked very well over several winters, and any of you from a Defence background would be used to dessicant usage in storage.

The garage is now lined with a semi-permeable membrane and 50mm of rockwool plus 19mm OSB round all the walls. For the roof I put together a frame that stands insulation away from the roof panels to allow air to circualate above the insulation and hence deal with condensation. The insulation is one of these hi tech flexible rolls, about 40mm thick. I've also covered the back of the up and over door with similar stuff, and used rubber draft excluders. In all a bit of a faff but it was the cheapest solution to a garage rebuild and insulation. I use a fan heater if I'm working out there (unless petrol is involved) but the temperature is pretty bearable summer and winter. For example on a couple of freezing nights recently it didn't drop below 5 degrees, but on a longer cold spell it would drop further. The bikes are now unbagged and i use a small thermostatic controlled greenhouse heater under each one and last year I had no problems with this approach. I do drain the petrol from the stored bikes, by the way.

In the workshop I've got a couple of 500 watt IR heaters suspended from the ceiling and a wireless thermostat with manual overide controls them. I've set a frost setting but i don't think the heaters have come on this year. The heaters work very well for the uses i put the building to, and if any of you worked in a hangar you'll be familiar with IR heating.

Finally the condensation problem evidently has two factors, the releative humidity, and the air temperature, these are shown on a Psychrometric chart, plenty of them on the interweb for all sorts of gasses. So one either increases the temperature, or reduces the humidity to prevent condensation. In practical terms either dehumidify or heat or both, unless you're lucky enough to live somewhere that's not condensation prone. As an example at 80% RH (todays value outside) and an air temp of 10 degrees C, the dew point (where water will condense on a object) is about 7 degrees C. In other words if my bikes are held above 7 degrees than there won't be any condensation on them.

Not sure if that's helpful, anyhow, compliments of the season to you all. I should get out more......