Keeping dry atmostphere in workshop

[wellywood]

Aah! The good old days when beer was tuppence a loaf.

Back to subject. There is really only one solution to condensation and that is to heat and/or ventilate.
Godzone has quite a damp climate and the windows in our home used to stream with condensation until we installed a positive pressure ventilation system. It only requires a small fan (about the cost of running a light bulb) to draw air from the roof space and over-pressure the inside space which drives the moisture-laden air out.
I realise this might not be practical in this case (no ceiling space in the shed) but, married with a heat source, it's the only way to cure the problem. Either that or running a dehumidifier which might be expensive.

 

[DennisCA]

^^^^
That's the opposite of what we do here, we use underpressure in the house because the last thing you want is hot air being pushed out through the houses climate shell, which then causes the hot moist indoor air to meet the cold fiberglass or rockwool insulation and condense in it. Over time your insulation is destroyed and you'll be working two jobs just to afford the electricity bill in winter. Sure there is a vapor barrier but it's not perfect and gets damaged over time (installing nails and such for picture frames and whatnot). So we aim for a slight underpressure. Better to let a little cool air in than destroy the insulation. My house is so airtight air enters mostly through our machine ventilation which has a built in heat exchanger so that the exiting air's heat isn't wasted.

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Well it dropped to -10 yesterday and today it's -15 celcius, I was in the shop last night and didn't run the heater, just me being there and using the machines kept things around 4-5C, but today things had dropped to -3C inside the shop around 18:00, when I came back with an oil element to heat the shop. I don't think that's so bad considering the big garage port is a heat losing... thingy...

I got this now because it's 1 phase so it doesn't steal a valuable 3ph outlet and I can leave it on all the time with it's thermostat for temperature maintenance. The fan is much more effective since it heats the air directly and also blows it around but I don't dare leave it unattended.

 

[Jacob]

Aah! The good old days when beer was tuppence a loaf.

Back to subject. There is really only one solution to condensation and that is to heat and/or ventilate.
Godzone has quite a damp climate and the windows in our home used to stream with condensation until we installed a positive pressure ventilation system. It only requires a small fan (about the cost of running a light bulb) to draw air from the roof space and over-pressure the inside space which drives the moisture-laden air out.
I realise this might not be practical in this case (no ceiling space in the shed) but, married with a heat source, it's the only way to cure the problem. Either that or running a dehumidifier which might be expensive.

The other way is to treat the windows as de-humidifiers - accept condensation but allow it to drain off to the outside.
It works really well. Condensation on the windows but not anywhere else. The only prob is dust on the wet parts of the window - it sticks and they need a bit more cleaning.

 

[custard]

to keep a workshop dry you need a dehumidifier - end of! They only cease to work if temperature drops to around freezing as I understand it, so stick an oil filled rad in there as well when its frosty.....

I bought a new dehumidifier for my boat recently and was told it's a different design that functions just as well in cold conditions as in warm. Unfortunately I'll just have to take their word for it as it's piped overboard so I've no idea how much water is actually extracted. However you're right about traditional dehumidifiers, the one in my workshop needs emptying very day in summer, but only once every four days in winter.

 

[Hemsby]

There are all sorts of suggestions how to maintain a good constant level of humidity in a workshop, but a dehumidifier is a simple no nonsense and most importantly a controllable way of doing the job.

I would suggest that most members spent considerable amounts of money on a workshop & equipment. For me to have a rust free environment and a stable stock of timber the running cost of a dehumidifier seems insignificant in the great scheme of things.

As I mentioned in my earlier post on the subject I use a Desiccant dehumidifier which works down to 1 deg, but even in the recent freezing conditions my non insulated workshop has never dropped below 4 deg anyway.

Mine can collect the 10 litre max most days so I connected it to a permanent discharge pipe for convenience.

Humidity generally is less in cold/freezing weather than warm/hot.