Moisture In The Workshop

[Hugh-P]

Just recently discovered that the moisture in my workshop needed to be looked after. Never gave it a thought, my shop is insulated, and I discovered mold around the base board on the back wall. Usually have wood in the shop drying out. Bought a dehumidifier and it has been taking out 2 gals of water a day for the last 5 days, thats a lot of moisture. Thought to mention this as this is particularly hard on tools.

[Eddy-Smiles]

Hugh... Buildings are like humans. They have to breathe or they die. Living in Florida and working in the air conditioning field for years I'd have thought that I'd learned that lesson but when I built a small cabin in the mountains of east Tennessee I closed it up tight when I left it during the winter. Come spring when I returned it looked like a SciFi movie scene inside. everything was green and black. Vent it, heat it, or air condition it... no buts about it.

[Paul_Guraedy]

Eddy, my brother is also in the air conditioning business (commercial mainly).

I once told him that he was really in the humidity business....most of the time he takes it out and folks feel cooler and more comfortable. I thought that this was some basic rule when he said, ".......told them to add a humidifier and people would feel cooler."

The Ozarks are not as humid as other areas; but, it is something that definitely needs to be controlled in a woodcarving area. For the tools. For the books. For the wood. For the carver!

[Eddy-Smiles]

Paul... Your brother is right on. It all comes down to how many grains of moisture are in the air and how much needs to be removed or added. The psychrometric chart doesn't lie!

[Thomp]

hugh i dont know much of Canada's geography but here in louisiana, most of the 80 year old houses are up on 18-24"pillers because of seasonal water rise... if i was pulling out 2 gallons of water from the shop per day. i would wonder if my yard wasn't draining right...

ive learned years ago about French drainage, where you drain ground water through a 18x18"deep bed of gravel covered with ground filter clothe to a ditch or lower ground area...away from your house or shop...
this will draw away ground water....

our water table is high and for most the year you cant dig a fence post hole without hitting standing water..

[Hugh-P]

I'm on a hill, almost all rock. My shop has vapor barrier inside the insulation, and that prevents the moisture from leaving naturally. Its an on going problem in Canada, the way we have to insulate to keep out the cold in winter, the insulation would be saturated if we didn't put up the vapor barrier. We have moisture removal systems in the house, but never thought about my little shop. Hopefully it will clear up before long. Thanks

[Eddy-Smiles]

Hugh's right Thomp... That's air infiltration and interior condensation that he's dealing with. Without a conditioning system of some kind the dew point in the shop can get to the point where the it theoretically rains inside the shop.

[Paul_Guraedy]

Thomp, I understand where you are coming from. I was raised in Louisiana in days when conditioning the air was accomplished with a window fan. Somebody had to get up and cut the da....uhhh...dad burned thing off in the middle of the night. Otherwise we would find the concrete floor with pools of water all over it.

[Thomp]

paul its still that way,

we put in ac and have to hunt the covers round midnight when it gets down to 79 degreese now....

now aint that progress!

hey hugh good luck with that problem buddy..

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Geez, we have one of those humidifiers to put moisture IN the air LOL........