My new shed

[doug748]

I have just built a garage mainly for the off boat storage of stuff and tools. It has 2 inch timber walls. How do I keep condensation at bay? Should I run a heater (which is cheapest) or dehumidifier, increase insulation ..or what?

 

[alldownwind]

I too have a shed with 2" timber walls. There is no condensation! Two inches of timber is pretty good insulation already.

 

[reeac]

Make sure that you have good ventilation. I built some stables a few years ago and an expert said that they would need good ventilation so I left generous gaps at the eaves and the building is extremely dry. Mind you I use it to store boats rather than horses so that must help.

 

[Amulet]

I have a breezeblock and rendered workshop. (OK actually a double garage, but no car has ever been in it). No insulation, and no heating or dehumidifier. I don't have a significant problem with condensation. I grease up rarely used tools with a rust inhibiting grease, and wrap precious router bits in vapour phase inhibitor paper in their drawer.

I'm surprised that you reckon heating to be a cheap alternative. On cold days I heat my workshop with a propane heater, which is cheap but creates moisture. I still don't seem to have too much of a problem. However, the high humidity seems to interfere with epoxy curing. I have a polythene sheet constructed homemade tent in which I enclose glued assemblies along with an electric oil filled heater to get the glue to go off without heating the whole workshop.

 

[Canopy Locked]

You'll get no condensation from the walls, but what's the roof made of? Tin roof will give you a problem, but if it's standard roof boards with felt covering, then no probs. As the others say, plenty of ventilation!

 

[graham]

The floor is important. Either ventilate under a false wooden floor or put down a damproof membrane under a concrete one.

 

[Norman_E]

I used to have a workshop made of a single skin of blockwork with a flat roof, and found that installing the freezer in it provided heating and prevented condensation on my machine tools, because all the condensation took place on the freezer cabinet instead (because it was the coldest object in the workshop).

 

[gary3029]

I have a garage which the the other half is banned from. I have a lathe and associated equipment. I spend a lot of time in there on boaty or motorbike projects and tried various ways of heating the place cost effective. The best investement was to buy a small pot belly stove of ebay. The chimmney cost more than the stove. I have get two loads of logs per year at a cost of about £60 and that is enough for winter. Quick to light and garage gets very warm. I painted the walls around the stove with some heat reflective paint. I get no moisture build up with the fire and a brew can be on the go all the time.

 

[doug748]

Thanks for the ideas everyone. So far I have found it prettty dry, except for the odd morning. I have spent some happy hours sealing the eaves - I had better get going opening some of them up! Sorry Amulet I did'nt mean to imply that heating was cheap, what I meant to say was...Which is cheapest?. Must watch my punctuation. Cheers.

 

[Gunfleet]

Heating for shed

This reminds me of the true story of the old sailorman with a big shed at the end of a long garden, beyond his orchard even. He lived in Mersea, quite near the West Mersea Yacht Club. He'd done quite well in the city before he'd retired, so the garden was enormous and the shed spectacular, full of boaty stuff, painted Essex Barge Black, sporting its own miniature sail loft in the upper part. Fred, the old man loved the shed. His wife was banned from it, of course. It was a man only zone.
One day, fettling his Seagull outboard, he felt the sap rising, as even old men in Mersea do from time to time. He locked the shed, ran through the orchard, dashed across the lawn, threw open the kitchen door and said, 'come on Marjprie, I can feel the sap rising.' Marjorie hitched herself on the kitchen table, undid a few stays, straps and buttons, managed eventually to get her mains'l lowered by which time, if Fred hadn't forgotten what he'd come for - and of course he hadn't - he'd lost the stiffening of his resolve.
'I tell you what, Marjorie, ' says the old sailor with the big shed at the end of the lawn and through the orchard, from which his wife was banned, 'Don't muck about in future. If you see me running across the lawn, you hitch up on that table, get the mains'l lowered and be ready by the time I get here.'

Marjorie was a willing and dutiful wife, and kept her eye on the locked shed door, across the lawn and through the orchard. She had her own sap rising from time to time too, and she felt there must be more to life than baking scones while Fred fettles the Seagull. So she built up the Rayburn with coal every day, just in case they should catch a chill when the hour of action finally arrived. She was a careful woman, but she had her needs, and she didn't want to catch her death of cold seeing to them. Sure enough, as Marjorie suspected, ione day the chance came. She was in the kitchen, adding yet another scuttle full of coal and hoping for some relief. She bent and poked and riddled and shoved at that Rayburn until she was red in the face. She was all hot and bothered, Marjorie realised as she stood. And for a brief moment she realised this was the moment - her sap was rising too. Would Fred read her thoughts, locked behind his black painted Essex wood door with his seagull in his arms? She looked at the shed wistfully, but it was firmly locked. 'Him and that Seagull,' thought Marjorie, and turned back to rolling her dough with a long, strong, thick, ever so slightly chilled rolling pin. 'He is willing to serve galvanised rigging better than he is willing to serve me.'
Then, as her grip tightened on the marble surface of the pin, she heard a yell. Marjorie turned She saw Fred, the sailor with the shed from which she was banned, leave the shed and for once not even bother locking it. Was her luck in at last? He ran, puffing like the old man he was from the shed, through the orchard and across the lawn. All the time he was running Marjorie was stripping off. Aprons, skirts underskirts, corsets, liberty bodice, the whole shebang came off, so that by the time Fred reached the kitchen Marjorie was as naked as the day she was born, flat out on the kitchen table. Fred gave her a disdainfull look and said






'There's no time for that now, Marjorie, the chimney's afire.'


The moral? Don't ban your wife from your shed, of course.