Is your garage airtight or draughty

As some know on here I had my garage built this year and previously I always kept my car in a heated warehouse.

My dilemma (if you can call it that) is I don't know whether to leave my garage as is with a draught under the doors and trusses on show (see my profile pic), or whether to panel it out and have it totally airtight, my brother has several motorbikes and has a draughty garage in winter and says he has had no problems at all with rust

Now what has got me thinking is my friend came round yesterday who has lathes and other engineering stuff, and said I should leave it as it is, last summer he draught proofed his garage when he replaced some of his gear and that winter it was covered in surface rust due to no ventilation with temperature changes

Obviously spending £500 panneling it out and totally draught proofing it is going to save potentially huge costs of corrosion etc... on a Ferrari.

I just want your general opinion of how you have your garage, this thread could be of good advice to owners.

 

Pete, mines draught proof / paneled, if you go this route you'll need to sink a few hundred into heating/dehumidifying to keep things tip top........for a professional opinion you may want to track down Ray Ferguson (rayf430 i think)

 

If you have some airflow through the garage, leave it, condensation only forms when the air is still.

Best solution is a Carcoon.

 

I think thats what I will do, I do have a dehumidifier in there, but I don't know how uneconomical it is to have it on all the while

I had thought about a Carcoon Steve but my friend said a bit of ventilation works just as good and is 'free'

 

I've got no heating in there at all, I have one of those tubes that you can use in a garage or greenhouse, but they just eliminate frost and won't 'heat' it, I do have a dehumidifier but I think they are useless if it is draughty

 

I would seal the garage but still have ventilation (have to have some air movement) and have a carcoon - best of both worlds.

Modern 'bikes have very little that will rust as they are made from alloys (aluminium, magnesium etc) very little iron/steel.

 

My garage is an old (100 years or so) workshop. Corrigated roof, doors you can squeeze through without opening

Dont have a problem with rust - there's two bikes and a westfield in there too, and I dont have any problems. My last house was a new build and a good, well sealed garage, everything rusted.... make of that what you will but I wouldnt be too concerned....

 

Thanks for the comments.

One thought, if I do seal it airtight will I need it heated or would it be ok heating naturally, or maybe put a couple of vents (one each end)

 

my garage is integral with the house, albeit about 1-1/2 garages long, many years ago I converted it to an office and so laid carpet and installed a radiator fed from the house,. upon returning to a garage loathed to chuck out the carpet, a dark blue, left it down,( looks posh) I have kept restored Jaguar MK2 's in show condition, Nissans which rust if you look at them and now Ferrari's, never a problem, the up and over door of course lets in air etc, the carpet keeps the warmth all year round and dust to a min, the rad heats the garage without dampness, I put a dehmidifier in last year for 2 days and nothing came of it, so seems to be the best result,
down side is £500 of Axminster and £200 of plumbing I suppose, but it great at 3 am when you cant sleep and sneak down with the wax and cloth to a carpeted snug warm garage!!
or is that sad.
js

 

Makes perfect sense........now underfloor heating in your garage is a little sad but it makes crawling around cleaning the underneath sooooooo much nicer

 

Nice one John,
Maybe I should put the car in the office..? cheers for the PM.
Im using a carcoon so I guess that makes me draughty. (or too much curry!)

 

You have the perfect garage - integral to the house. When I lived in Hackney my integral garage was surrounded by nice warm flats and was as dry as the Sahara Desert. (I nearly made reference to a Nuns crutch but thought that may be lowering the tone a tad ).
I now have a separate double garage and it is a complete & utter nightmare keeping it dry throughout the winter months. I tried the airflow approach not sealing gaps between doors etc, but found that condensation collected on the car and if the conditions were not right the car would not dry off fully.
The best solution I found was to make a homemade carcoon, by partioning off part of the garage using a huge roll of bubble wrap. I then stuck a de-humidifier in with it and all was well but it's a lot of messing about.

If you do go for the sealing the garage off and de-humdifier approach it is well worth insulating your garage as temperatue changes & damp air are you enemy. The insulation will make the temperatue swings less dramatic.

 

I have heard of using carpets before, its great until you spill oil on it, I have a seperate garage so heating is a bit of a problem
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I wasn't too sure if a dehumidifier would work too well if a garages natural temperature is near freezing even if I did seal it thoroughly, sealing wouldn't be a problem, just a few hundred to get my brother to do it all

 

Damp rises through concrete, another thing using a Carcoon controls.

If you want some pics of my Carcoon in action, pm me your email address.

 

Thanks Steve, I have seen Carcoons, I've seen them in various classic mags also at car shows.

I was going to get the concrete sealed, or possibly Bitumen it then lay some rubber tiles down (see below, I liked the chequered flag effect)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Rubber-Flooring-tiles-rubber-mats-kids-play-mat_W0QQitemZ140034688091QQihZ004QQcategoryZ20604QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

Actually you've got me thinking now, heres some on fleabay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CAR-CAPSULE-CAR-BUBBLE-CAR-COVER-CAR-STORAGE_W0QQitemZ140035065159QQihZ004QQcategoryZ72202QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Carcoon-size-5-indoor-air-chamber-car-storage-system_W0QQitemZ300029822085QQihZ020QQcategoryZ72202QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CARCOON-EVOLUTION-CAR-STORAGE-SYSTEM_W0QQitemZ140033359242QQihZ004QQcategoryZ72202QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ROLLS-ROYCE-CARCOON-NEVER-BEEN-USED_W0QQitemZ160033913111QQihZ006QQcategoryZ72202QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

Nice garage Pete. The glass doors are a great idea.

 

My thoughts are that if the garage is sealed and the de-humidifier is running whilst the air temperatue is above freezing your are removing any moisture. When the temperatue drops to a level where the de-humidifier is ineffective there is no moisture in the air (in your sealed garage) to condense on the car.

Stevew - good point about damp rising through the concrete floor...

 

My garage is attached. I have not noticed any damp problems, maybe there is something in that.

 

My brother got them for an extension at his place and never used them, he also mismeasured the degree/pitch on his 12 trusses, so I bought the lot off of him and built the garage to suit, i've just got to get the garden and gates sorted now to look nice

 

If you are going down the Carcoon route, go for the Evolution range, the one above with the Austin in is a very old version.

 

Thanks Andy, maybe I'll do a google search on atmospherics etc... to see the effects

Thats why I thought about the rubber tiles I wrote earlier

 

Thanks Steve, hence why they are a sensible price

 

Yes, but thinking about future maintenance, IIRC the very eary Carcoons had the fans sown in, whereas the later ones are removable in the event of failure.Like I said, not 100% sure on that because I haven't seen an early one for a few years, but deffo worth checking out.