Go Bottom

no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
Foghorn
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 21 Lake Anna, VA
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster

2003-09-24          64777


I'm about to build a garage on an existing garage slab which was poured 6 years ago. I just found out from a neighbor, who was there when the slab was poured, that they didn't lay a vapor barrier. What are my options now from keeping my tractor, tools etc... from rusting?

Thanks - Foghorn




Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 928 Rio Rancho, NM 87144
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster  View my Photos  Pics

2003-09-24          64779


On the farm, we stored tractors in a pole barn that had a gravel floor. It was not a problem. At least the equipment was inside out of the weather and that makes the biggest difference.

....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 928 Rio Rancho, NM 87144
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster  View my Photos  Pics

2003-09-24          64780


With respect to tools, it is another matter.

You can seal the floor with Epoxy paint.
Keep some airflow to keep humidity from building.
Use a portable dehumidifier.

Use rust inhibitor chips in your toolbox.
Keep an oil film on machine tool surfaces. ....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster

2003-09-25          64801


AC's tricks likely would manage any problems. If not, eaves troughs and extended downspouts well away from the building would help as well as improving the drainage or tiling around the building would help if there's still a problem. Figuring out the drainage pattern on part of our place and cutting a 40' swale made a lot of difference to how damp our garage is. Figuring out the drainage pattern is how I knew that water levels are useful in checking between points that don't have a sight line that I mentioned in another thread. The level also told me how deep I had to make the swale. ....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster  View my Photos  Pics

2003-09-25          64806


The biggest problem is NOt from vapour migrating through the floor, what will kill your stuff in short order however is the heat/cool cycling.

If you do not keep the building heated there will be considerable condensation formed on anything with a bit of mass which will take longer to warm. Likewise after you stop heating the space, the objects with some mass to them, and therefore the ability to hold heat longer than air, will be covered by condensation. It is this process which does the bulk of the damage.

The only two ways to prevent this happening are to keep the space heated, or keep the humididty low, a room-type portable de-humidifier might just do the trick, if nothing else it will help trap moisture before it can get to you equipment.

Best of luck. ....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
blizzard
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 282 Central Maine
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster  View my Photos  Pics

2003-09-25          64808


I agree with Murf about heating the woodshed. The only reliable way to prevent rusting besides oiling/greasing all bare iron and steel is to keep the metal temperature above the dew point. Any added water vapor from the slab will raise the dew point over the outside air, but ventilation will help. In my unheated but very well ventilated woodshed everything rusts! Often in the winter there is a film of ice covering all surfaces, especially when there is a rapid warming, as the beginning of an ice storm or 'January thaw'. Makes for some slippery logs!

Keep warm.
bliz ....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster  View my Photos  Pics

2003-09-25          64815


With out heat and complete vapor barrier there is little to keep the heat cycling from causing condensation. Here we get the extreme of cool weather and then the warm moist air arriving from the gulf of Mexico.
The moisture will condense on the cool cement floor and it can rain inside the barn with a metal roof. Heat/air conditioning is the only way of preventing problems.
Machinist tool boxes are wood for a reason. It is best to look for wood or plastic boxes to store your tools in.
....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster

2003-09-26          64890


Don't know: I get frost on everything the middle of winter and there's a lot of fog spring and fall. Neither my equipment nor tools rust in the garage or shed. I suppose that's because there's enough oil on them just from use and I spray anything I think will rust and not be used frequently with anti-rust stuff. Well, I do keep my micrometers etc. in the house, and I don't wash the tractor.

Heating a garage would cure the problem but it sure would be expensive around here. A box with a light bulb or small heater in it would work for the tools.
....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster  View my Photos  Pics

2003-09-26          64901


One of the golf courses we do work for has built a rather unique system for their equipment building.

It is basically a very basic home-made geothermal heat pump. They pump water off the bottom of a deep pond and through a series of car radiators enclosed in a sheet metal box. A conventional squirrel cage type blower recirulates air through the whole apparatus. While the building is fairly well insulated & draft-proof it otherwise unheated except for a little solar gain. This system keeps the shed at a minimum of 40 deg.'s F. regardless of how cold it gets outside. This might not be warm enough for working, but it keeps everything above the freezing point.

The system was originally installed (as was mine) to act as an air-conditioner & de-humidifier, the winter use was an after thought.

Best of luck. ....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster

2003-09-27          64952


Sounds a bit like reverse of an idea I had awhile back but never started. I wanted to make a heat exchanger and reservoir for our well feed. What I wanted is warmer output water so the electric hot water heater wouldn't run so much. I wouldn't want to run drinking water through old rads and they wouldn't take the pressure anyway. I heard that some old-time shiners (or is it mooners?) used them for still condensers--really a bad idea)!

I had a general idea of mounting a bunch of small diameter thin-walled copper pipe between two bases so there'd be enough volume to stay in the pipes awhile and let convection warm it up. Don't know if this passive idea would do much or if more elabourate active ideas would be worth it.

The connection here is that my water heater also would produce condensate and would cool and dehumidify the basement a bit, at least in the summer. ....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster  View my Photos  Pics

2003-09-29          65073


There is a company called Sedore which manufactures a nifty unit, the fire burns sideways not vertically, drawing wood down from a hopper in the top of the stove. The hoppper allows up to 24hrs. burn time from a single load, it will burn almost anything, wood, pellets, corn, even corn cobs & sawdust.

The biggest benefit being that once it is running you can load the hopper with greeen wood and by the time it gets to the fire it is already dry.

They also make a model with a water jacket, I'm not sure if it is approved for potable water, but I do know several people who use them in conjunction with a circulation pump and radiators to spread the heat to other rooms.

There is no reason you couldn't use the hot water from such a unit to pre-heat the water in a storage tank. In fact they make, as strange as it sounds, hot water-fired water heaters, actually a water-to-water heat exchanger, for people who use a boiler to heat the house and domestic hot water. In your case the woodstove would pre-heat then keep the water in the storage tank warm (hot?) until the water heater called for it, then you would only pay to heat it from that point up to what you desire. If you used much hot water and kept a fire going anyways the savings could be substantial.

Best of luck. ....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo



no vapor barrier in garage slab

View my Photos
TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
TractorPoint Premium Member -- 5 Tractors = Very Frequent Poster

2003-09-30          65114


Murf: A few people around here have conventional outdoor wood furnaces that work pretty good and both heat the house and hot water. They do have reputations of being wood hogs compared to efficient indoor stoves. We've thought about these things since firewood is cheap and available here. A 24-hour hopper sounds like a good idea. People here are forever taking breaks from do's to go feed the stove. I guess my brother-in-law manages his 14 hour shifts through artful banking of his stove.

The idea I had took off from a friend who has an oil water heater. The burner seemed to click on about every time they turned on the hot water. A plumber installed a holding tank and that seemed to cure the problem. I guess a bigger pressure tank would do the same. I had the notion of trying to increase the efficiency of the holding tank idea mostly be getting more surface to air contact. Using waste heat from a freezer is a more active idea. No air conditioners here or they'd make good sources of waste heat.

I did a bit of looking at waste heat recovery a few years back. The water to water units for potable water use were expensive. I think the issue is how to prevent or at least know if there's internal leakage between the systems--it would be possible to put wastewater into the drinking water if the well pump failed.
....


Reply to | Quote Post Reply to PostQuote Reply | Add PhotoAdd Photo


   Go Top


Share This







Member Login