Greenhouse heater?
Not sure if it would be adequate for your needs, but garden centres sell a paraffin fueled heater which could potentially do the job.
Be careful if you put one of these in the garage near paints or lawnmower fuel, they have a naked flame which could cause a problem.
Andrew
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There's a variety of solutions, depending on what you want to achieve, amount of effort and cost.
I've tried all of these at different times.
If you just have a collection of tools to keep from rusting, then a simple wipe with an oily rag after use will work reasonably. For larger tools - especially machinery, there are sprays that work effectively - Rocol make a range of these.
Another option is to make or obtain a storage cupboard for all the important tools. You can insulate it a little with styrofoam sheet and put a small greenhouse tubular heater with a thermostat in the bottom.
A better solution is to use a small dehumidifier in the cupboard. These are under £100 from the DIY sheds. I found this very effective for stored tools. The model I have has a humidistat to turn it on and off as required.
I then tried it in the garage as a whole but found much less effective. It also ran quite a lot more of the time, although limiting ventilation helped with that. Presumably the reduced air changes meant less fresh air to dehumidify.
As I started to use the garage more and more as a workshop, it became apparent that heating it when required with fan heaters really wasn't on. In the winter I would turn on three fan heaters and wait for an hour before I could go out and do much. In fact, when I worked out the heat loss, about 12-15kW would really be needed to make it warm enough to work comfortably. With electricity at over 5p a unit, this becomes expensive.
Last year I insulated the walls, doors and roof with Celotex. This brings heat loss down to the same kind of range as a house, so the heat requirement falls to about 4-5kW and would be more sensible with electricity.
I went an extra step and installed a heating circuit for the workshop which is connected via a heat exchanger to the house CH system. This has a separate control and thermostat system which basically runs a setback temperature of 13 degrees and a working temperature of 18 degrees. I can over-ride this when I like and the workshop is up to temperature very quickly.
.andy
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I've got a double-width garage which has two steel up-and-over doors at the front. I've always believed that significant heat loss occurs through those doors and wondered if there would be any mileage in trying to insulate them - say with small sections of polystyrene glued to their back?
I've also thought about replacing the up-and-overs with wooden doors. Quite a lot of work there though.
Andrew
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We had an enormous roll-up door at the factory, which created equally enormous temperature problems in both winter and summer. I built a large wooden frame around it, as a support for sheets of builder's polythene. Part of the frame could be unbolted and removed if ever we needed to get stuff through the door. We had an inside/outside thermometer either side of the polythene. I don't remember the exact numbers, but recall something like up to a 10C difference during cold days in winter.
This, together with draughts I found to be the largest heat loss, although I have wooden doors.
I attached 50mm Celotex in panels to the inside and then covered in light ply.
According to the manufacturer's specs. the insulation on its own gives a U value of about 0.45.
To get the equivalent out of polystyrene would need about 100mm thickness .andy
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I didn't know that! I was thinking of getting one last winter, glad I didn't.
I'm trying to think why they would chuck out water vapour. Can you elaborate?
Andrew
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Insulated and sealed garage doors are available.
I was thinking of doing something similar to my garage door. What advantage does the ply give? Is it just to protect the celotex or am I missing something obvious? How did you attatch the Celotex? My door is metal so I was thinking of using carpet laying tape or Gripfill. Finally how much is Celotex? I've looked on the web but can't find any prices.
Cheers
Mark Spice
It's really to protect the Celotex, Mark, although it's also there as a base so that I can add sound deadening material later if I need it. It also helps to hold the Celotex in place.
My doors are wood to the exterior with a steel frame behind. Annoyingly, the steel frame has braces which run diagonally across the doors from corner to corner.
What I did was to first of all cut the pieces of Celotex to fit the spaces between the steel frame. I stuck them in place using Gripfill. I made a timber frame which sits on the steel one - fitted with self tap screws. The depth of the steel frame plus the wooden one comes to 50mm - the same as the thickness of Celotex.
I then fitted the (12mm) ply to the wooden frame, fully encasing the Celotex.
I just bought some more Celotex a couple of days ago for another project and paid about £17 a sheet (2440 x 1220) for it from Jewsons.
You can cut Celotex very easily with a circular saw - use an old blade though because it does blunt them. For small and awkward pieces, I use a serrated bread knife. It is better to try and cut it all the way through though rather than trying to score and snap it. The thicker sheets have glass fibre strands for rigidity and these tend to stop the sheet snapping cleanly.
.andy
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My experiences with domestic de-humidifiers was that they really only performed well if the temperature was warm.
For hand tools a wall cupboard with an electric bulb in the base and the tools arrayed on racks works fine for me. The bulb is controlled by a simple thermostat plugged into the 13amp socket.
For machinery I have found nothing to equal Boeshield,
Spray it on and wipe it off if the machine will see regular use.
Spray it on and leave it on if the machine only receives intermittant use.
I have found WD40 useless for rust prevention unless one is prepared to re-spray very regularly.
The machine wax polish that Axminster sells isn't up to much. It doesn't even seem to give a good slippery surface on planer tables and such like
I have found covering machines effective also. It may be my imagination but the cast iron on certain machines seems to be more prone to rusting than others. In particular I have an Italian bandsaw on which the cast iron table would rust amazingly. I made a simple plywood cover for it and gave it a light spray of Boeshield T9 over a year ago and it is still fine.
I sprayed the round fence bar with Boeshield and left it on. It too has survived rust free.
I tend to spray all hidden bare metal areas on machines with Boeshield now. That way even if one forgets to check them regularly they stand a good chance of surviving rust free.
Previously I had tried the various sprays supplied by Axminster as palliatives but none were as good as Boeshield.
Paul Mc Cann
Hello Paul
Where do you get this stuff? Does it have any effect on the wood with respect to later finishes?
thanks
.andy
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Andy,
I obtained it in a local ships chandlery. The rag and stick brigade use it on their rigging.
Previously I got it on a visit stateside
The label says 'Boeshield T-9, manufactured by PMS Products inc, Holland, Ml., USA 49424 '
Developed by Boeing apparently
Aa quick Google turned up this
Paul
I turned this up also
Paul
Thanks very much Paul.
Useful. Thanks
.andy
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