Garage condensation - help and advise desperately needed
Discussion
Hi all
I’m in desperate need of some help, and am suffering full blown anxiety attack over my garage, which has just broken out in pretty extreme condensation for the first time.
So I noticed this morning that everything metal or plastic in my garage was covered in condensation/beads of water and soaking. On top of this the entire floor which has some hard pvc interlocking tiles fitted over the concrete is soaked all over and it just seems to keep building up more and more on the floor tiles in particular. Upon first discovering it I I tried to wipe down what I could as well as the floors. but it doesn’t seems to have helped, the floor tiles for example returned to being wet again within a couple of hours.
I’ve read people suggesting a dehumidifier, so I’ve put the one we have from our house out in the garage tonight and so far had it running for almost 6 hours. The garage floor is still soaked and the air humidity doesn’t seem to have dropped at all (started at 90, still resting at 90) air temperature is about 9 degrees in there as of early hours of the morning/right now. I did tape over the vents and push some plastic wrap under the garage door to try to reduce pulling in outside air where possible though may not have done a great job, and certainly haven’t sealed around the entire door etc, but since 6 hours later and I’m seemingly no better off, can still see new condensation formed on tiles I’d wiped already since humidifier was running, and the humidity is still measuring the same.
As an aside as this hadn’t happened before I wondered - why now? The floor tiles were laid about 14 months ago so have seen a full winter before and so what has changed that could have triggered it? A few things that I wondered if could be relevant:
1. we just had pretty cold weather for a week and snow which stayed present for a few days, followed by sudden rain and increase temps overnight and we currently have generally high humidity to boot (90% outside right now)
2. For the past 2 days I was doing some jobs on the car outside and had the garage door open for several hours on each day (this during rain today, and very cold day yesterday with snow still on ground outside) - not sure if this could have been a catalyst??
3. We had mushroom vents installed a few months ago into the ceilings as the timber roof by the house builder as the timber roof had a little damp/some mold spores that were previously treated after a little damp 2 years ago was noticed on the ceiling shortly after moving in (this seemed to sort it self out and was generally fairly dry for past 18 months, but as other houses on the development had experienced issues the house builder offered to install additional mushroom ventilation in ceiling on all the garages so when offered we accepted on their recommendation.
So a bit of details on the garage that may also be useful . My house is a new build 2.5 years old, and the garage is on the side where it shares about 80% of one side of its wall with the house. It is of single brick construction and shares just the one wall with the house. Up and over door to front and personel door to rear. Two vents to front above door and two to rear at equivalent height. 6 mushroom vents in ceiling. No windows. Wooden flat roof with some kind of plasticy looking coating on the roof (not sure what this really is). It’s a very basic garage. Inside the garage floor sits about 5 inches lower than The ground level of the garden patio and house and there are some areas of the garage internal brickwork that feel a little damp below the dpc. Their is a guttering down pipe that and garage guttering down pipe that run the ground near the rear corner to a soak away that may be contributing to a bit of damp in one area of the brickwork below dpc - but honestly I don’t know.
I’m at a total loss of what’s happened here and why now all of sudden and what to do. I had hoped putting the dehumidifier in there tonight I’d see the levels dropping but they haven’t dropped even by 1% and the condensation is still continuing to build allover the floor tiles. I lifted some other floor tiles and they seem dry underneath.
Appreciate any help and advise, I’m getting seriously stressed out by it, I thought chucking in the dehumidifier would start to bring the humidity down slowly after a few hours, but nothing so far…
I’m in desperate need of some help, and am suffering full blown anxiety attack over my garage, which has just broken out in pretty extreme condensation for the first time.
So I noticed this morning that everything metal or plastic in my garage was covered in condensation/beads of water and soaking. On top of this the entire floor which has some hard pvc interlocking tiles fitted over the concrete is soaked all over and it just seems to keep building up more and more on the floor tiles in particular. Upon first discovering it I I tried to wipe down what I could as well as the floors. but it doesn’t seems to have helped, the floor tiles for example returned to being wet again within a couple of hours.
I’ve read people suggesting a dehumidifier, so I’ve put the one we have from our house out in the garage tonight and so far had it running for almost 6 hours. The garage floor is still soaked and the air humidity doesn’t seem to have dropped at all (started at 90, still resting at 90) air temperature is about 9 degrees in there as of early hours of the morning/right now. I did tape over the vents and push some plastic wrap under the garage door to try to reduce pulling in outside air where possible though may not have done a great job, and certainly haven’t sealed around the entire door etc, but since 6 hours later and I’m seemingly no better off, can still see new condensation formed on tiles I’d wiped already since humidifier was running, and the humidity is still measuring the same.
As an aside as this hadn’t happened before I wondered - why now? The floor tiles were laid about 14 months ago so have seen a full winter before and so what has changed that could have triggered it? A few things that I wondered if could be relevant:
1. we just had pretty cold weather for a week and snow which stayed present for a few days, followed by sudden rain and increase temps overnight and we currently have generally high humidity to boot (90% outside right now)
2. For the past 2 days I was doing some jobs on the car outside and had the garage door open for several hours on each day (this during rain today, and very cold day yesterday with snow still on ground outside) - not sure if this could have been a catalyst??
3. We had mushroom vents installed a few months ago into the ceilings as the timber roof by the house builder as the timber roof had a little damp/some mold spores that were previously treated after a little damp 2 years ago was noticed on the ceiling shortly after moving in (this seemed to sort it self out and was generally fairly dry for past 18 months, but as other houses on the development had experienced issues the house builder offered to install additional mushroom ventilation in ceiling on all the garages so when offered we accepted on their recommendation.
So a bit of details on the garage that may also be useful . My house is a new build 2.5 years old, and the garage is on the side where it shares about 80% of one side of its wall with the house. It is of single brick construction and shares just the one wall with the house. Up and over door to front and personel door to rear. Two vents to front above door and two to rear at equivalent height. 6 mushroom vents in ceiling. No windows. Wooden flat roof with some kind of plasticy looking coating on the roof (not sure what this really is). It’s a very basic garage. Inside the garage floor sits about 5 inches lower than The ground level of the garden patio and house and there are some areas of the garage internal brickwork that feel a little damp below the dpc. Their is a guttering down pipe that and garage guttering down pipe that run the ground near the rear corner to a soak away that may be contributing to a bit of damp in one area of the brickwork below dpc - but honestly I don’t know.
I’m at a total loss of what’s happened here and why now all of sudden and what to do. I had hoped putting the dehumidifier in there tonight I’d see the levels dropping but they haven’t dropped even by 1% and the condensation is still continuing to build allover the floor tiles. I lifted some other floor tiles and they seem dry underneath.
Appreciate any help and advise, I’m getting seriously stressed out by it, I thought chucking in the dehumidifier would start to bring the humidity down slowly after a few hours, but nothing so far…
Edited by gro8885 on Tuesday 20th December 04:43
You'll be pleased to know you're not alone. Blame the weather.
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Good air circulation will help - however the only way to stop it completely is to heat your garage to a constant temperature, to reduce the differential between the outside temperature (as it warms up) and the cold items in the garage. Especially at this time of year where there are big temperature fluctuations.
If you do decide to use a heater, don't use a gas-fired one as they produce a lot of moisture as the gas burns.
If you do decide to use a heater, don't use a gas-fired one as they produce a lot of moisture as the gas burns.
Gro8885 said:
I did tape over the vents and push some plastic wrap under the garage door to try to reduce pulling in outside air where possible
Reducing fresh air will make it worse. Remove this tape and have a good look to see if there are any blockages in the gutters that could be causing water to run down the outside walls. What's the construction of your garage? If it's got a metal roof or sides it will likely sweat like a b
h. You could get some polystyrene boards for the roof, as a cheap and easy starter for 10. The insulation will help maintain a more constant temperature (it won't be warm but it will be stable).
h. You could get some polystyrene boards for the roof, as a cheap and easy starter for 10. The insulation will help maintain a more constant temperature (it won't be warm but it will be stable). 
Thanks for the photos
Depends how far you want to go - if you insulated between the flat roof joists you would then need to ensure ventilation above the insulation - you could potentially cut in some air bricks. You could use the existing felt (from here it looks more like felt - could be wrong) as your Vapour control layer and insulate over with a new roof covering - forming a "warm" roof.
You could line the inside face of the walls with insulation backed plasterboard, or (because you wouldn't be able to fix things to the wall without really long screws!) you could form a studwork frame, say 50 x 75mm studs turned sideways, insulated between with insulation board, staple fix a polythene vapour barrier over, and line with ply to give you something to fix to. I appreciate that takes away a bit of floor space, so on the piers perhaps go quite thin. For best results you would need to "link" the wall insulation to the roof insulation (i.e. line all the way up the walls to the underside of the flat roof.) Get some heat in there with background ventilation, and run the dehumidifier again to get the moisture levels down. After that, you could install a mechanical extractor fan with humidistat function on it.
As I say, it's how far you want to go with things!
Depends how far you want to go - if you insulated between the flat roof joists you would then need to ensure ventilation above the insulation - you could potentially cut in some air bricks. You could use the existing felt (from here it looks more like felt - could be wrong) as your Vapour control layer and insulate over with a new roof covering - forming a "warm" roof.
You could line the inside face of the walls with insulation backed plasterboard, or (because you wouldn't be able to fix things to the wall without really long screws!) you could form a studwork frame, say 50 x 75mm studs turned sideways, insulated between with insulation board, staple fix a polythene vapour barrier over, and line with ply to give you something to fix to. I appreciate that takes away a bit of floor space, so on the piers perhaps go quite thin. For best results you would need to "link" the wall insulation to the roof insulation (i.e. line all the way up the walls to the underside of the flat roof.) Get some heat in there with background ventilation, and run the dehumidifier again to get the moisture levels down. After that, you could install a mechanical extractor fan with humidistat function on it.
As I say, it's how far you want to go with things!
That's annoying!
I had something somewhat similar in my 70s built single garage which used to be attached to next door's garage. They knocked it down and rebuilt 6 inches away a 2 story extension. This exposed my single brick wall of garage to rain and spray which came down between thir extension and it. I resolved it by using some waterproof slurry stuff along the bottom 12 inches of wall and onto the floor by similar distance.
But as almost all garages are single brick I'd imagine my problem was specifically due to the rain being driven between the walls, and no drainage at ground level in that gap either (concrete :/).
Someone clever might correct me here but I'm sure I was using a damp meter probe thing - used primarily to test how dry wood is - when trying to diagnose damp bricks.
Internal floor being below outside never sounds good. But my solution above I imagine would work for that too, as this stuff is used to coat basements.
I had something somewhat similar in my 70s built single garage which used to be attached to next door's garage. They knocked it down and rebuilt 6 inches away a 2 story extension. This exposed my single brick wall of garage to rain and spray which came down between thir extension and it. I resolved it by using some waterproof slurry stuff along the bottom 12 inches of wall and onto the floor by similar distance.
But as almost all garages are single brick I'd imagine my problem was specifically due to the rain being driven between the walls, and no drainage at ground level in that gap either (concrete :/).
Someone clever might correct me here but I'm sure I was using a damp meter probe thing - used primarily to test how dry wood is - when trying to diagnose damp bricks.
Internal floor being below outside never sounds good. But my solution above I imagine would work for that too, as this stuff is used to coat basements.
gro8885 said:
Hi all
I’m in desperate need of some help, and am suffering full blown anxiety attack over my garage, which has just broken out in pretty extreme condensation for the first time.
Appreciate any help and advise, I’m getting seriously stressed out by it,
I’m in desperate need of some help, and am suffering full blown anxiety attack over my garage, which has just broken out in pretty extreme condensation for the first time.
Appreciate any help and advise, I’m getting seriously stressed out by it,
You're seriously allowing a bit of damp in your garage to stress you out to a level where it's triggered a full blown anxiety attack?
The only advise I can offer is ask any reasonably bright 12 year old to explain all about the dew point and what occurs when it's reached to you and listen very carefully if they suggest you open the doors to allow some air to circulate and have some counseling to help you improve your perspective and coping strategies before something that really matters goes horribly wrong in your life...
Yes. Some very odd sights yesterday around the house.
Stone slabs ‘sweating’ and interior water pipes covered in beads of water with odd pools of water about.
All due to a massive temperature swing.
Very unusual circs.
I’d just mop it up and wait for structures to warm up to air temperature.
Stone slabs ‘sweating’ and interior water pipes covered in beads of water with odd pools of water about.
All due to a massive temperature swing.
Very unusual circs.
I’d just mop it up and wait for structures to warm up to air temperature.
Just been out to open my garage doors and windows for the second day in a row. My now-soggy Mazda 787B poster has curled up in protest!
As has been said it's simply the power of Mother Nature at work, with a 20 degree air temperature rise in just a few hours. Metal, concrete and containers containing liquids will take a few days to re-equilibrate.
Unless your garage is airtight with a dehumidifier then get all doors and windows open and ventilate, ventilate, ventilate.
The wind has dropped off today so I have a desk fan going full speed in there.
As has been said it's simply the power of Mother Nature at work, with a 20 degree air temperature rise in just a few hours. Metal, concrete and containers containing liquids will take a few days to re-equilibrate.
Unless your garage is airtight with a dehumidifier then get all doors and windows open and ventilate, ventilate, ventilate.
The wind has dropped off today so I have a desk fan going full speed in there.
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