Shop dehumidifier

[shawn]

Humidity levels are affected by air infiltration and vapor drive, not insulation. You can regulate the RH in a plastic bag sitting in your front yard on a 100f day, no problem. If you have an insulated garage with leaky door seals and no vapor barrier under the slab, maintaining RH will be a constant battle.

 

[justjeepin86]

Circling back around to this for those interested. My garage door is definitely a source of leaking air into my shop. I found that my wall mount 220v a/c unit would not keep the humidity down. I think the main problem is when it was not cooling, like the temp outside wasn't too bad. My mother in law had a dehumidifier she gave me last week. I threw it in there just for giggles. I was able to turn the temp up on my a/c unit for it to not run so much and it feels much better in there. Not the perfect scenario, but it looks like it will work for me.

 

[RatLabGuy]

Fyi you can get mini splits that have a dehumidifier mode just for this purpose

 

[justjeepin86]

Fyi you can get mini splits that have a dehumidifier mode just for this purpose

Yep, but I have to buy that. If I need to replace something, that may be the road I go down.

 

[OnlyOneDR]

Circling back around to this for those interested. My garage door is definitely a source of leaking air into my shop. I found that my wall mount 220v a/c unit would not keep the humidity down. I think the main problem is when it was not cooling, like the temp outside wasn't too bad. My mother in law had a dehumidifier she gave me last week. I threw it in there just for giggles. I was able to turn the temp up on my a/c unit for it to not run so much and it feels much better in there. Not the perfect scenario, but it looks like it will work for me.

The side seals for standard doors are not expensive, you can replace the bottom seals very easily. I added both of those and skinny D-shape EDPM foam seals in-between each door segment to seal all of it. My garage without any climate or humidity controls can stay reasonable in the summer and not freezing in the winter. I re-use every single one of those little desiccant bags that come with everything you buy and dump them in all my tool drawers to keep everything from getting rusty. If your garage does not have a ceiling then you will want to look at how you are ventilating the attic space; eave vents, roof vents, power vents will all let air and moisture in. If there is a ceiling them make sure there are seals on any openings going up (like an attic stair) to stop the flow of air into the space.