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Up here in the great white north there are lots of heated garages. I am told, but can’t testify to it, that much of the rust and related problems come from two areas.
Cold air rushes into heated garage, hits warm metal (tools) and condenses on the tools. This moisture leads to rust.
Cold car covered in road slush, snow and salt comes into heated garage, all of this melts off while car is parked. Heat and sublimation cause moisture to evaporate and raise humidity leading to rust. Salt in the water being a contributing factor.
Solutions include never parking in garage just use it as a shop (my personal technique although the wife doesn’t appreciate it). A drain in the floor to take away any melt. Keeping all tools oiled, covered, in boxes etc. Seperate tool area, shop in garage which is sealed from all of the moisture sources and cold air.
Hope this helps
Scott
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Like to hear from people who've lived with heated garages for awhile in cold territories.
You know the horror stories about cars and tools rusting out quicker: true/false?
I'd be heating the space with hot water (suspended heater/fan unit) and the garage is attached and well insulated.
*Pros: 1) Warm 2) WarmCons: 1) Expensive 2) Expensive
*Phil. if you like to putz in the garage, expense wise it's a hell of a lot cheaper than going out drinking. It's a lot easier to get interested in going out to work on whatever if you're going to be comfortable. Joe H
*1) Weather-seal around the doors and make sure the tracks are properly positioned. Makes a huge difference2) Use some sort of shop-floor to get you off the concrete (e.g. wooden mechanic's grating, woven rubber matting, thick rubber shop tiles, ... lots of options.3) Radiant heating is generally a more economical way to go. Even a couple of directional heat-lamps can raise the comfort level without having to raise the temperature of the whole garage.4) Yes, you could have some serious issues with moisture control and condensation.5) Don't use a regular coat (sweaty, cumbersome, always too hot or too cold, hard to clean, etc.); one light and one heavy sweater (either or both as the temerature dictates) and a shop-coat to keep the sawdust out of the sweaters (a shop-coat wears a heck of a lot better too).6) Millar mitts are okay, but don't wear regular winter gloves around shop equipment while operating them.7) A hair dryer can do wonder for your comfort level (use it to warm up hand-wheels and levers prior to use, use it to dry off condensation, get one with a wall-mount and use it to warm your hands, and warm your feet too)8) Believe it or not, you can dehydrate just as quickly in a cold/semi-heated garage shop as you can working in the summer; but you need a warm drink - my personal choice is apple juice with a little pumpkin-pie spice in a heavy mug and an electric mug warmer also improved the ambiance.9) Invest in a really cheap cooler (even one of those bare styrofoam kind) to keep your adhesives and stuff in. Take it in the house with you when you're not working in the shop. And don't put your adhesives (or paint either) directly onto any of you hard surfaces (e.g. don't put your glue bottle on the cast-iron table for your saw); use a fibre trivet to insulate the containers from the cold surface.Once you get used to it, it's not really all that bad
*One more point. Your concrete garage floor will last a lot longer in a heated garage in climates with very cold weather. Normally you drive in with dripping road salt and melted snow or slush and it hits the floor and soaks into the surface of the concrete. Then it freezes and pops chunks of your floor. I always recommend that people at least insulate the garage if they don't heat it. This usually keeps the temperature just above freezing.
*Up here in the great white north there are lots of heated garages. I am told, but can't testify to it, that much of the rust and related problems come from two areas.Cold air rushes into heated garage, hits warm metal (tools) and condenses on the tools. This moisture leads to rust.Cold car covered in road slush, snow and salt comes into heated garage, all of this melts off while car is parked. Heat and sublimation cause moisture to evaporate and raise humidity leading to rust. Salt in the water being a contributing factor.Solutions include never parking in garage just use it as a shop (my personal technique although the wife doesn't appreciate it). A drain in the floor to take away any melt. Keeping all tools oiled, covered, in boxes etc. Seperate tool area, shop in garage which is sealed from all of the moisture sources and cold air.Hope this helpsScott
*My experience is that tools rust faster when their temperature repeated goes above and then below the dew point so that moisture repeatedly condenses on them. As to cars, I would guess that ice does not promote rust but the resulting water would when the ice melts. Thus allowing a car with ice on it to thaw would hasten rusting. So I guess the solution is to have a shop kept above the dew point and a garage kept just below freezing for the entire winter... Even moving to some place where it never freezes is no guarantee that things won't get rusty. Ruined my trusty old Chevy Suburban by moving to the coast just south of San Francisco for several months. The rust accumulated in that short period of time was rather surprising.