Advice needed - building a warehouse garage

[dantm]

Hi,

So I am in the process of obtaining a warehouse-type building to convert into a garage. Here are the details:

The building is Pre-constructed metal walls, with a metal roof, and three garage doors on one side. There are no windows, and there is a side door on one side for entering/exiting the warehouse.

The total space is about 1,900 sq. ft, and the walls are 12 ft. high.

The flooring is concrete without a basement. On the inside the walls are insulated.

Currently, there is only electricity going to the garage which has been mostly used for overhead fluorescent lights. There is no A/C, heater, ventilation!

My goal is to convert this into a car storage garage and possibly a workspace to be used for repairing cars/etc.

This is located in the northeast so in the winter the place gets around freezing (or slightly below) and in the summer the biggest issue is high humidity and lack of ventilation.

Can you guys recommend a way to set this up? I was thinking that A/C is not feasible since it's a lot of volume to be taken care of (23,000 cu. ft.) and it would not be economically feasible.

One thought I had was to have a cut-out in one of the walls (somewhere close to the ceiling) and adding an industrial-type fan that blows outside-air inward (doing it the other way - blowing air outside) has the issue that dust from outside would accumulate through the doors/cracks/etc.

This would provide ventilation but not air conditioning for any vehicles to be stored here/etc.

Any other thoughts? Ideally I'd like a solution that allows:

(1) ventilation when nobody is present;

(2) control of humidity to a threshold that's acceptable for storing vehicles;

(3) some form of air conditioning (on demand?);

(4) heating for the winter.

This is a huge wish list and I'm sure $$$, so at the least I'd like a way to have ventilation and some form of humidity control.

Thanks!

 

[fasteddie24]

Rather than address all your needs, it would probably be easier for you to just keep reading different posts throughout this site. You'll find all the info you need.

 

[MisterCMK]

Rather than address all your needs, it would probably be easier for you to just keep reading different posts throughout this site. You'll find all the info you need.

Isn't this a discussion board? If everybody said to just search, where would new ideas or information come from?

 

[kbs2244]

First off, storage space and work space are two different things.

The storage requirements are not so much heat, cold, or humidity.
Cars are designed for that.
But you do have to keep critters out.
Mice, chip monks, squirrels, etc will mess up stored stuff by chewing and nesting in very strange places.

Seal everything very well, and get a couple of cats.

Then I would wall off a smaller space for the workshop.
That is where you will have your comfort concerns.

 

[dantm]

Thanks guys!

With regards to humidity; there was an issue last year where two cars stored over the summer started to develop mold spores on the interior leather. For sure that was humidity related. We cleaned that with a leather product and it's all gone away but I'm sure it will be back by end of this summer...

My longer term goal is to develop that into a storage/workshop area and yes - I agree that different sections might have different issues with regards to cooling/heating and so on.

For now I just want to get some form of air flow/etc. to make sure the cars do not get destroyed while in there.

For pest control we're getting some exterminators in shortly; what is a typical schedule to do this (time interval/how often/etc.)?

Thanks!

 

[fasteddie24]

Isn't this a discussion board? If everybody said to just search, where would new ideas or information come from?

I didn't mean to shuffle this guy off, but at the time there were 40 some looks at this post and not one post offering any help. Plus, there are some different issues that probably would get more attention if they were posted in other forums. I was only offering a suggestion.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

You cannot "pump" air into a building with a fan, unless it has a way out. The fan will do basically nothing if there is not some way for the air to get in (or out) of the building.

How is the building insulated? typical metal building style, with vinyl backed roll insulation applied to the building and then the sheetmetal screwed on top of it?

Charles

 

[dantm]

You cannot "pump" air into a building with a fan, unless it has a way out. The fan will do basically nothing if there is not some way for the air to get in (or out) of the building.

How is the building insulated? typical metal building style, with vinyl backed roll insulation applied to the building and then the sheetmetal screwed on top of it?

Charles

Will the fan not circulate air from the outside and 'pressurize' the inside of the building? In which case the air will escape through the door cracks/etc. of the building outward?

The building is insulated as you have described (I think). Basically it's some form of roll insulation on the inside covered with a vinyl, but there is no inner-wall -- i.e. the insulation is exposed.

I will post a few pictures of the inside but in the meantime here is the outside for a general idea.

 

[dantm]

 

[kbs2244]

I am a fan of the wind powered roof “turbine” style ventilators.

They will get the summer heat out and take the humidity with it.
And they do not need any power run to them.

If you partition off your work area you can leave them working in the winter.
Winter air is cold but it is also pretty dry.

 

[38Chevy454]

Instead of a dedicated A/C system, what about just running a dehumidifier? Airflow can be made with those large high volume, low speed air fans. I agree the passive wind powered roof vents is a good idea. Make a small section with walls for the work area, not only to keep it temp and humidity controlled better, but also to keep the dirty areas from the storage areas.

 

[dantm]

Ok, so right now the building is pretty much closed off (as you can see from the picture there are three doors that open for vehicles and one side-door for people).

If I install a roof-turbine vent, can I run a de-humidifier in conjunction with it? Will the dehumidifier be useless since now the building has airflow provided by the vent?

Second question - is there a guideline for the size of building vs. the roof-turbine vent required? This building is 39 x 49 x 12 ft. so if I wanted to ventilate it all, how would that be done?

Thanks!

 

[dantm]

Also for these roof-mounted turbine vents how is the situation with rain water leaking in? Are there leak proof designs?

 

[KCMongo]

I was in a warehouse today that had a couple of these running.. http://www.bigassfans.com/
Pretty neat deal, moving a lot of Air. Might be worth considering for your work area?
Steve

 

[dantm]

So I went in to take a few pictures and this is what I found...

The building is a red-steel type of structure with the steel thin outer shell. I've taken a few pictures of how this looks overall and there's one corner where the insulation has broken through and it gives an idea of the type that it is...







Any thoughts from experts out there?

Thanks!!!

 

[kbs2244]

The turbines sit on 6 or 8 inch dia ducts with a flat square sheet metal base.
You put them between the ridges on the roof panels.
Lots of sealant and they won't leak.
I would guess that 2 units placed at the 1/3 and 2/3 points of the ridgeline will be enough.
If you plan on walling off half of the building for heated and cooled work space, use only one over the storage space.
You want them close to the ridge so they are at the high point of the hot, humid air inside and so they have the least amount of water running over the seams in the roof.
There is no reason you couldn't use a dehumidifier as well.
But I don't think you will need one.

 

[dantm]

Thanks for the advice.

Note the pics in my post #15 -- the roof has this insulation underneath the steel cover; I guess I will have to cut through it to have the vent go all the way through.

Any suggestions on how I could get this done?

Thanks for the turbine idea; it sounds fantastic!

Pretty soon I'll look into partitioning the area into a few pieces - maybe 1-2 bays for car storage, 1 bay for working on vehicles and the rest for a small shop and a man-cave area

 

[gahi]

My shop has a combined AC / Gas Heater. It works really well. Its 30' x 60' x 18'. It gets 110 plus here in the summer, and down to around 10 some nights in the winter. No humidity though.

 

[dantm]

gahi, can you let me know what brand and model so I can look that up for reference?

Thanks!!!

 

[Walter]

Is that mold in the insulation that I see in some of those photos?

Certainly a vent or fan is needed to help eliminate condensation and to vent hot air that rises to the ceiling. Here is a link which offers some ideas on fans and vents for metal buildings. http://www.metalbuildingaccessories.com/Accessories/WallExhaustFan.asp

This link can give you some quick ideas and then you can source locally for a better price. I am surprised to see how expensive the Hurricane Vent was in the link. WOW. These appear to be purpose build for metal buildings. As far as fans, the Cook exhaust fan that this company offers seems to be the top of the line. Also expensive. I have also found quite a few exhaust fans in the Grainger online catalog that are cheaper.

I just had built a 2000 sq/ft building with 2 bays and am going through some of the same considerations you are going through now. I plan on installing an exhaust fan with a louvered vent. I want to check the options on having this fan thermostatically controlled. I opted not to install a ridge vent or turbine vent because that would probably be the first to go during a hurricane.

 

[Stuart in MN]

Dehumidifiers work only if the space is closed off from the outside - if there's ventilation air coming in you're basically trying to dehumidify the planet. For a space that large, you'd need some heavy duty dehumidifiers, probably not what you can get down at the big box store (although as mentioned some ceiling fans would help in that regard. There are commercial grade dehumidifiers, like this one from Hy-E-Dry that work real well but they are pretty expensive for home use (nearly $2,000 each.) http://www.sylvane.com/hi-e-dry-dehumidifiers.html These do have another benefit as they work down to 35 degrees F, which can be nice in the spring when you get condensation inside the building on those first few days above freezing.

I'd think about a ventilation system where you have a big exhaust fan up high or even on the roof, mated with a intake vent down low on the north side. You can put screen and filters on the intake vent to keep out dust and vermin; while it won't reduce the humidity inside the building any more than what it is outside, it will provide a steady flow of fresh air and will help keep the building as cool as possible.

 

[timewarp]

On my friends 40X60 metal building he has an attic fan(his building is insulated and sheetrocked) that rather than being temperature controlled is contolled by a humidistat so that the fan comes on once the moisture in the attic gets to a specific level, might work better than a thermostatically controlled fan since it's the moisture you need to keep out.