Dehumidifiers

[oldgoat]

son in law was wanting to paint his car but the humidity was kind of bad now. Also with a vent free heating it just compounds it anyway. Does anybody have any idea on how big a unit a person might need? The garage is 22 x 26 with 9ft walls and is insulated. Any suggestions would be appreciated, heck I'd even settle for a half bad guess.

 

[mjribeiro]

I have this in my 1500 sq ft basement. It really does the trick. Two of my friends now have the same one and we all swear by it....

http://www.sylvane.com/santa-fe-dehumidifier.html

 

[HoosierBuddy]

Also with a vent free heating it just compounds it anyway.

I'd suggest getting a for-real heating system to eliminate putting moisture in the air with your heating equipment. Although I've never done the math myself, I've seen the figure 1 gallon per 100,000 btu bandied around. So, every hour your 39,000 BTU ventless gas heater runs, you end up with .39 gallons of additional water in your air. This is of course in addition to whatever amount of water was already in the air.

What you run into in a garage that you are heating up and then letting cool down is this. Any metal surface that is cooler than the dewpoint temperature at the current humidity level in the building, will cause water to condense. I'd suggest this is your problem with painting...water trying to condense on the surface you are trying to paint...while you are painting it.

You make that problem considerably worse by putting the water vapor in the air with your heating equipment. Although you might have some sucess with a dehumidifyer...that seems kind of "Rube Goldberg" to me...and well as being a tremendous waste of energy.

Ventless heaters have their place...I personally don't think that place is in a garage...but that's just an opinion.

Phil

 

[oldgoat]

I would admit that the ventfree heater will cause additional problems although we shut it off before spraying and the car had been in there overnight. The primer seems to be OK, but before we started the finsih I was wondering what may help. Actually I would have rather that he would have waited until warmer and dryer weather to do it, but it's his car and his money. The heater is only for occasional use and backup in case of a loss of electricity in the winter. Later after I retire I hope to get a regular heating and maybe AC system.

 

[MyDomain]

I have this in my 1500 sq ft basement. It really does the trick. Two of my friends now have the same one and we all swear by it....

http://www.sylvane.com/santa-fe-dehumidifier.html

I would also recommend Thermastor products. If you call their tech support and give them the info they can recommend a model. Top notch stuff. Second to the Thermastor units I would recommend the Aprilaire 1700.

http://www.thermastor.com/index.htm
http://www.aprilaire.com/themes/aa/en/manuals/1700.pdf