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 quite suddenly 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 quite suddenly 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…
