Infloor for attached garage

[hamel01]

Hey everyone,
I know this topic has been talked about quite a bit but I couldn't find answers to some questions that I have. First let me give you a run down of what I am looking at. We are in the process of starting our new house and attached garage. We are on propane and electric that is around $.24/KWh.. Also area wise we are in the UP of Michigan where we have 250+ inches of snow each year and normal temps of teens to 20's all winter with a month or so below 0. Our winters are typically from November to May.

The garage is going to be 3 stalls so roughly 54' wide and 28' deep. I am planning on putting 4" of foam under the floor and installing the radiant tubes no matter which way I go for heat. I am also having long drains installed in the center of each bay and having the floor sloped on a 1" every 10' pitch or so to get water into those drains as fast as possible. While I do have a detached garage for working in I will still be doing work in this one on the vehicles and what not. I don't plan on keeping the garage much warmer than 45-50 and if I get to a point where I am out there more I will install a forced air heater to bring the air temp up faster rather than turning the floor up and down.

I have 2 main questions:
#1 - Does anyone have any first hand experience with how the humidity will be in this setup? I want to try to keep that to a minimum if possible. The thought on the drains and the slop on the floor was to get that water off the floor as fast as possible to try and avoid the extra humidity.

#2 - Whats better for vehicles? A warm dry garage or a warm humid one? My gut tells me the drier the better to help prevent rust form forming with all the salt but I have no basis for that thought.

Thanks!

 

[finn]

An unheated garage is best for your vehicles, unless you have the luxury of washing them after every use. If that’s not an option, the lower the humidity, the better.

Any time you start melting the salty, wet mess, electrolysis sets in, increasing the rate of corrosion.

With a heated garage, room humidity isn’t the problem, it’s the salt water in the inner panels.

I’ll show you a rusted out, low mileage F250 that was kept in a heated garage.

 

[jahn]

2 uppers' gotta love that. I love the UP, and go up there when I'm able.

 

[6768rogues]

As said above, heat accelerated salt corrosion. I still kept my parking stalls at 45 to 50 degrees. Never a frozen car, no ice cold seat and wheel, no snow to brush off, and with the engine at that temp there is heat in a couple of minutes after starting it. Worth it to me.

 

[Tduby]

If you’re up in the copper country I wouldn’t worry about a heated garage rusting your vehicles faster the stamp sand slag mixture they spread on the roads will destroy them anyway. So enjoy getting in a semi warm car and not having to scrape off the ice and snow every morning.

 

[86turbodsl]

What's the slag stamp sand doing to the cars? I lived in Houghton and Lake Linden for 8 years and never saw corrosion on my stuff. It was nice not having salt all over everything.

 

[finn]

The state didn’t pay the county road commission adequately for clearing the state roads, so, several years ago, the state began plowing, and salting all of the state and federal highways. ( The county basically told the state that they had to either pay a fair price, or the state could take care of their own damn roads.)

The state roads are brined before snowfalls, and plowed/ salted during and after, and are usually wet unless it is too cold for the brine and salt to work.

The county does the county owned roads. They mostly plow only, but if the forecast is for no snow for a few days, a rarity between November and April, they spread a moisture of stamp sand and salt on hills, curves, and especially slippery areas.

I don’t think the stamp sand is any diffferent than the silica sand the lower 47 1/2 states use. It’ Only finely crushed and pulverized rock, I think basalt, pulled up from a mile underground during the copper mining days of a hundred or more years ago.

Only difference is that it’s mixed with rock salt now.