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Rust is the Enemy
- Thread starter Susquatch
- Start date
@RobinHood and I have very similar shops. I also have a small room at one end with a mezzanine above it. I have my electronics workshop up top and some storage. We call the room under it "the break room". We have a small fridge, sink, countertop, kitchen cabinets and a nice cozy sitting area in there. It is air-conditioned and heated separately from the main shop with a forced air system under the stairs to the mezzanine. The fellow we purchased the place from had an antique car shop in there with both an external car door and an inside one leading into the main shop. If I tried to move my fabrication shop in there my wife would divorce me. She thinks it's primary purpose is for baby showers, family get togethers, and even as a serving centre at my daughters wedding here at the farm.
I could afford to install air conditioning and cool the shop for the rest of my life for way way less than the cost of the divorce. So that isn't happening. But I can't complain. The break room is OURS, but the shop is all mine. I've also been known to leave the inside garage door open on occaision to cool and dry out the shop a bit when it gets really humid......
Anyway, this thread has served its purpose for me. I have learned that there are no silver bullets, miracle juices, or magic methods to stop rust.
Now the search is on for a few high volume dehumidifiers as well as a mill motor..... LOL!
OH well. I'm sure they can be found at various sports stores.
Amazon has them too.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00CYBDFWI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_VZ5CAMMFHA94YYNSC44X
But they are prolly just big resistors. And even if they are not, a high power resistor will do the same job.
The 12" model is 12 watts so prolly 1200 ohms rated for 20 watts.
The 18" model is 18 watts so prolly 800 ohms rated for 30 watts.
The 24" model is 25 watts so prolly 575 ohms rated for 50 watts.
It's easy to buy or make big resistors that will work the same as the golden rod or a light bulb.
Chicken lights
Forum Pony Express Driver
Nice Dehumidifier!
You drilled in a 4" drain, but where does that go? Do you have a gravel or sand base under your concrete?
This is a problem for me. We put our condensate into the gravel under the concrete in our basement. But my shop has a clay base under the concrete so that won't work there. I think my only opportunity is to mount the dehumidifiers on a shelf and put a hole in the wall under them for a common drain. It's plenty dry in there in the winter so I don't need to worry about freezing.
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Chicken lights
Forum Pony Express Driver
Once I was through the concrete I hit gravel. I dug a small pit out of the gravel and it seems to work fine, it never overflows.
You could probably mount a funnel “urinal style” out a side wall and have them drain into that? I don’t think it would have to drain underground, where I wanted it the floor drain worked mint.
Yes, if you have gravel under the floor, my experience says you are golden. We gave never had a problem in our basement at this house or the one where we lived before.
I'm not sure how many dehumidifiers I'll need. Probably at least two. I'll prolly get two and then add more if needed. They will work overtime whenever I open the overhead doors (Two 16x18 doors). Yes, a funnel or a common drain manifold of some kind to the outside through the insulated wall should work.
Chicken lights
Forum Pony Express Driver
i found that today, makes the gun cabinet ones look tiny. Gonna add that to the toolbox
francist
Super User
Sitting here in the middle of an unprecedented heat dome isn’t really the time to think of de-icing chemicals but Dave’s post on the desiccant made me think of it. It was a post on another forum some of us here belong to about DIY dehumidifying. I thought it was quite clever and although I have yet to actually try this I know that the process will work.
For one, I always have a bit of de-icer left over in my hand bucket after Victoria’s once-per-winter snowfall and by the summer there’s always a pool of water in the bucket which I could never understand before but now makes perfect sense. Also, from working with engineers on testing concrete slabs for dryness prior to applying a membrane they use a similar deal with a smalll quantity of the salts enclosed in a little plastic cover. After a couple days the salts have have drawn down the water from the contained air, we weigh the water, and from that determine state of dryness in the slab.
As noted, I think the process will be slow but maybe that’s okay for long periods of gradual or incremental drying. Certainly not going to be as rapid as a dehumidifier system but again, for enclosed spaces it may work ok. There is also the cost of the ice melter and how that measures out over time I can’t say, maybe it would be expensive. I typically sit on about 1500 pounds for my work stockpile but I only purchase once every couple of years so the price isn’t top of mind for me. I also do not know if there would be a detrimental effect to metals caused by exposure to the salts via the air. In other words, is putting the chemicals in the shop to decrease the humidity level going to cause a different rusting possibility because of the buckets of salt being present? Don’t know.
Anyhow, I thought I’d put the link here (hopefully) and you can take it for what you want.
-frank
Let me know if the link doesn’t work out and I’ll try to get it in another way.
Post in thread 'POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?'
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/posts/768681/bookmark
For one, I always have a bit of de-icer left over in my hand bucket after Victoria’s once-per-winter snowfall and by the summer there’s always a pool of water in the bucket which I could never understand before but now makes perfect sense. Also, from working with engineers on testing concrete slabs for dryness prior to applying a membrane they use a similar deal with a smalll quantity of the salts enclosed in a little plastic cover. After a couple days the salts have have drawn down the water from the contained air, we weigh the water, and from that determine state of dryness in the slab.
As noted, I think the process will be slow but maybe that’s okay for long periods of gradual or incremental drying. Certainly not going to be as rapid as a dehumidifier system but again, for enclosed spaces it may work ok. There is also the cost of the ice melter and how that measures out over time I can’t say, maybe it would be expensive. I typically sit on about 1500 pounds for my work stockpile but I only purchase once every couple of years so the price isn’t top of mind for me. I also do not know if there would be a detrimental effect to metals caused by exposure to the salts via the air. In other words, is putting the chemicals in the shop to decrease the humidity level going to cause a different rusting possibility because of the buckets of salt being present? Don’t know.
Anyhow, I thought I’d put the link here (hopefully) and you can take it for what you want.
-frank
Let me know if the link doesn’t work out and I’ll try to get it in another way.
Post in thread 'POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?'
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/posts/768681/bookmark
Yup, it works. But only for enclosed spaces. It's basically the same system they use in RVs and Travel Trailers to stop mold and mildew from setting in during winter storage. You can buy the packs and a special container to hold them and the precipitated water to use them in at any RV Service and Supply place. They come as a one-time use or as refillable.
We used them for the first winter we had our trailer. They lied...... The container was big enough to hold the water it produced, it overflowed and could have ruined the flooring or the counter. Fortunately, I chose to put it in the sink. After looking at how much water it produced even with a totally depleted pack, I realized it wasn't nearly big enough to do much of anything. So, I put a small space heater in there instead. The trailer leaks enough air that the heater is able to take advantage of dry winter air and it has worked for the 15 some odd years we have used it. No mold, no mildew, no rust.
As someone else said in an earlier post. Heat works.
My guess is that this system will work just fine in a small enclosed space. But like you I have no idea how the salts would affect corrosion rates.
I believe that type can be baked to reactivate the dessicant. I once bought a really nice toaster oven specifically for drying out desicants and other similar tasks. That lasted till my bride spotted it and claimed it for herself. If I ever did that again, I'd make sure to uglify it somehow so she would never want it.
I just had a Eureka moment. I don't need a hole in the wall. All I really need is a decent size bucket! Maybe a 5 gallon pail. I have lots of those. It could even be easily rigged with a float type shutoff to provide an audible notice and kill the power if it got close to overflowing or cascaded to another bucket.... Etc etc. Ya, the floor drain is a far superior solution, but I don't have that option. I'm just not really fond of the wall drain for a variety of reasons (spiders, bugs, freezing, etc).
I got a surprise this morning. I got into our travel trailer to check on the mouse traps and decided to check on other things too. I opened the overhead cupboard where I keep some dedicated trailer tools and equipment. Everything is in shoe-boxes or plastic tubs to keep them from rolling around.
Unfortunately, I was shocked to discover that all my tools (mostly cheap emergency tools) were badly corroded with a bubbly wet looking dark crimson rust (totally destroyed would be a better word), anything brass or copper was badly discoloured with a rough bronze type finish (it almost looks anodized), and an aluminium T-Rail for the outside counter was covered in a thick white foam that looked like tree fungus. WTH!
As I removed containers from the overhead cupboard, I found the apparent cause. I believe the culprit was a ruptured salt based dehumidifier pack. The dehumidifier itself and several unused salt packs had been stored in the plastic tub we use the unit in to catch any overflow. The tub is also a perfect storage container. The tub was half full of the salt water precipitate. I suspect the pack had frozen over the winter and ruptured. Or perhaps it had a pinhole leak in it that eventually ruptured. At any rate, the precipitate solution explained the nasty discoloration, the moldy aluminium, and the wet rust.
So there is your answer learned the hard way. Vapours from that salt precipitate are DEADLY on metals. DO NOT TRY THIS METHOD WITH YOUR PRECIOUS TOOLS!
Yup, experience is the toughest teacher of all because she gives the test BEFORE the lesson.
Chicken lights
Forum Pony Express Driver
Mine you can set it to pump all the time or it fills the internal bucket, with some way of shutting it down once the bucket is full. You’d basically be replicating that system on a larger scale. Not a bad idea at all
@Chicken lights how has your extra shelving worked out? Just interested.
Chicken lights
Forum Pony Express Driver
I’m happy with it, gets more stuff off the floor. Next I need to mount my power inverter properly and get a bin for the vacuum. We making headway. Thanks for asking
francist
Super User
Well, that's one way to find out although I was hoping for a non-destructive answer myself. Sorry you suffered some damage, hopefully nothing of tremendous value. Lesson learned all around.
-frank
All just cheap tools intentionally selected for the odd use in a travel trailer. I pitched them already.
I do have a few good tools (Milwaukee Compact Drill, hitch wrenches, socket set, etc) that I take along too, but they are on a list of things to borrow from my shop before we head out and then get returned to the shop when we get home so they are all ok.
Other than the bronzing surface treatment, which is actually attractive, the brass and copper stuff (check valves, adapters, fittings, etc) appears to be functional. I'll have to test them to know for sure though.
So, ya it's a bit of a setback, but certainly not the end of the world!
My bride and I have decided to get a small dedicated electric dehumidifier and a small dedicated electric space heater for the trailer.
Life is good.