Tubular heaters and ventilation

[formula400]

Right, ive got a 14x5ft shed https://www.beastsheds.co.uk

It is hooked up with Electric, i've just put office carpet tiles down on the floor.

A few very small patches of mold have appeared (the shed was built middle of November ), i've cleaned them with bleach and water, and now have a 1.5m tubular heater in there https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/HETH315.html that's on all day.

Ventilation wise I have nothing currently, but I have 1 Hit and Miss Air Vent 242 x 165 mm for the rear of the shed and 2x 12x12cm Louver vents for the front (2 because of the way the cladding is above the door) and will install them later this week.

it has 4 small windows that are 40x9cm, potentially one could be made to open/close with some work, currently just a non opening pane.


so questions
1. are those 3 vents enough
2. is 1 heater enough or should I get another due to the size
3. are the heaters better closer to the floor or middle or up high
4.vents high, low or a mix.
5. should I remove a window and make it vent of some kind and how??

cheers

[Count Steer]

The tubular heater is ok but doesn't move the air around much. A couple of vents will help but you may get dead air patches in the corners. I'd suggest getting a greenhouse fan heater (if the tubular heater is on just leave it on fan only) to push the air around a bit. (I put one in the cabin and set the thermostat to about 10C and there's a panel heater set the same. The main purpose of the fan is to circulate the air).

You could stick a few slabs of insulation on the walls if you haven't already.

With mould the main thing to monitor is the dew point. You can get a monitor like the BlueMaestro Tempo Plus 2 on Amazon. It's about the size of a 50p and it data logs humidity and temperature (so dew point) for up to 1yr on a CR20?? battery. You upload the data to a phone app. Just put it in a few places where mould is forming and see if your heater/vents are doing the trick.They're really neat.

[Tricky]

As you have power in there, my rec would be to get a de-humidifier - it's what I've done at this house for the garage and it's been brilliant- my garage is below the ground level of the house and a good bit of the garden so really does suffer from damp, and as soon as the weather started getting colder my bikes were soaking wet every morning, I fannied around with a greenhouse heater which didn't do it in mine ( might in yours if it's smaller and has better ventilation I guess) , I thought about putting vents in, but bought one of these to try and haven't looked back.
Everything is bone dry ( I'm getting 5 or 6 litres of water out of the air in there every day at the moment ), it warms the garage up a bit , and costs 3/5 of f-all to run

This is the one I bought- it has a tank and auto-shuts off when full, or if you connect a small-bore hose and run it outside so you never have to worry emptying the tank
https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/meac ... E2EALw_wcB

[Count Steer]

As an aside. Inadequate heating can make things worse, sometimes you're better without as warm air holds more water which condenses out if the heater can't cope with temperature drops. Just enough to keep things from freezing is the usual (cheapest) solution. I've got a small wooden tool shed in a sheltered spot with two small circular vents and no heating - dry as a bone. No heating in the (attached) garage either and that's dry.

PS the best place for the greenhouse heater/fan is up out of the way just in the pitch centre.

[Mr Moofo]

I have a 10 x 5 metre manshed - that has condensation problems. So much so that the dart board has just developed mildew.
I have tried tube heaters - TBH they are a bit rubbish.
I have a big industrial fan in there to help ventilation ( but it does make it feel very cold).
So I think I need too buy a dehumidifier , as per Tricky's suggestion

[Count Steer]

@Tricky What is the sound level of the dehumidifier like?
One place I could do with one is the unheated conservatory. The previous people left an air con/dehumidifier behind..and I found out why. It sounded like an RB211 engine! IIRC Hairy Ben had a similar problem when he tried to cool his room during a heat wave.
If it's quiet I'll try one.

[formula400]

@Count Steer when you say a few slabs do you mean 1/4 of the shed or the whole thing?

With the de humidifier surly I want no ventilation at all

Any particular green house warmer to check out.

I might put the vents in and see how it goes,
With the vents is the tubular heater pissing in the wind?

[Horse]

You could stick a few slabs of insulation on the walls

With an air gap between insulation and wall?

[Count Steer]

@Count Steer when you say a few slabs do you mean 1/4 of the shed or the whole thing?

With the de humidifier surly I want no ventilation at all

Any particular green house warmer to check out.

I might put the vents in and see how it goes,
With the vents is the tubular heater pissing in the wind?

Insulation - depends on whether you plan to work in there much. It would mean you don't need so much heat to make it comfortable. It will slow also down the rate of temperature change and reduce the amount of heat lost from the tubular heater. None of which are bad things but it's not essential. The heater is there generally to stop the temperature dropping below ~5-7C. (If it's just for the bike I don't think I'd bother unless I had a few sheets laying around).

What often happens is people work in a shed, crank up the heating and keep breathing . Warm air holds more water, then they switch the heating off and leave and because it doesn't have to cool so far to hit the dew point you're more inclined to get condensation.

The less moisture in the air, the colder you can go before you get condensation, the more moisture in the air the warmer you need to be to stay above the dew point. The dehumidifier is a direct remover of moisture so will allow the shed to get colder without condensation and also means you can work in there, keep breathing and not saturate the air. You'll have to keep emptying it if you don't drain to outside - I think the capacity is 2l and there's an awful lot of moisture in the whole atmosphere!

Personally, I'd always want some ventilation - but the shed won't be airtight. Moving the air around is good as it avoids dead spots too. (Kitchen cupboards on an outside wall are a classic moist, dead air, cool down, black mould problem). If you're putting the bike in it, try and let the bike cool down before you wheel it in.

Have a look at dew point on Wikipedia (ignore the maths!). Basically what you don't want is warm, moist air cooling down. Cold, dry air is fine, warm moist air is fine, up to a point.

[Mr Moofo]

And for garages you need a desiccant type dehumidifier

[Tricky]

@Tricky What is the sound level of the dehumidifier like?
One place I could do with one is the unheated conservatory. The previous people left an air con/dehumidifier behind..and I found out why. It sounded like an RB211 engine! IIRC Hairy Ben had a similar problem when he tried to cool his room during a heat wave.
If it's quiet I'll try one.

It does of course make a noise, but is not what I'd call loud- I have the radio/music on in the garage and don't have to have it noticably louder to compensate. I'll see if I can record a little clip and post it up over next day or two

And for garages you need a desiccant type dehumidifier

Yup, agreed- the one I have is

[Count Steer]

@Tricky What is the sound level of the dehumidifier like?
One place I could do with one is the unheated conservatory. The previous people left an air con/dehumidifier behind..and I found out why. It sounded like an RB211 engine! IIRC Hairy Ben had a similar problem when he tried to cool his room during a heat wave.
If it's quiet I'll try one.

It does of course make a noise, but is not what I'd call loud- I have the radio/music on in the garage and don't have to have it noticably louder to compensate. I'll see if I can record a little clip and post it up over next day or two

No worries, that's good enough for me. I saw the dB figure in the link and have no idea what that sounds like but if you can hear the radio it's definitely quieter than the thing I skipped! I'll probably get one.

[formula400]

the shed is a workshop/store/zwift room, I am not overly fused about it being to warm,
I think I will try the vents and then if that fails ill get a de-humidifier and see how that goes.

why is nothing simple

[Mr Moofo]

@Tricky What is the sound level of the dehumidifier like?
One place I could do with one is the unheated conservatory. The previous people left an air con/dehumidifier behind..and I found out why. It sounded like an RB211 engine! IIRC Hairy Ben had a similar problem when he tried to cool his room during a heat wave.
If it's quiet I'll try one.

It does of course make a noise, but is not what I'd call loud- I have the radio/music on in the garage and don't have to have it noticably louder to compensate. I'll see if I can record a little clip and post it up over next day or two

And for garages you need a desiccant type dehumidifier

Yup, agreed- the one I have is

How expensive if it to run?
Just taking with Ebac at the moment ? Who only do condenser type ones) - will post their response .

[Mussels]

I used to have a 12x15' plastic shed on a raised wooden floor and the inside would be covered in condensation. I put a PC fan in the side powered by a solar panel and it worked a treat, the shed was dry after that.

[Mr Moofo]

Reply from Ebac re their (UK made) dehumidifiers -
Our products can be used for outside buildings which is our Powerdri models, However if your out building becomes extremely cold and non insulated our products will not be of use to your needs, with them being condenser dehumidifiers there is a temperature range that they work to is 35 to 3 degrees. The advice I would give to you for your needs if your out building is very cold, is to use a desiccant dehumidifier. Our industrial team manufactures these but you can research online if you only need a domestic size one as we do not manufacture domestic size desiccant dehumidifiers.

[slowsider]

Reply from Ebac re their (UK made) dehumidifiers -
Our products can be used for outside buildings which is our Powerdri models, However if your out building becomes extremely cold and non insulated our products will not be of use to your needs, with them being condenser dehumidifiers there is a temperature range that they work to is 35 to 3 degrees. The advice I would give to you for your needs if your out building is very cold, is to use a desiccant dehumidifier. Our industrial team manufactures these but you can research online if you only need a domestic size one as we do not manufacture domestic size desiccant dehumidifiers.

From their website:
Although they can remove large amounts of water, they have very high running costs. Usually, the places that use desiccant dehumidifiers do not have to worry about running costs. However, in a domestic setting, these running costs would be unnecessarily high and you could use a different dehumidifier for a fraction of the price and running costs of a desiccant dehumidifier.

[Mr Moofo]

Reply from Ebac re their (UK made) dehumidifiers -
Our products can be used for outside buildings which is our Powerdri models, However if your out building becomes extremely cold and non insulated our products will not be of use to your needs, with them being condenser dehumidifiers there is a temperature range that they work to is 35 to 3 degrees. The advice I would give to you for your needs if your out building is very cold, is to use a desiccant dehumidifier. Our industrial team manufactures these but you can research online if you only need a domestic size one as we do not manufacture domestic size desiccant dehumidifiers.

From their website:
Although they can remove large amounts of water, they have very high running costs. Usually, the places that use desiccant dehumidifiers do not have to worry about running costs. However, in a domestic setting, these running costs would be unnecessarily high and you could use a different dehumidifier for a fraction of the price and running costs of a desiccant dehumidifier.

Indeed I read that bit - condenser ones are around 300 watts per hour - desiccant ones are 700watts - so they will be more expensive.
I guess the answer is to only run it when it is above 3 degrees - which is do-able . My major issue is not damp on cold days - but damp on the wet days in spring and autumn.

[formula400]

So I spoke to the company that made my shed, they said the wood needs to cure, I.e dry out, could take 6 months, then no more mold, is that BS?? The wood is treated.

[Rockburner]

So I spoke to the company that made my shed, they said the wood needs to cure, I.e dry out, could take 6 months, then no more mold, is that BS?? The wood is treated.

If it's treated, then yes - it's had a liquid (which contains water) forced into it under pressure - so it's going to exhude the moisture for a while.

My new workshop is kiln dried - so, if anything, it's going to absorb moisture (which is why I had to coat the thing with an oil-based sealant immediately to stop it absorbing rain water like a sponge!)

I'm wondering whether I need a heater and/or a dehumidifier now, the cold in the workshop seems to be killing any battery that's left in there. I think it's reasonably dry though, luckily, there's a few gaps at either end (under the eaves) for airflow.