[J S Machine]

It looks like getting one of these machines is going to be a reality. I have been on the phone with Tormach for a few days now, and I will be taking delivery soon. I have cleaned out a spot in my garage where the machine will sit. All is good except for that I am worried about the general climate of the garage. Mine is not heated and cooled and the door is not insulated. This will be in a nice house (concrete slab and sheetrock walls) but it is still a garage.

What do you guys do to help take care of your machines in these type of environments?

[rowbare]

I am in Ottawa Ontario. Winters can be pretty cold, Spring and Summer very damp.

Mine is in a single car garage. The garage is insulated and I have an inuslated garage door. Most of the garage floor is covered in DriCore but the machine sits on concrete (it is too heavy for the DriCore).

I use an overhead radiant heater similar to this: Quartz Overhead Radiant Heater - Lee Valley Tools

This past winter I simply left it on low all winter (750W). During the coldest part of winter (-25C range), that keeps the garage well above freezing, probably 5C or better. Typically if it is below about -15C, I won't work in the shop. When I do want to work, I will switch it to high when I get home and by the time I am done supper, it is warm enough to work in a t-shirt. I occasionally use a second fan-forced heater to get things warmed up faster. As a side benefit, the snowblower starts really easily.

In the spring and fall, I play it by ear. When we are in really damp periods with cold nights, I either leave the heat on all day or just overnight. Having the heat on overnight keeps the machines a bit above ambient which is all you really need to avoid condensation. At some point, I will set something up with a thermostat. I bought a 3000w garage heater on sale last year so will wire that in. I might try to set up some kind of differential thermostat that would keep the heat 5 degrees or so above ambient.

I highly recommend an insulated garage door if it is at all possible. In my case, my old door needed replacement so I did it when I was insulating the garage. I have a single car garage so it wasn't all that expensive. However there are kits for insulating existing doors that work well and a lot of DIY approaches. An inch and a half of foil covered rigid foam glued to the door can do wonders. There are a lot of diy pics for this online.

bob

[dneisler]

I have mine a pole barn insulated shop here in Texas, and just running a dehumidifier made a huge difference. I keep it at 50% humidity and I get for the most part no rust....

[Steve Seebold]

My machine is in my garage in San Clemente, CA where on a REALLY, REALLY cold day the temperature might drop all the way down to 55 degrees. My garage is not insulated. It wouldn't matter if it was because most days, I work with the door open.

I work in shorts and a tee shirt most of the time, but on the rare day when the temperature drops into the 50's I'll break out my winter gear (sweat shirt and socks). I haven't worn long pants in close to 20 years, and I don't intend to start any time soon.

I don't know whether to sympathize with you guys who live where it gets below freezing, or just lean back and think you're just freaking crazy for living there, but I'll bet the spring and fall is gorgeous there.

[J S Machine]

I'm not really worried about the cold per se, it is just the humidity. I'm in AL and some times you can cut the humidity with a knife. It is worse than the heat in my opinion.

I like the idea of a dehumidifier.

[mountaindew]

My shop is in a normal home garage that I insulated, dry walled and painted years ago. Humidity here is mostly 20% or less and at times down to single digits so rust is not an issue.
Sounds like you need to control humidity and a average dehumidifier will be adding 300 to 400 watts of heat to the room if you want it or not. In summer or warmer months an air conditioner will also remove humidity. Both options use and cost electricity. Just a foot note between me "400 watts" tormach "1400 watts" and ceiling lights "600 watts" total estimate at 2400 watts of heat appears to be more then enough here even in winter and like steve mentions above time to open some doors or windows.
md

[CNC-Dude]

First of, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PENDING JOINING THE CLUB!!!

Here in Dallas TX, humidity is not much of a problem, so I am not certain my input will help in any way. But for documentation purposes (for anybody else which may read this) here it goes:

My machine is in what the builder dared to call a 2 car garage. Two of the walls are insulated (the ones that face the house), the other wall is not insulated and the garage door was not insulated at first. Then one day I saw this amazing foil thingamathingy which appears to have been developed by Aliens from the Quanderfroorey Nebula. WHAT THE HECK, this stuff is awesome! Now I can be in my garage all year long regardless of whether Satan is knocking on my door outside, or the North Pole landed on my roof. It only cost me about $100 to cover the garage door and these have to be some of the best spent $100 throughout my life.

With regards to humidity and rust, I have never had any problem. I am always putting WD40 on my table, and although there is plenty of people in here with a religious fervor on how WD40 doesn't work, it works for me. Maybe my WD40 was also developed by Quanderfrooreydians...

I have no dehumidifier on my garage, neither do I heat it up or cool it. I did want to add an AC unit at some point in time, but my neighborhood almost picketed in front of my house as they forbid me to add a window unit and ghettisize my area.

My goal in the upcoming years is to move to a house with some sort of workshop. Have been looking and looking but first I need to become a brain surgeon or a multi billion dollar company CEO so that I can afford a home with such a contraption...

[mountaindew]

CNC-dude
I wish I could insulate my garage doors. They are wood panel, style and rail doors that have no cavities or recess to insulate. And they get hot in the summer sun
The walls between your home and garage should be covered with fire code sheet rock also!
These are common fire walls and universal building code "ubc" mostly requires this. Also the door to house from garage should also be a fire rated door with spring loaded hinges for self closing.
My house is almost 60 years old and it has this. Just some added info for readers and does not always apply to your area but still a good thing. To bad local building covenants don't allow you add a window / wall unit. I would find a location obscured by fence or walls and install one. Never ghetto the install because someday you might need to sell home
md

[SCzEngrgGroup]

In an un-insulated garage, the most important thing is to know when it is safe to open the doors. You can operate rust-free with no heat, and no insulation, if you understand why condensation occurs, and how to avoid it. Always use the "people" door, rather than the big door, unless you know conditions are "safe". NEVER open the door more than long enough to walk through it, when the air, and machines, are colder than the outside air. This goes double if the outside air is very humid, like the morning after a rain. Depending on your climate, this means that after a cold spell you may not be able to opeb the shop for days, to get everything warmed up to where condensation won't occur.

For heating, use electric, or a combustion heater that is sealed, and completely vented to the outside. Things like kerosene heaters and un-sealed wood stoves will pump an incredible amount of moisture into the air.

Regards,
Ray L.

[agrasyuk]

thanks guys, quite a good input here.
my attached 2 car garage shop is insulated, but unheated as of now since i still need to install ceiling drywall. to protect my lathe it is wiped with oily cloth, no new rust at all after this winter. i do find that i can't work in below freezing temps so adding insulation ad heating is planned.

I don't know whether to sympathize with you guys who live where it gets below freezing, or just lean back and think you're just freaking crazy for living there, but I'll bet the spring and fall is gorgeous there.

well, its up to you really whether to lean back or not. moving out of Chicagoland has been on my mind, but despite the climate CA was never on my list of places - I don't want to get into political topics . TX however looks really good. I see a mill on your avatar , i'm not going to tell you how to dress, but I myself not going to touch machinery unless i'm properly dressed for the work - surdy covering clothes and closed toe footware (with socks) . best regards!

[adamvs]

I'm in the SF bay area, in an uninsulated garage. Last November I bought a Frigidaire 50 pint dehumifier. It uses about 400watts. At night that's welcome becuase: higher humidity here at night, and the garage is warmer in the morning. It's been working quite well. When I initally started the dehunidifer, it had been raining, inside humidy was reduced from 75% to around 37%. It removes between 1/2 and 2 gallons of water out of the air per day depending on outside humidy. I use the water it collects to remix coolant, which I think is where some of the inside humidy come from in the first place. Doors are kept shut, no fuel based heaters, as Ray said there are some good practices. With that problem solved the other is heat in the summer. My shop area gets easily 85 degrees in the summer/fall months. There are six double banks of T8 flourescent tubes - total 384 watts! I'm replacing those with LEDs.

[J S Machine]

I plan to have this thing in it's own building eventually, but just not in the cards right now. I will have to built that. The new property we just bought has what the previous owners called a shop, but it isn;t built well at all. They framed up a small building with 6x6 posts for the corners, and regular wall style framing for the rest. Instead of covering the outside with OSB correctly, they just wrapped the thing in roofing felt and then vinyl sided it. I have never seen such half azz construction lol. Anyway, it has a pretty good sized slab, but I am reluctant to build on it because I don't think it will bear the weight. Whatever I end up doing, the machine will be in the garage until that is in order.

I am kind of in a bad spot because my wife parks her car in the garage. This is a two car garage, and all of the stuff from my knife shop is on one side (where the Tormach will be), and she parks on the other. I just park my vehicle outside. The reason it might be a problem though, is that I don't have a door going out of the garage on the outside of the house. I do have the typical door from the house to the garage, but from that point, the only way to get out is to raise the garage door. I personally hate it, because the door is chain driven and makes a butload of racket. Looks like I am just going to start changing my habits, and use the front entry door of the house. We usally keep it closed and never use it, but seeing how I will really need to keep that door shut unles my wife is going/coming, I'll start using it.

I always keep all of my stuff covered in some sort of protective oil. I have used WD-40, but what I mainly use is a stuff called CRC 3-36. It works better than WD-40 I believe.

Only reason I asked about this, is this will be the most expensive machine investment I have made, and I want to take very good care of it. Aything I can do to keep it nice will make it last longer.

SCzE, thanks for your expalnation of what causes that surface rust. I had a pretty good idea but wasn't 100%sure. That is one of my major concerns. Some mornings when I leave the air outside is thick muggy and foggy. I often think, man that would not be good for anything with a ground surface.

[J S Machine]

As far as heating and cooling, It doesn't really get too cold in the garage, even when the temp drops into the teens. This is only for a month or so during winter here in AL. We only have a few hard freezes a year. In the summer time, when the temp reaches 100 and the humidy at 235%, it is fine in the garage as long as the garage door has not been opened. It is always a good 15 degrees cooler in there than outside temp. This tells me the insulation of everything but the doors is doing pretty good..but would only get better with one of the DIY insulation tricks on the door. I am going to look into that for sure and get it done.

[rowbare]

CNC-Dude, what I am thinking about for the summer is getting one of those portable A/C units, the ones with the big hoses. My plan is to take a 2x8 the width of my garage door and putting a couple of holes in it for the hoses. I will stand it on edge and close the garage door on it. This way I get some air and I can still keep my door closed. When I am done for the night, I will simply open the door, remove the board and close the door again. Nothing permanent, nothing neigbours can carp about.

bob

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Sadly, if you're parking a car in there, you're going to have serious problems, and there's little you'll be able to do about it. Even a few minutes of an open garage door is enough to get enough condensation to cause a lot of rust. About the best I can suggest is to keep the machine covered in oil at all times. Cover it with a plastic tarp, and put boards around the entire bottom of the tarp to seal it up enough keep outside air out of the area under the tarp. Don't open the tarp until the machine is at near ambient temperature. A dehumidifier placed UNDER the tarp would help a lot. That will also help keep the machine warm, since the heat created by the dehumidifier will be trying to keep the machine warm, rather than the entire garage. Some blankets over the tarp would help in that regard. But, if you're in there working on a cold, damp day, and your wife opens the door when the machine is still colder than the outside air, you'll almost certainly get some condensation on the machine, and end up with some surface rust.

Regards,
Ray L.

[J S Machine]

Good advice. Thank you.

[adamvs]

I would entertain the idea of closing off half the garage with some plastic sheeting and make a little zipper door, and ask your wife to please keep the garage door closed. This has the advantage of keeping chips and coolant spray on 'your' side of the garage and not on your wife's car. The little moisture that get in from an open garage or wet car should be eaten up by a dehumidifier. I think you'll be OK.
Also forget the Premier synthetic coolant that Tormach sells. Get a good petrolium based coolant. I use Koolrite 2290 on the 1100 and the SlantPRO. I keep it a little on the heavy side about 10:1, and nothing is rusting! It also keeps aluminum parts from discoloring.

[CNC-Dude]

CNC-Dude, what I am thinking about for the summer is getting one of those portable A/C units, the ones with the big hoses. My plan is to take a 2x8 the width of my garage door and putting a couple of holes in it for the hoses. I will stand it on edge and close the garage door on it. This way I get some air and I can still keep my door closed. When I am done for the night, I will simply open the door, remove the board and close the door again. Nothing permanent, nothing neigbours can carp about.

bob

Rowbare, I know which unit you are talking about. Before I had the insulation on my garage door, my brother gave me one of these units and I gave it a try. It didn't do much for cooling the garage, but at least I could stand in front of it during those times in which I was cursing in despair. I then added the insulation and didn't need the AC anymore. I do want to point out I didn't have the wood bottom, so it is possible this will help. I think the insulation is crucial, though.

I feel tempted to wonder whether the reason why my garage is more manageable now is because of the insulation or perhaps because of less atrocious summers. I am leaning towards the insulation, though.

One last thought on the portable AC unit. One minor disadvantage on these units is that they have a small water reservoir you need to empty on a regular basis. A possibility would be to add a leak line to your 2x8 and let the water flow outside. I am inclined to think the unit will come with such a line, although it's been a while so I may be confusing old data.

[mountaindew]

That is wild reading about humidity problems and large volume air exchanges!. Here in Colorado you would open door, windows or garage doors to let humidity out.

[Spinnetti]

First of, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PENDING JOINING THE CLUB!!!

Here in Dallas TX, humidity is not much of a problem, so I am not certain my input will help in any way. But for documentation purposes (for anybody else which may read this) here it goes:

My machine is in what the builder dared to call a 2 car garage. Two of the walls are insulated (the ones that face the house), the other wall is not insulated and the garage door was not insulated at first. Then one day I saw this amazing foil thingamathingy which appears to have been developed by Aliens from the Quanderfroorey Nebula. WHAT THE HECK, this stuff is awesome! Now I can be in my garage all year long regardless of whether Satan is knocking on my door outside, or the North Pole landed on my roof. It only cost me about $100 to cover the garage door and these have to be some of the best spent $100 throughout my life.

With regards to humidity and rust, I have never had any problem. I am always putting WD40 on my table, and although there is plenty of people in here with a religious fervor on how WD40 doesn't work, it works for me. Maybe my WD40 was also developed by Quanderfrooreydians...

I have no dehumidifier on my garage, neither do I heat it up or cool it. I did want to add an AC unit at some point in time, but my neighborhood almost picketed in front of my house as they forbid me to add a window unit and ghettisize my area.

My goal in the upcoming years is to move to a house with some sort of workshop. Have been looking and looking but first I need to become a brain surgeon or a multi billion dollar company CEO so that I can afford a home with such a contraption...

Funny... will be moving there soon as the company tells me when... will be a regular Tormach-a-paloza there in Dallas. Whereabouts are you? I'm looking at Frisco or Lucas right now...