air chambers

Ive recently bought my first house which has a detached double garage. Unfortunately it is only a prefab, and although it appears to be well made and of good quality, does appear to suffer a bit from being cold and damp. I'm planning on ply lining the roof and putting some insulation in, then painting the floors and walls and fitting some decent draft excluders to the doors. Unfortunately the other half has insisted I spend all my time on decorating the house instead of the garage!!!!! Winter is looming and I'm running out of time so have been looking at an air chamber as an alternative to keep the supra safe and dry. Carcoon and airflow uk seem to be the main suppliers of these in the uk. I'm just wondering if anyone else uses or has used one and if they are any good as they are quite expensive at nearly £600 for a supra sized one!

Many thanks, John

Found this which may be of some use, recon the cost is about £2k for a double garage.

I`m a Sparky who subbies for a Co who supplies Sectional Garages, Ocassionally I get asked to Line the Garage as well as wire , I then employ a Joiner mate and we line em as follows :-

 

Most Garage Panels are bolted togther , to these we fit a Lining Clip which is basically a flat Plate 40mmx100mm with 2 holes one for fastening to the Bolt and one hole for Screwing a Batten to , We usually make up a 3x2 Stud which is fixed to the Clips , Kept clear of the Floor to allow airflow, We fill the stud with 50mm Kingspan and face it all with 6 or 9mm Plywood , we then fit a Shadow Mould at the Top to cover any gaps (Small) and a Skirt to the bottom left about 12mm off the Floor, We Stud and Line the Ceiling even if it is an apex Roof, We use Plywood because the Garage is still basically a Single Skin Structure and if Plasterboard was used i`m pretty sure it`d start to break up within a few Years

 

Done about 6 this year mainly for Workshop Storage or for TRAIN SETS ! everyone to their own !

So might be worth talking to companies who supply that type of garage for suggestions.

awesome! cheers for the info buddy, I will look into that. I dont have that kind of money at the moment and it sounds like something I could do myself next year when I have more time. I think an air chamber or a carcoon is going to be the quickest and simplest fix for this winter

Dehumidifier? Not sure that blocking fresh air flow inside the garage is a good idea without insulation or a dehumidifier if it suffers damp...

im wondering if I need a dehumidifier in the air chamber aswell? the problem is the cold air coming into the garage just forms condensation, making everything on the car damp, especially all my polished bits in the engine bay.

http://www.carcovershop.co.uk/airchamber-protection.asp

I'm looking at these as they have built in fans which move filtered air arpund the car without anything touching it.

Fans will just keep bringing in more damp air. If you're going to dehumidify, you don't want so much air circulation as you'll be fighting a losing battle. Similarly you don't want it TOO dry either. I'd look for a tiny amount of air circulation and a dehumidifier with a humidistat. Google thinks somewhere in the 40-60% range is good for cars.

Not sure how the costs add up but have you thought about heating. £500 buys quite a bit of electric if it's only temporary.

I put my £150 dehumidifier on every time I open the garage door for 6 hours after the door closes (internal timer). Sometimes It'll pull a litre of water sometimes no more than a small cup full. When the outside humidity is over 85% it really starts to fill the collector. I think you'd have difficulty getting the water levels down anywhere near 50% humidity unless a garage is well sealed and at a fairly constant temperature.

I even did an estimate of the humidity after the 6 hours using the every kg of air can absorb 13g of water (100% humidity at 20C). The volume of my garage is 90m3 (1.2kg air/m3) giving a water content of potential of roughly 1.3l on one of those humid 90% days. So I recon after 6 hours with the dehumidifier on and sometimes pulling 1l out its down to under 30% humidity. An ideal level for leather. apparently. So would definitely recommend a dehumidifier though I never saw one that'd run on humidity level in the price range I looked at, just timed with various fan speeds and heat settings.

PS - As a add in, the reckoning is that when humidity is above 50%, the moisture level is sufficient to enable rust to form. So my dehumidified garage should, in theory, be a rust free zone.