Garage in winter

[jwhyne]

Anyone store water in their garage here? I am worried about winter time and it being way to cold. Or, adding heaters in the storage tanks and huge amounts of evaporation.

I have it in the basement now, but my basement is small and I'm running out of room.

 

[dv3]

i don't store water in my garage but i noticed that typically my garage stay about 20 degrees warmer than outside and rarely goes below freezing but i guess it depend on how many outside walls you have and how its insulated

 

[jwhyne]

1.5 are outside and probably not insulated, or not well if they are, and one is the door itself. Drywall was up when I moved in, so I don't know, but I would assume it's not based on a number of other things I've found with the house.

Maybe I'll just put some thermometers on it this winter and see what happens.

 

[dv3]

you "should" be ok ..i doubt that it would freeze solid but you never know

 

[jwhyne]

Wonder if something like a water heater blanket around the brute trashcans would make a difference.

 

[dv3]

i would think it would help ...you could also run a heater in it that is turned down all the way so its not on as much

 

[jwhyne]

Good idea. I think I'll try that.

 

[miwoodar]

An airstone should be enough to keep it from freezing. I don't even do that though and the worst I've gotten is a 1/4" sheet of ice on top (attached garage). Now the RO/DI unit...if you leave the garage door open overnight at -10...they will explode. The replacement unit came out of my wife's fun money.

 

[Heffe01]

we keep ours in the garage....if your coming to the meeting this weeked you could look and see what we do

 

[othercents]

You might try a few insulation tips for garage doors.

Weather Stripping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6c6_monR-g

Insulation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ramv7X2UPwg

 

[jwhyne]

Nice videos. I may have to do that insulation bit. My garage sure gets cold at times and leaks like crazy.

 

[jwhyne]

we keep ours in the garage....if your coming to the meeting this weeked you could look and see what we do

I'm missing the meeting this weekend unfortunately. Would you be willing to take a couple pictures for me?

 

[Boogie]

An airstone should be enough to keep it from freezing. I don't even do that though and the worst I've gotten is a 1/4" sheet of ice on top (attached garage). Now the RO/DI unit...if you leave the garage door open overnight at -10...they will explode. The replacement unit came out of my wife's fun money.

Can't help but chuckle at this...sorry...lol

 

[miwoodar]

It was a worthy opportunity for an upgrade. I ended up with a much better system.

Come to think of it, I do get concerned about my RO unit on cold nights. The top off water, I don't care about. It gets added via ATO so slowly that my tank heater has no problem keeping up. My mixing container has a 250 watt heater and an MJ mod. Throwing a moving blanket over it seemed to be enough to allow for the water to come up to temp in spite of it being next to the drafty back door while sitting on the concrete slab. Back to the RO unit...the membrane should not be allowed to freeze. If a string of below zero nights loom, especially if the days stay well below freezing too, I will put a desk lamp below my RO unit. This is a 5 days/winter kind of thing. I wouldn't leave it there all the time though as I have no interest in turning it into an algae project.

 

[MattL]

What wrapping your container with water heater insulation?

 

[jwhyne]

I am still contemplating the basement as an option, just a new configuration, but Possibly enclosing the RO unit in a box of some sort that is insulated might be an option too.