Indoor car cocoon type things

[drewf]

Considering a few of these cocoon type things for the toys in the barn, to keep them clean and completely dry over winter.

The thing is, being from Yorkshire I consider they are quite expensive for what they are, and when given some thought they look almost exactly like polytunnels. The plant growing kind.

Now, there are hundreds of those on farms around here, and they cost ten bob and a conker compared to the car storage things, so can anyone foresee issues with using them in the barn, sealed with a DPF on the floor and fitted with dehumidifiers? I can buy three 6m x 3m x 2m units for half the price of a single 4.5m x 2.5m x 1.8m framed cocoon thing.

Thoughts gents?

 

[rockits]

I think the Carcoons & the like are pretty pricey as well. Good but pricey. I'm looking at a 12m x 6m Dancover structure to store 4 cars for a bit under £1500 I think last time I looked.

Not sure how well they will be able to be sealed though the same as poly tunnels. Although I would get an indoor soft cover for them and trickle chargers as well.

 

[mjheathcote]

I used to have a permabag for the Stag.
Fully sealed reinforced silver plastic bag with a big zip that you drove the car into and zipped up, with stainless steel perforated tubes full of desiccant, and a humidity meter inside that you could see through a clear window to check on the humidity levels.
Worked very well. Bought it nearly 20 years ago when we bought our first house with concrete prefab garage. Knocked the garage down and built a proper double walled insulated garage, but that still suffered with condensation from time to time.
Moved 10 years ago and the double garage is built under the house, so no problem with humidity or condensation as its never cold, so sold the bag on.

So to answer your question, why not? as long as you monitor the humidity level, just the same as the permabag.
Attached is the chart that came with my permabag for the ideal temp/humidity levels for storage.

 

[drewf]

I think the Carcoons & the like are pretty pricey as well. Good but pricey. I'm looking at a 12m x 6m Dancover structure to store 4 cars for a bit under £1500 I think last time I looked.

Not sure how well they will be able to be sealed though the same as poly tunnels. Although I would get an indoor soft cover for them and trickle chargers as well.

Exactly - they are plenty spendy. Rough costs are polytunnels £100 each, Cair-o-port / Carcoon / Dancover £5-600 each. What do you think the sealing issues might be? None of them are really airtight as far as I can tell. I'm seeing two different types - one constantly blows air through the tent, which is supposed to take the moisture with it (not sure how good that is if the new incoming air is damp), and a reasonably sealed system attempting to create a controlled environment with only a little air change (which is the way I'm looking at it, using dehumidifiers).

Attached is the chart that came with my permabag for the ideal temp/humidity levels for storage.

That's useful Mike - looks like a very wide range of 'recommended' storage conditions. I'm struggling to see the 90%+ RH at low temperatures being ok - what am I missing?

 

[rockits]

I'm going to try the same approach to try to seal the inside as much as possible. Only issue for me is the Dancover is much higher than I need. I had a thought I could have a raised/framed floor to take up some of the height also getting it up nicely off an initial turf base. With pad stones or something to pad off the turf but also to make the floor level enough to be decent.

It is only temporary for me but if decent enough I could always look to re-site & re-position if we managed to get the development project off the ground.

What were you looking to do as a floor?

 

[midlifecrisis]

How about your polytunnel idea but with a dehumidifier such as the unibond aero 360 or similar?
They are designed to passively remove moisture from the air and if you seal your polytunnel then you should cheaply achieve the same as a carcoon.

 

[drewf]

The floor exists in the barn - it's 2ft thick concrete... Just intend putting a secondary membrane down mostly to seal the polytunnel to.

Dehumidifiers are the plan - started off with that premise Martin. Small units will do the trick.

 

[rockits]

Sounds like a good plan.....should work fine I would say. I guess only one way to find out.

I haven't got the barn unfortunately. Did get a quote from Spacio Tempo for a temp building and it was 50-70k! Could build a solid permanent structure for less than half that.

How much are the 6 x 3 x 2 units out of interest? Got any links to a web page of them?

 

[drewf]

Loads of 6x3x2 polytunnels online for around £100 - here's a quick link to the sort of thing I mean.

 

[Corranga]

The dehumidifier would be essential, but I can see the plan working.

Without the dehumidifier, the poly tunnel would in fact generate condensation and prevent the car from drying, but with it, I don't really see it as being any different to my double garage + dehumidifier solution.

My garage isn't sealed, but I did fit a rubber flap to the bottom of the large door to get rid of a 1 inch gap, and a rubber matt over the drain in the middle to stop the dehumidifier just sucking up that water. Easy enough to see there are some gaps letting light in when standing inside with the light off.
The walls are slightly porous too, and on occasion I've put a wet car in there too.
In fact I had the Maserati out yesterday in the wet, put it in the garage last night around 8pm and it was dry this morning when I took it out again.

Without the dehumidifier, the inside of the big metal door gets covered in condensation the first time the sun hits it for a couple of hours

 

[midlifecrisis]

And with it being temporary, you do not need planning permission.
I'm going measure the width of my drive later today. It's relatively shaded from wind on three sides.
Will you heat seal the plastic of the floor to the polytunnel or just gaffer tape it?

 

[drewf]

And with it being temporary, you do not need planning permission.
I'm going measure the width of my drive later today. It's relatively shaded from wind on three sides.
Will you heat seal the plastic of the floor to the polytunnel or just gaffer tape it?

I won't need planning permission anyway Martin regardless of what I end up doing - they are going inside my barn

Trouble is, the barn is mahoosive, and was built with 25 air vents like big arrow slits, not to mention the lime mortar and the typical barn doors. Sealing it and dehumidifying the entire building isn't on the cards, so I want to make some much smaller air volumes to manage the environment in them.

I was only going to use gaffer tape, cheap and easy but will seal it quite readily. There's no wind or rain indoors - might be better heat sealed if you use one outside.

 

[rockits]

These might be perfect for me as well to be honest. I can get two now and do the other two next year when I re-jig and re-work that area next to the workshop. One car in each. As they have a door at the back and front you could drive all the way through which is useful.

I wonder how hard or expensive it would be to get a solar powered system on there to power a de-humidifier and trickle charger. Totally off grid solution thin and zero running costs. Maybe less worth it if the runnings costs of a standard electric powered system are not much.

Sounds like a good plan to me Drew. With £400 for 4 of these as opposed to the £1500 Dancover it makes sense. Also has a lower 2m roof than the Dancover and much better to control the environments in 4 smaller spaces rather than one big one.

 

[rockits]

Seems like a good idea to have this if outside:
http://www.feelgooduk.net/rolls-of-polytunnel-anti-hot-spot-tape.html

I guess you don't have this issue really Drew for your application. Mine will be outside but in a fairly shielded/protected area. It stil is open to a bit of wind/weathering though.

 

[drewf]

No, I won't be needing tape to shield from sunlight! That's a thought - if outside and in a sunny position, would that cause problems for a car? Not a worry for me as you say, but it might be for someone siting a fairly clear plastic shelter on a drive, say.

The small dehumidifier we use in the clothes drying room consumes 180W (per hour) running at full chat. Since it can dry (to <35% RH) a full washing machine load in about four hours, I'm not anticipating massive electricity bills when set to maintain maybe 45-50% RH (dunno what's the best option, but let's go with that as an arbitrary number), then the machine will cycle on/off as necessary to maintain that. Assuming costs are about 11p per kWh (just looked that up, and we have much cheaper rates overnight) then at 50% duty cycle (which I doubt will be necessary), we are looking at a little over 2kW per day, or 22p. Factoring in the night rate, let's say it's 15p... Plus another few pennies on the trickle chargers. 20p per tent should cover it.

On that basis I'll just be reaching for the convenient 13A socket on the wall. I can see if you are talking about the far corner of a field it's a different matter!

 

[CatmanV2]

room consumes 180W (per hour) r

Speechless!

C

 

[drewf]

Speechless!

C

Just won a small bet in my head

 

[CatmanV2]

Just won a small bet in my head

So glad I didn't disappoint

C

 

[rockits]

No, I won't be needing tape to shield from sunlight! That's a thought - if outside and in a sunny position, would that cause problems for a car? Not a worry for me as you say, but it might be for someone siting a fairly clear plastic shelter on a drive, say.

The small dehumidifier we use in the clothes drying room consumes 180W (per hour) running at full chat. Since it can dry (to <35% RH) a full washing machine load in about four hours, I'm not anticipating massive electricity bills when set to maintain maybe 45-50% RH (dunno what's the best option, but let's go with that as an arbitrary number), then the machine will cycle on/off as necessary to maintain that. Assuming costs are about 11p per kWh (just looked that up, and we have much cheaper rates overnight) then at 50% duty cycle (which I doubt will be necessary), we are looking at a little over 2kW per day, or 22p. Factoring in the night rate, let's say it's 15p... Plus another few pennies on the trickle chargers. 20p per tent should cover it.

On that basis I'll just be reaching for the convenient 13A socket on the wall. I can see if you are talking about the far corner of a field it's a different matter!

Good working out...thanks. So ballpark £73 per year per unit. Not worth doing much else really. I have an armoured cable and power running to the workshop and these tunnels will be next door so easy enough to get power in. Just got to get my sparky to work out if all the draw I need will work with current cable diameter and circuit on MCB in potting shed.

I'm going to order one now to test to see. I'll always use it regardless so worth a punt for £100.

These are UV protected covers I understand so sunlight should be less of an issue outside. Must be much much better than physically being outside.

 

[rockits]

Thanks Drew as I would not have looked or seen these. All ordered and will report back with my findings.