Heating a Rehearsal Space / Garage

[::Saint::]

So it looks like my band has the opportunity to move our rehearsals into a dedicated space that is essentially a large 2-car detached garage in the back of my house. It's a well-built, relatively new garage that appears to be well insulated and sealed.

My only problem is that there is no heat in there, so we need to figure out how to keep it heated enough that we can store our gear in there safely.

So I guess my first question is around what temperature should we be aiming for the sake of our gear, etc?

And the second question would be what is the best way to safely and efficiently keep it heated, assuming that installing permanent baseboards is not an option? I had thought to just put in a couple of space heaters, (i.e. portable baseboards or whatever) as long as I can leave them turned on and not worry about them setting anything on fire. In fact I may be able to get a couple of nice portable oil-filled heaters for cheap or free.

Any help?!

[::Saint::]

Bueller.. Bueller... Bueller...

I think I may have the heaters sorted out, but can anyone give me some advice on what sort of temperature I should be trying to achieve?

[FunkMetalBass]

Room temperature with relatively low (and consistent) humidity is always preferred. That's about 24ºC (76ºF) and about 20-25% humidity (don't quote me on humidity - I live in Arizona where it's dryer than dry).

[T-Bird]

Hi.

24ºC (76ºF) Woah, that'll break the bank in Canada during the winter months.
I live in similar conditions here in Finland and even my room temperature isn't nowhere that high.
Seeing that You live in Arizona, I can understand your point though .


You'll have to determine the dew point from the humidity, anything above that is acceptable.

In our rehearse space the base temperature is 5ºC IIRC and we heat it up with a propane/butane "cannon" to about 15ºC before playing. The downside is the drastic increase in humidity when using direct radiating gas flame since the combustion byproduct is water.

I store my gear (exept the instruments) in 10ºC and that includes all the machining equipment, raw materials etc.

Regards
Sam

[::Saint::]

Yeah 76 F seems a bit high to me as well -- thankfully I live on the West Coast so it doesn't really get COLD cold here.. we get anywhere up to maybe a week of snow here at most, and some winters it doesn't snow at all. The lowest temperature we really experience is maybe -10 Celsius, but generally during the winter the coldest it gets on a regular basis is 0 to -5 C or so.

Having said that, its a well insulated room and we'll be putting carpets, drapes, etc to keep as much warmth in as possible, but I would think that as long as we don't have moisture we should be okay. Maybe I'm wrong..

[::Saint::]

According to this Dew Point Calculator, with 61% relative Humidity which Victoria has right now, at 0 C, the Dew Point is -7C?? This seems wrong to me.. at least in terms of the safe temperature for storing instruments, etc.

[FunkMetalBass]

Originally Posted by ::Saint::

Yeah 76 F seems a bit high to me as well..

You're right, my mistake. Room temperature is 72ºF.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_ro..._in_Fahrenheit

[::Saint::]

So I guess the question remains, is it imperative that we keep the room at room temperature all the time or can we maintain it at a lower temp without damage to the equipment?

[::Saint::]

So I talked to one of the local music stores and was told that a minimum of around 68-70 C would be sufficient but that I should make sure the room doesn't get too DRY.. now I'm really confused.

[Pilgrim]

"Room temp" defined is debatable, but IMO keeping a practice area at 70 is a total waste of energy and money. I don't even keep my house at 70 during the day - my thermostat sets back to 60 daytimes and overnight. All my instruments (solid body and hollowbody) are stored in those conditions year 'round, and it doesn't hurt a thing. In the summer I let the temp go up to 80 daytimes, then cool is back down to the mid-70's when I'm home.

I am confident that keeping the room in the 60 degree range would be just fine, BUT if I were the one paying the bills I'd keep it at 50 and turn up the temp to 60 or 65 an hour before rehearsal. IMO having a 20 degree temp change over the period of an hour or more will not hurt an instrument.

I'm from Washington and I see that you're in Victoria, so I assume that humidity in your are probably varies from about 30% in winter to maybe 70% in summer. I don't recall what the humidity was like on my last visit to Victoria. I don't think you have anything at all to worry about in terms of humidity unless the variation is greater than I've guessed. Instruments aren't all that fragile. If you were storing a Stradivarius violin I'd suggest less variation in temp and humidity - but you're not.

[::Saint::]

Hey Pilgrim -- yeah I was kind of thinking that too -- my house isn't really humidity controlled and not always up at 70 degrees either, and aside from the fact that there is no built in heat, this garage is built to a similar spec, so I think it shouldn't be that big of a problem to go down to 60ish or below. Thanks for the practical interpretation

For the record our Relative Humidity in Victoria right now is 57% according to the weather network.

[Stumbo]

Originally Posted by ::Saint::

So I talked to one of the local music stores and was told that a minimum of around 68-70 C would be sufficient but that I should make sure the room doesn't get too DRY.. now I'm really confused.

DRY.....yep, adding heat will dry things out. Just like you're skin get dry when you heat your home.

It seems keeping the heaters on will cost way too much $$.

If the garage is a long term thing, laying down some padding and carpet would help. Ice cold concrete is tough to over come.

I'd keep the guitars/basses in the house and leave everything else out in the garage. then find out how long it takes to warm up the garage with whatever heating you have going.

Another thought: frame out a room within the garage with some great insulation. Maybe even a raised floor with insulation underneath.

That actually may be cheaper than attempting to maintain the heat with a concrete exposed floor.

[::Saint::]

Yeah we are definitely going to lay down some carpets and what-not to help with sound and heat as trying to heat the place without any insulation on the floor would be pretty tough. I don't know if I think the heaters would be that expensive to run all the time -- they're pretty efficient and if we don't need to keep it at 70 C it might not be too bad.

In terms of the dryness thing .. yeah I understand it will dry out the room when we add heat, but I would think that is a good thing considering that there is no heat there now. I have a hard imagining that we could heat up the place enough to actually make it TOO dry.

[D.A.R.K.]

i rehearsed in that situation for years,
always took home instruments but left amps, pa and drums
regularly in a room that would go down to 10 degrees above freezing, without ever having a problem. only hassle was being the one who showed up an hour early to heat the place up (we used electric heaters).
we were always more afraid of burning the place down than the cold.
this was not a stand alone like your situation, though, so we never had to worry about anything freezing.
we did not use oil or kerosene heat because the room was sealed well and we were concerned about hazardous emissions.
if you are concerned about it being dry, a humidifier is really cheap...
just run it when you run the heaters.

[Munjibunga]

Make sure that you have the heating unit properly vented if it uses combustibles. We don't want any TBers dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. Anybody else, OK.

[Pilgrim]

In Victoria BC you're not about to dry out a practice area enough to matter using heaters. It's right on the Strait of Georgia between Canada and the US. But Munji is right - safety is paramount when using heaters - both in terms of fire prevention and avoiding carbon monoxide poisoning.

[Jim C]

Let's consider the logistics first
Typicaly a small 2 car garage is 20'x20'x10' high = 4,000
Assume that it is well insulated and selaed with minimal air infltration (unlikely as the garage door is probably uninsulated but let's pretend) =.25
I will arbitrarily choose 30 degrees F as the amount of temperature increase
4,000 x .25 x 30 = 30,000 Btu/hr
to convert to watts = 30,000 x .293 =8,790 watts
Those oil filled smal radiators that you see in dorm rooms are 1,500 watts, so to change the temp 30 degrees you would need 6 of them running wide open
This will not be cheap to run
If it were me, I'd shoot for mid 40's to keep the gear from being hurt (assuming the guitars go inside and the drums are durable)
You may not be able to get the space as warm as you like depending on the outside temp based on the above.
If you can, partition the room with styrofoam or plywood and keep the garage doors on the uninsulated 1/2.

[Quadcam]

^^^ lol was that for room heat or the space shuttle re entry trajectory?

[grifff]

Originally Posted by Quadcam

^^^ lol was that for room heat or the space shuttle re entry trajectory?

Thanks for the laugh haha

[joegeezer]

I find that 55 to 60F is plenty. Thats the hell of it for us tundra dwellers. You have to keep the heat going or face the metal bits sweating, and causing corrosion on you. Or creating moisture in the electrical components. It sucks!! Best bet is, find a local club that has not much for customers, and be their house band for the winter, and do some day practice there, while their customer flow is low, and try out the new tunes on the nite time customers. Gives the band more practice, and maybe even making a buck, on a through the door percentage?? Beats paying a heat bill, and gives you more exposure.