Track going filthy overnight

[Right Away]

Who remembers the “Esso Blea Dueler” TV commercial; does he still deliver?

[Clagmeister]

Oil filled filled electric radiator 

 

This mornings readings.  Door closed overnight heater left on low ventilation in.

 

 

 

Still on the wet side of where I want it, but well above dew point, will see if trains work!!

 

Track looks ok, i could be making progress.

 

Ferryhill still using a Haymarket A1 on some of their A4 diagrams. Rare cop on this mornings 3hr Glasgow-Aberdeen

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Clagmeister

[Nearholmer]

Interesting.

 

Implies you now have a lot more moisture in the air (9g per cubic metre) than yesterday (6g per cubic metre).

 

Is this the PVA beginning to dry out?

 

Nice scenery BTW.

[Clagmeister]

The thought is that warm stagnant air holds more moisture.

 

Think air flow is more important.  Certainly to stop a house getting wet you have to change the air each day.

 

Quite a bit of work to be done yet i think....

 

Thanks.  Gleneagles-Blackford is coming on despite the track issues.

 

I do wonder whether the engines should come in at night out of those conditions until i have sorted it.....

[C126]

I do not know if this is of use, but as one who suffered damp on his books and dashed out and bought a dehumidifier, it is best to keep the room sealed when it is on.  Otherwise, you are sucking in damper air and the dehumidifier will never dry out the local atmosphere.  Also, the warmer the air, the more moisture it holds, so cooler air is better.

 

My employer, a library, works to 50-55 R.H. and 60 Deg. F. for optimum archive and book storage.  This varies in local areas of the bookstack for other material (e.g., photographic material).

[Nearholmer]

9 minutes ago, Clagmeister said:

The thought is that warm stagnant air holds more moisture.

Warm air is definitely capable of holding more moisture than cool, but that ‘more’ has to come from somewhere.

 

Either its coming from a change in ambient (outdoor) conditions, and looking at the Met Office site I don’t think humidity has risen that far over night, or from drying-out something in the shed.

 

If you want to get into the physics of what is going on, Google ‘psychrometry’.

[Michael Hodgson]

27 minutes ago, Clagmeister said:

I do wonder whether the engines should come in at night out of those conditions until i have sorted it.....

 

I would.

Though I'm not sure whether they should also acclimatise for a bit before running when you take them back out.

[AndrueC]

I have the same problem even though my layout is indoors. To be fair the dirt doesn't seem to have any effect on the running but if I wipe my fingers along the rails there's always a grey deposit. I use Peco track and model in N.

[wasdavetheroad]

Since last September my dehumidifier has been running for 189 days at an average cost of just under £2.50 per week. The RH averages 50%, never above 56% and the lowest temperature is about 8.5 degrees. There may be some damp problems so some simple remedial work may be justified.

[Clagmeister]

The shed is brand new and no issues with that.  I think the source of my humidity is self inflicted into what was a sealed unit.

 

The scenery base is all wallpaper paste and paper, the scenic details so far are watered pva and the ballast has had quite large quantities of watered down pva on it.

 

Ventilation and background warmth is the key, but it may take some time.

[GoingUnderground]

3 hours ago, Clagmeister said:

The thought is that warm stagnant air holds more moisture.

 

Think air flow is more important.  Certainly to stop a house getting wet you have to change the air each day.

 

Quite a bit of work to be done yet i think....

 

Thanks.  Gleneagles-Blackford is coming on despite the track issues.

 

I do wonder whether the engines should come in at night out of those conditions until i have sorted it.....

The warmer the air, the more moisture it is capable of holding. It doesn't mattter whether it's stagnant or not.

 

The reason why houses get "wet" as you put it is that we live in them and we insist on breathing and keeping them comfortably warm. The warmth lets the air hold more moisture, and when we breathe out our breath contains water vapour which increases the humidity. Modern houses with their uPVC window and door units and rubber seals stop draughts and keep the heat in, but at the expense of significantly reducing the exchange of air with the outside. The air outside will often be colder and hold less water vapour than the air inside. That is why ventilation works to reduce humidity.

 

It was less of a problem in older houses as wooden and metal windows tended not to seal so well in their frames, letting in draughts, and providing ventilation in the process. And when coal fires and open combustion gas water heaters and gas cookers were the norm, many houses had ventilation bricks installed in the rooms concerned, such as the kitchen to stop a build up of combustion products. As I remember it, the air bricks were usually about 12 inches below ceiling level.

 

The high humidity might be a problem not just for the engines, but also for any controllers. 

 

EDIT: I should also have said that we boil water to cook food, and run hot water into sinks to wash up and into baths and basins to keep ourselves clean, all activities that increase the humidity in the home.

Edited March 20, 2021 by GoingUnderground

[Ouroborus]

Exactly this.  The sealed boxes in which we now live can't expel the water vapour we create.  Open hearth fires and leaky sash windows created airflow.  The rush for insulation in roofs, walls and windows had consequences that were not foreseen

[Nearholmer]

13 minutes ago, Ouroborus said:

The sealed boxes in which we now live

 

I'm intrigued. We live in a mega-insulated house that is about ten years old, and have never had any trouble with humidity or with air-quality in other senses. It has controllable trickle-vents in every window frame, free and fan-assisted vents to outdoors from the bath/shower rooms, and, in case that isn't enough, we always do what I guess anyone can do, which is to open the windows for an hour every morning, even if its blinking freezing outside, to get a change of air.

 

I'd rather have that, very controllable, situation, than the load of barely/un-controllable drafts, plus ice on the inside of the bedroom window in winter, which I remember from growing-up in a 1920s house.

[GoingUnderground]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

I'm intrigued. We live in a mega-insulated house that is about ten years old, and have never had any trouble with humidity or with air-quality in other senses. It has controllable trickle-vents in every window frame, free and fan-assisted vents to outdoors from the bath/shower rooms, and, in case that isn't enough, we always do what I guess anyone can do, which is to open the windows for an hour every morning, even if its blinking freezing outside, to get a change of air.

 

I'd rather have that, very controllable, situation, than the load of barely/un-controllable drafts, plus ice on the inside of the bedroom window in winter, which I remember from growing-up in a 1920s house.

Many uPVC windows do not incorporate vents but rely on having an "only just open" locking position. Likewise wooden framed windows can include trickle vents. Older houses that have had their wood or metal window frames replaced with uPVC may not have bathroom fan assisted vents or have had their air bricks blocked up.

 

Whilst everyone can open their windows irrespective of the weather, not everyone will do so daily as you do, or even want to if they live close to a main road because of the noise of passing traffic, and I speak from experience having lived in a property with a main road on one side and the West Coast main line on the other.

 

And ice on the inside of windows is for many people a thing of the past with the advent of central heating and double glazing. 

 

Today, we never have any problems with condensation either, as our wooden double glazed window frames fit well enough to give us a very gradual change of air without noticeable draughts, much like your trickle vents and daily opening regime I imagine.  

[Clagmeister]

Excellent stuff.  Modern buildings are built with these regs and conditions in mind.  What we have done to old houses with the regulations and push to energy saving and heat retention has wrecked them.

 

The building materials of anything pre first world war just aren't able to cope with double glazing and insulation.  As mentioned above they re designed to be draughty with open fires creating the flow.

 

The rush to double glazing and insulation then lead to the rush for damp proof courses people didn't need.  It most cases it isn't damp from the outside but condensation of warm, trapped, wet air coming in contact with the coldest place the bottom of the wall.

 

Todays readings at 0830 were 18c and 58  which is an improvement on last nights.  Going in the right direction hopefully.

[tomparryharry]

On the shed project here, I've planned to have an extractor fan (essentially a bathroom fan )  coupled with a humidity meter.  I had planned on this going through the internal floor void, but it's an absolute no-no. Introducing wet-warm air into a cold environment will allow condensation to form beneath a wooden shed floor, with consequent rot forming at base level. Instead, the vent will go very slightly above floor level, extracting outwards above the shed footings. The height difference at this area is a a metre fall between DPC and footings. If I find condensation excessive, then I'll make a simple condensation plate with a water hopper to drain it away. All of the regulations for buildings are the same as fitting the drain for a combi boiler.

 

Cheers,

Ian. 

Edited March 21, 2021 by tomparryharry

[jcredfer]

I suspect that the increased, morning, Humidity may well have been caused by the increased temperature, with the heater being on, overnight.  The PVA and Paper glue should just give up it's vapour more quickly in the warmer atmosphere.  Slightly disturbing now, but shorter drying times for the future.

 

 

[GoingUnderground]

4 hours ago, Clagmeister said:

.....The rush to double glazing and insulation then lead to the rush for damp proof courses people didn't need.  It most cases it isn't damp from the outside but condensation of warm, trapped, wet air coming in contact with the coldest place the bottom of the wall....

Not sure I agree with that.

 

Damp Proof Courses (DPC) have been in use for many, many, many years, well before double glazing and higher standards of insulation. My parent's house was built in the 1950s and had a bitumen strip damp proof course. There wasn't much double glazing around in the UK then as far as I know. An alternative to a bitumen DPC is a course or three of the dark blue/blackish impermeable engineering bricks included in the masonry.

 

The object of the DPC is to be an impenetrable barrier to water in the soil around the foundations being drawn up into the brickwork by capillary action. Once water gets into brickwork, any plaster on the inside will also become damp and start to flake or bubble. In Winter, freezing weather can cause the damp in the brick to freeze and the freezing can cause the exterior surface of the brick to crumble away, it's called "spalling", weakening the load carrying capacity and strength of the brick.  Additionally, if the damp gets into brickwork upon which floor joists are resting the damp can get into the timber, and start to rot the timber, resulting in the floor collapsing.

 

So I'd never say that a DPC wasn't needed. If you're referring to folks' walls being injected with a chemical DPC at or near ground level, that will have been remedial work necessary to remedy a failing DPC making itself known by bubbling or flaking plaster just above floor or skirting board at floor level, and confirmed with a moisture content meter.

 

Bubbling or flaking plaster at the bottom of a wall is usually caused by damp in the wall due to the failure of the DPC, not condensation. Water on the surface of a wall or black mould will normally be caused by excessive humidity and condensation or possibly water ingress through a crack in a wall or roof tile letting rainwater into the building. The black mould tends to form at the bottom of walls as that's where the condensation droplets run down to, particularly in showers and bathrooms.

 

But some people do have condensation problems of their own making. I know someone who lives in a flat, who told me a tale about their downstairs neighbour knocking on their door one cold Winter's afternoon and complaining that water was running down their walls from a burst pipe in the storyteller's flat. The storyteller went downstairs to see what was happening so that they knew where to start looking for the problem in their own flat if tha twas indeed the source of the water. When they went into the flat below theirs the heat and humidity hit them like a wall, and the room with the problem, which was nowhere near any of the pipe runs, had condensation running down an outside wall from ceiling level. There were no burst pipes, just excessive heat and humidity and no ventilation, with the result that condensation was forming on the coldest wall in the flat in such volumes that droplets of water were forming and running down the wall.

Edited March 21, 2021 by GoingUnderground

[fulton]

Just to add my bit, part of the problem could be down the PVA glue, I find it tarnishes NS rail during ballasting and the vapors hang around for sometime, I have seen a thread that explained PVA glue is not inert even when dry which was explaining why a loco boiler filled with lead glued in with PVA "exploded" after ten years due to the chemical reacting with the lead, as others have said ventilation is a big part of the answer.

[Andymsa]

1 minute ago, fulton said:

Just to add my bit, part of the problem could be down the PVA glue, I find it tarnishes NS rail during ballasting and the vapors hang around for sometime, I have seen a thread that explained PVA glue is not inert even when dry which was explaining why a loco boiler filled with lead glued in with PVA "exploded" after ten years due to the chemical reacting with the lead, as others have said ventilation is a big part of the answer.

 

interesting about the pva reacting with the lead. So what would be a better fixing agent.

[cctransuk]

If PVA tarnishes nickel silver rail, can anyone suggest a better adhesive for fixing ballast?

 

Thank you in anticipation,

John Isherwood.

[GoingUnderground]

1 hour ago, fulton said:

Just to add my bit, part of the problem could be down the PVA glue, I find it tarnishes NS rail during ballasting and the vapors hang around for sometime, I have seen a thread that explained PVA glue is not inert even when dry which was explaining why a loco boiler filled with lead glued in with PVA "exploded" after ten years due to the chemical reacting with the lead, as others have said ventilation is a big part of the answer.

Was the loco boiler in question plastic or a metal diecasting?

[KeithMacdonald]

It might be grimly reassuring to know we're not the only one with problems like these.

 

 

[Clagmeister]

33 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

If PVA tarnishes nickel silver rail, can anyone suggest a better adhesive for fixing ballast?

 

Thank you in anticipation,

John Isherwood.

 

Very good question.  Its been the glue of choice for years, I don't know of another way.  Be interesting to see if anyone has done some different.

[fulton]

I understand the boiler was etched brass, I will continue to use PVA glue as it is cheap and easy to use, the NS rail is weathered anyway, with the top polished.