Garage Moisture Problem

[Doctorsmack03]

I am new to home repairs so this may be obvious to others and I appologize.

The problem is as follows:
First off, I live in Torrance, CA where the weather goes from 65-75*F during the day to 40-60*F at night. I have a 20' by 23' one story garage with exposed interior wall studs, no dry wall or insulation. The attic is also exposed, no dry wall, etc. I am having a problem with my tools, car parts and everything else metal rusting literally overnight. I will put a tool in there today and it is rusty tomorrow. I think the problem is that there are absolutely no vents of any sort in this garage. I beleive that during the day, the garage reaches temperatures of 75 degrees F and while the doors are all closed, it maintains that heat. Then at night the temperature outside drops to 50 degrees which causes a lot of moisture to develope in the air inside the garage. So my first instinct is to add two small vents about a foot from ground level on opposite sides of the garage and two at the top point of the garage. Will this cure my problem because this is getting very expensive to replace rusty tools and polish car parts.
Thanks

[lw@buyerbewareinc.com]

Garages need to be vented

You are correct in thinking moisture trapped in your garage is causing rust on metal stored inside.

If you have a typical gable or peaked roof on the garage I suggest you vent the garage roof frame like you would vent an attic using one square foot of vent area for each three hundred square feet of floor area. One half of the vent area needs to be low in the roof frame and one half near the peak or highest point in the roof frame.

If the roof is flat and you never intend to finish the inteiror of the garage, vents installed near the ceiling and low in the walls will work.

High and low vents provide natural convection circulation of air by allowing warm air from inside the garage to circulate out through the high vents while drawling cooler, drier air inside through the low vents.

Try to place the vents in locations where natural convection circulation of air through the vents will circulate air in all parts of the garage. Vents located high and low near the garage door may not circulate air all the way to the back of the garage.

The vent openings should be covered with corrosion resistant metal mesh with one-quarter inch openings. This is commonly called "hardware cloth" and is available from any building supply warehouse store.

I have a forty-three year old car stored in my unheated,open frame garage. I keep the windows slightly open to allow air circulation through the car and have had no rust show up on the chrome in nine years. I have a ridge vent at the peak of the roof for a high level vent and vented blocks between the rafters at the top of the exterior walls for low level vents.

lw@buyerbewareinc.com

[mrcaptainbob]

Ventilation....

My barn is as about as free air flowing as possible without leaving the 10'x10' slide door open. There are gable vents at the top. Many, MANY knot holes, and the t&g siding has some spaces large enough to let a small bird through. There are no soffit panels on either side. And yet, when warm humid air passes through and hits colder metal (read tools, drill press, etc.) it sweats so dang much you'd think a garden hose sprayer let loose in there! Once it aclimates to the days warmer temps, it all dries out.