Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Condensation in Closet and Drawer Cabinet

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Condensation in Closet and Drawer Cabinet

    Sometime back it was common for closets to have windows. People didn't wash their clothing, or have as much clothing as today and it was common to let clothes air out overnight and between wearing. A side benefit of this was air circulation in the closet to reduce condensation, mold, and mildew. I bring this up because yesterday morning when I got my shirt out of the bedroom closet the tail was wet.

    Our closets (there is a middle divider so I will use the plural form) sit over a four drawer (stacked two high) cabinet and all of these sit in a road side slide. There is not any heat or ventilation in this slide. The condensation was on the outer side walls and the back wall of the closest starting about halfway down and extending past the the closet floor and into the drawer cabinet. The condensation was heaviest about the vertical seam between the side walls and the back. I suspect that this is just a butt joint and no matter how well it is sealed it still allows for faster temperature loss than the wall panels themselves.

    We spent yesterday with the closets' doors open and the bottom two drawers pulled, towel dried and then disinfected surfaces, and then set up a dehumidifier and fan to dry things out further. Wet clothing was washed and run through the drier. We also checked other cabinets and did find some moister in those against the nose of the trailer; left these doors open, too. Today will look for Damprid or similar product and, possibly, some small vents that I can install between the cabinet and the closests and between the two closets for air circulation, and we've ordered more dehumidifiers. We will leave doors and drawers open or ajar as much as we can and run the dehumidifiers and fan as much as we can, but we have about 3 1/2 months of damp, cool to cold weather ahead of us and SWMBO is not happy about these measures.

    I spent sometime searching here and elsewhere for a more permanent solution to heating and ventilating the closets and cabinet without much success. Trying to install vents on the face of the cabinet and closets so that we can circulate the cabin air through them doesn't really seem feasible and the facing is pretty much flush with inside surfaces of the closets, and the drawer fronts cover the cabinet facing while the closets' doors have mirror inserts that would complicate installing vents in them. This also will make it hard to run any electricity through the front of the closets/cabinet for any fan or heater. I did find some relatively flat heaters but they are for heating a metal surface or a fish aquarium and I'm not sure how will they would work here if at all.

    I'm sure we're not the first ones to have this problem, so I'm open to hearing about past experience and resolutions and any new thoughts or ideas.

    On edit: By the way, I'm not interested in installing windows in the closets.
    Last edited by JBill9694; 12-14-2020, 12:28 PM.
    John
    2018 Momentum 395M
    2018 Ram 3500 Dually
    Every day is a Saturday, but with no lawn to mow.

  • #2
    We went with a couple of small containers of DampRid in the closet and left the closet doors open and the bottom drawers pulled out for a few days. We also set up a Seavon Mini-Dehumidifier in the bedroom. Closets were dry but still getting some moisture in bottom of the drawer cabinet. So Sunday it was on to getting some air flow down into the cabinet from the closet.

    Click image for larger version

Name:	20201220 Parts.JPG
Views:	800
Size:	103.1 KB
ID:	38399 At the top of the photo are HONJIE long breathable net 6.06 by 0.61 inch, (154 by 15.6 mm) plastic floor register solid plastic grids in black (10 pieces for $7.99 on Amazon). The fan is an AC Infinity Axial 1238 Muffin Fan, 120VAC (120 by 38 mm) cooling, ventilation, exhaust fan ($17.99 on Amazon).
    Click image for larger version

Name:	20201220 Templetes.JPG
Views:	592
Size:	107.3 KB
ID:	38400 Before starting the install I made cutting templates. One for each of the six vents I decided to install and two, one square based on the outline of the fan and one round based on the outline of the fan grill, for the fan. The templates are much easy to position/reposition and then tape in place than the vents and the fan would have been. Also, with the dark stain used in the closet it would have been very difficult to follow any pencil or ink line.
    Click image for larger version

Name:	20201220 Cuts.JPG
Views:	604
Size:	63.5 KB
ID:	38401 The cuts have been made; three slots for vents in the floor of each half of the closet and if you can zoom in on the right end of the hanger bar in the left closet you can see the square hole for the fan.

    No final pictures of the install (SWMBO was more interested in getting the closets and the bedroom back together than in documenting the work), but I plan in pulling the left most bottom drawer out to check on how effective this install was and will take some photos then.

    For the fan I ran an extension cord from the outlet on the wall to the left of the closet. I was able to close the closet door completely with out pinching the extension cord. I don't plan on doing anything else for electrical power. This install is for use only when we need it to fight condensation, so we can live with extension cord for a while. The fan itself is pretty quite especially with the doors close. We sleep with a fan running tin the bedroom, anyways, for white noise and this additional source of a hum is not a problem for us. On the plus side, I was able to feel some air movement in the cabinet on the back of my hand before reinstalling the drawers.

    We left the two small containers of DampRid in each closet (need to remove the moisture as well as circulate the air) and continue to run the mini-dehumidifier in the bedroom.
    John
    2018 Momentum 395M
    2018 Ram 3500 Dually
    Every day is a Saturday, but with no lawn to mow.

    Comment


    • #3
      Bill, thanks for documenting what you have done and in the process made many additions to the "stuff to do (STD)" list.
      Jerry and Kelly Powell, with Halo, Nash, Reid, Cleo, Rosie, and the two newest additions Shaggy and Bella..
      Nash County, NC
      2020 Solitude 390RK-R​

      Comment


      • #4
        John,
        After reading posts from other people regarding condensation I started looking for small dehumidifiers for our RV before the wet season hit here in WA state.
        Have been very happy with the Seavon Mini-Dehumidifiers that we selected after trying a couple of different ones.
        They're very compact, normally empty them once a week so are pulling moisture from the air, (auto shutoff if you forget) are quiet, and move a decent amount of air around for how quiet they are.
        Have 1 on the kitchen counter where and the other in our bedroom. Our weather station which shows both outside & inside humidity is showing 98% outside and 33% inside this morning as it hasn't rained in almost 24 hours. When it's raining the level typically increases to the low 40% range and boiling water or making a soup will climb up to 50% range.
        $40 on Amazon.
        SEAVON Dehumidifier, 2200 Cubic Feet, Small Dehumidifiers for High Humidity in Home Bedroom Bathroom Closet RV Basements, 800ml Quiet Auto-off Electric Portable Dehumidifier

        Hope this helps and Merry Christmas!
        Chris
        Chris
        2019 Solitude 3740BH
        2019 Chevy 3500HD Duramax SRW

        Comment


        • #5
          TheNescios , I think it was your thread, or someone else's that lead me to the Seavon and my bad for not given credit earlier in my posting. We have three of them in operation; one in the bedroom, one in the shower (remove before using the shower and then put back), and one in the main living area. The one in the main living area is on the floor of the curbside slide which seems to be the coldest, dampest area. We are super happy with them.

          Now, as promised, here are three pictures of the mostly completed install:
          Click image for larger version

Name:	20201222 Vents.JPG
Views:	704
Size:	72.3 KB
ID:	38576 Two of three vents in the left (rear) closet with the extension cord laying on the floor of the closet.

          Click image for larger version

Name:	20201222 Fan Back.JPG
Views:	559
Size:	53.3 KB
ID:	38577 The back of the fan in the rear closet tucked up behind the clothes bar. This happens to be my closet.

          Click image for larger version

Name:	20201222 Fan Front.JPG
Views:	581
Size:	88.1 KB
ID:	38578 The front of the fan in SWMBO closet. It is good that the install worked out this way as SWMBO cares more about aesthetics than I do and doesn't have to look at the ugly back of the fan every morning.

          As you can see from the photos, some of my cuts were very rough despite the templates that I had made. This was not the templates fault but mine. I only had a handsaw (actually a hacksaw) to make the cutes with. An oscillating saw or some other power tool would have done a better and faster job. Also, there is block of wood sandwiched between the two panels that make up the closet divider to support the clothes rod support. My stud detector didn't this block (Probably due to the proximity of the clothes rod and the side and top of the closet) and of course my first cut for the back of the fan landed right on the block. Oh well, what would life be with out a little filler and stain?

          As I noted in post 2, I could feel air movement in the cabinet space under the closets so from that perspective the install is a success. Trying to measure whether the moisture in the cabinet area has been eliminated is harder to determine. I can still feel some dampness in the area so it is not 100% successful, but I do feel that it is less damp than before. I'm probably going to give up some drawer space so that I can get a container with a larger surface area than the two containers in the photos filled with DampRid set up in the cabinet. This is just fine tuning though, like the filler and stain work.
          John
          2018 Momentum 395M
          2018 Ram 3500 Dually
          Every day is a Saturday, but with no lawn to mow.

          Comment


          • #6
            John,
            No worries on the dehumidifiers - it's more about sharing news of things that seem to work as advertised.
            Like your fan idea - think air movement is a key to reducing moisture buildup - much like a vehicle with the defroster fan on low keeps windows from fogging up.
            Might take a week or so to know how the steps you've taken are working, but I can't think of anything I'd do differently?
            Hope you and yours have a Merry Christmas!
            Chris
            Chris
            2019 Solitude 3740BH
            2019 Chevy 3500HD Duramax SRW

            Comment

            Working...
            X