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.
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.
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