I live in southern Arizona and plan to build an N gauge layout in my garage. My question is how big a problem will I have with dust and dirt on the layout? I’m not quite sure how to cover the layout safely without risking damage to delicate features. In the summer temps can hit 110 degrees. Is this worth building in this environment?
Some folks do it by sealing up the grage door and using A/C. Anything short of that is going to be uncomfortable for you to work in most likely.
steeddog,
If you can build inside your home rather than your garage, that would be the best thing - both temperature wise and dust wise. I think that the two Chucks (cacole and cwclark) will have plenty of expertise to share on this topic.
Tom
I am in southern Arizona, and am building my N scale layout in the garage. I don’t have any scenery yet, so I haven’t seen how it accumulates that way, but I can usually go out and run a train without a lot of trouble, so it isn’t piling up on the rails.
It would be ridiculous to say it doesn’t get hot up there, but, as you know it is a dry heat! From October through April, it really isn’t too bad to work out there, I do have a space heater to use when it is cool. And even in the summer, it isn’t too bad in the evening , with the door open. Of course, once it gets dark the bugs like to come in, so it can be a bit of a balancing act. During the monsoon season last summer a nice tarantula helped me work one evening, that was a little surprising!
So, is it idea? Nope! Is it as bad as I thought it would be? Nope! Is it better than nothing? Yep! Do I drink a lot of water working out there in the summer? Yep!
Thanks Jeff! I live in Marana so I really appreciate your insight and experience. I may also try some sort of removable cover that does not actually touch the layout scenery to help control dust build up.
I’ve been thinking about doing something like that once I get further along. I KNOW there has to be dust out there, there’s plenty inside!
Like I said, it isn’t an idea location, but it sure beats nothing, in my mind. Of course I might have a different answer when summer rolls around again!
Speaking as the owner of a non-climate-controlled 2-car garage in the Dessicated Desert, if you can’t seal the entire structure you might consider the technique I’m planning. Install a valance that exactly follows the line of the fascia, then attach clear shower curtain material to the inside of the valence with velcro or some other technique that will allow easy removal. That way, only the valence and the space within it needs to be sealed against dust. The curtain will hang outside the fascia line, but not over the controls and car card holders.
If you can operate hands-off, the curtain can be left in place for everything except layout construction and maintenance.
In my case, sealing the entire garage is not an option. I have a gas-fired water heater in the space, and local code requires non-sealable vents - fine for safety, but definitely not dustproof.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I think you’ll definately need to run regular cleaning projects on your track and cars. You could make some sort of cover that is easy to remove, maybe you could have scheduled track maintenance and track cleaning sessions, that would be fun and cool. You could make special cars and special work crews to perfrom this, maybe do different sections of track or layout on different days of the week or month.
Painting or sealing your cement floor will help keep the dust down a lot.
Plan for rail/benchwork expansion from the heat or you WILL get kinks in your track. An attic exaust style fan mounted up high toward the ceiling to exhaust the hot air out can drop the temperature 20 degrees.
Like you said, it’s better than nothing…
Living in sunny Scottsdale, I had the same question. How to provide a safe, secure, comfortable and pleasant year round work space.
With summer temperatures sometimes reaching 115 degrees, A/C is a MUST. I had a northwest facing cement block wall which had direct sun late in the day. I had it furred out and insulated with 2 inch foam panels and dry walled. Three windows were cut in near the celing for window air conditioners.
I had the steel garage doors insulated with foam batts available from HD. There was already a ceiling, so installing recessed flourescent fixtures provides more than adequate lighting, with a two lamp shop light over my work bench. If not, you need to install one to keep the dust out.
Also, to keep the dust down, I had the floor coated with two coats of garage floor epoxy with two clear coats. I often drop small parts, so carpeting is not an option.
I rarely open the garage doors, using the rear exit and walk around.
The window A/C units kept a comfy 84 degrees on thermostat even on the hottest days, and could easily have kept it even cooler. Unfortunately, the winter temps can get down to near freezing so I needed to add two portable baseboard heaters, also from HD and they did the job.
In retrospect, I should have opted for the roof mounted heat pump designed for this which would have provided both heating and cooling at a little more expense.
I have installed storage cabinets all along the wall below the window units which I am just about finished with.
I am drawing up the plans for an 8 x 18 foot double tracked test oval with 36 inch minimum radius curves so I can open all of the boxes that were packed away in 1984 and clean and lube and get everyhting operational again.
One side of the oval will have the facility to accomodate the installation of 3 x 8 foot modules (Okay, dominos for you nitpickers) that I will be constructing to be used in the layout that I have in planning.
Since basements are hard to come by here
BigRusty-Three AC units?!? WOW! How many BTU’s are they? I was hoping to get away with one 22,000 BTU unit for a 20x20 building. Think I’ll need more than that? It gets up to 115 in the summer. I was hoping to keep it around 85 like you said. I know I’ll have to put in a bunch of insulation.
These are 8,000 btu Fedders units. I tried it for a few days with just two, but found that I needed the third one. That is a total 0f 24,000 so you should be okay provided the building is well insulated. I also had fresh insulation poured into the crawl space for the whole house and 4 gable fans to keep the temperature down up there.
As I mentioned, it gets cold here too, so I regret that I didn’t install a heat pump instead to provide heating in the winter.
I’m looking at a unit that has 22,000 btu cool and 18,000 btu heat strips. Most of those have built in dehumidifiers too. (glad I ran 220v service to the building!)
My Yuba River sub is in a California Basement (garage) which is only about 1/2 insulated, and which has the door open during the Spring and Summer when I do most of my work out there. Temps can get up to about 100 or higher during July and August, but it’s a dry heat, so I don’t have to worry too much about warpage. However, if you have a lot of plastic structures facing the open door, be prepared to watch them get brittle and fall apart.
However, I have found out over the seven or so years that the MR has been operating–DO NOT USE LIQUID TRACK CLEANER! EVER!! If you have to clean your track, vacuum it first, then go over it very lightly with either an eraser or one of those nifty ‘cleaners on a stick’ that you can get from Micromark (Brite boys are a little too coarse, IMO). Liquid track cleaner just gunks up the dust on the rails, and you end up with more trouble than it’s worth.
Since the garage is uninsulated, I find myself cleaning my track (mainly vacuuming) frequently during the summer months if I’m not operating fairly constantly. Of course, running the trains frequently seems to be the best answer to keeping the track clean, anyway.
Okay, an uninsulated garage isn’t the BEST answer to an MR, but since we out here in the West seem to live in houses where there aren’t that many basements or attics, it’s what we learn to deal with. For myself, it’s kind of like smoking a pipe–occasionally you spend as much time fiddling with the equipment as you do using it. But you learn to deal with it and have just as much fun as anybody else, at least IMO.
Tom [:)]
Steed,
Chances, are I have one of the bigger HO garage based layouts in Phoenix… more notably, a non-improved garage. My wife and I are renting a typical 3 bed/2 bath home with a 2 car garage made of block construction and a standard roll up door. Its not sealed that well as it is older.
Do to renting, I am very limited to what I can do for upgrades. Other than sticking foam in the panels of the garage door (HUGE help) I havent done much else. With 60 plus switches, 400ish feet of trackage and mostly scened, I have learned a few things.
Well, dust and heat sucks but I got my layout.
First, the heat. I had alot of concerns when I first started building out there. I heard all the horror stories and was nervous. But, after all these years, I have yet to come across an issue with the heat with one exception. After 3 summers, I found the locomotives dont like sitting through the heat. The oil get darn warm and leaks/drys up in the gear boxes and shafts. I think this year I will pull them in when I am not useing them. I only noticed this on a few that sit a lot and are not run much. I fired them up this fall and they squeaked and chriped like a mouse in a blender… OK, not that bad but they were dry and I had to tear them apart for re-lubbing. Also, I pull in my glues and paints as well.
All my structers and scenery have held up well. Some scenes have been there for over 3 years and have been fine. All though, if you want to do scenery, glue will dry pretty darn fast during the summer.
Now the dust… that does suck. I have tried to seal the garage up but I have a fan installed in the attic access (just a box fan laying down over the opening) on a timer. it works great by sucking in the cool air over the night which really helps keep the temps do
My last layout was built in an un-insulated garage here on the coast in CA. When I started my layout, I was in a big hurry to get something done. I had no idea that it would turn out as nice as it did. I then had to try to retrofit the garage: seal up the gaps in the doors, sheet rock the walls and finish the ceiling around a nicely detailed, pretty much completed layout. This was a difficult feat to accomplish with damaging the layout.
My advice up front would be to build an insulated layout room in your garage. This is what I did after I tore out the last layout. I took up most of the garage and left an aisle to put the washer and dryer along with tons of shelves. We permanently sealed the front door and sheet rocked the interior of the room. I took the opportunity to upgrade the electrical as well.
The room is 13’ X 22’ with a 6’ X 22’ aisle outside the room. There is a loft on top where we have more storage. It was a monumental “space grab” and one that my wife graciously accepts (bless her soul) as we live in a small house with little storage space.
The old layout in the garage had big problems with dust and the temperature swings (even on the temperate central coast) were enough to tweak track and make the space unpleasant to spend time in during the winter. I would take the time now to try and make your space as habitable as possible before cutting the first stick of bench work.
This photo shows the old layout. Notice the garage door spring arm in the upper left hand corner. Dust and cold air leaked in around the edge of the door in this area.
[url=http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showphoto.php/photo/86018
I built my last attempt in an insulated garage. Granted the environment is very very different here in northern Sweden to what you are building it in. I did not have any problems what so ever with kinks due to the change in weather and heat. The temperature between top and bottom was probably around 70-80 degrees centigrade but it did not effect anything.
Dust was a bigger issue. Track cleaning was quite common and should really have been done between each time I used it.
The biggest problem was however that the room never felt like home, it was cold during most of the year to do any work, glue would simply freeze in the container and so on. Mice was also an issue and during the summer and autumn spiders liked the walls.
So for all of this I dismantled it a few weeks ago and rebuilt an other house on my property so that I will get a proper environment even though it costs more and will take me quite a while to get finished. My thinking is that it is better to make everything as good as possible before starting to build.
Magnus