A friend of mine from Texas told me the other day, he had to permanently seal off his garage doors [with drywall] to stop dust particles from getting into his loco motors and prematurely wearing them down.
I hope this won’t be necessary in my case - I’ll need to use those garage doors, not very often, but at least once or twice a year. I don’t believe my Maryland neighborhood has quite as much sandy dust as the Texas range. I have drywall covering the walls and ceiling and it pretty much resembles a regular room in my house, especially now that I installed a heat pump/AC unit.
I want to hear from some of you other garage dwellers - did you have to seal off your door(s) to make your trains run properly?
Insulate the doors, put the rubber/plastic slide strips on the sides and top on the outside of the door. Make it as tortorous path as possible for the dirt to get it.
Next step is to paint the concrete, with one of those epoxy paint systems, available at Home Depot/Lowes/Menards.
If you want to spend more, you can mildly pressurize your garage, like a clean room used for manufacturing chips and disk drives. To do this, you’ll need a fresh air intake, a blower and filter system. And for it to be effective, it will have to run all the time.
I am worried about this too. I am only allowed a portion of the garage so sealing the overhead door isn’t feasible. I am hoping general cleanliness and one of those air sanitizer/purifier/dedusterizer filter jobs will do the trick.
I installed an automatic garage door two years ago, and it has cut down on the dust problem by about 80%. Only 3/4 of my garage is insulated, but the weather out here in SunnyCal–at least in my area–doesn’t blow that much dust around. However, I make sure that I vacuum the track about once every two weeks. One thing I did without thinking, however, was to put the new extension so close to the garage door that I have to work on it with the door open. Now if I could talk the garage spiders into putting their webs someplace else except between the trees in the Tahoe National Forest, I’d be a totally Happy Camper. They scare my HO hikers.
Tom [:D]
My old layout was in an un-insulated, un-sheet rocked garage, against the big door. The atmospheric conditions in the garage caused me no end to grief. Dust blew in around the door, moist air got in and rusted stuff, dirt fell from the ceiling. I tore out the old layout for several reasons, garage conditions being a major factor. I built an insulated, sheetrocked room in the garage to build my new layout…
My suggestion would be to seal it as well as you can before you start your magnum opus. Sheetrock the room, install a ceiling, paint the floor bring in ample electrical, insulate if needed etc…You won’t regret it later (unless you have to move).
My plan for my shelf layout in the garage is to design it in a “shadow box” with a cieling, walls, etc.
There’s no way I’m going to be refinishing the garage for this layout. Maybe for my “retirement layout” in 30 years…
Having done a lot of work on my house over the last year, my wife and I have 2 mental lists. One list is for “this house”, the other is for, “the final house”. Who knows, this house could be the final one, but I’d hate to do a lot of extra work that costs extra $$ only to move in 3 years.
So I’m focusing on a very portable layout, with dust covers, etc.
As a kid I had a layout in the garage with no dust protection. It was a maintenance nightmare, and it was only a loop of track!
I am debating the same thing here in Virginia. I am about a step or 2 behind you in the conversion (installing lights now - still have to level the floor).
My garage doors have to be replaced anyway, so I am really looking at what to replace them with. I want a better seal than they have now. When the railroad is in, I won’t really need them, but it would be nice to have them available (at least one!) for additional access.
Hello Ken, i have put up a false ceiling and run silicone sealer around the entire circumference of the steal door i will also seal the inside with drywall, most of it’s done except for some i left off while i attached the benchwork. the only place dust can get in now is through the side door to my back garden, but this will change soon when i get my house extended right upto the garage
Steve, is your layout [the one in your various pictures] living in your garage right now? If so, that’s a very hopeful sign for me, since my sheetrock walls and ceiling are already in place. That silicone trick looks interesting, I’ll have to look into that…
Bikerdad - that looks like a great device, but it may have to be a last-resort item since I’m “financially challenged” at the moment…[:D]
Sealing around windows and ALL doors, sealing the concrete floor (as suggested earlier), and a positive-pressure device sound to me like the easiest, simplest, and least expensive way to go. If you opt for the duct-***-fan pos press device, you will certainly need some form of pre-filter, otherwise you might just as well leave everything the way it is! And, it will be fairly costly if it is going to do a good job for you.
However, 3-M makes a very good furnace filter that you could use if you have a tin-smith build you a duct and filter cradle, into which you could also install a furnace fan.
KEN, the silicone sealer can be cut if you want to get the big door open, forgot to mention i also painted the concrete floor and stole the wifes old vacum cleaner[}:)],
The device I linked, as well as similar ones from other manufacturers, use 2 and 3 stage filtering. They are designed specifically for woodworking, i.e. saw dust and sanding dust, which is very fine. They work.
It’s almost a guarantee thatmost of the dust is coming from the cement floor, I used a cement paint, after muriatic acid, and I have no dust whatsoever now, before my whole house was like a dust storm.
“Trainnut”’ has it right, do all you can to make a stand alone room within the garage. I notched the ceiling of an enclosed room to clear the double door, which I left in place for access to the “parking” half of the garage. Seperate heating, cooling and power are a good idea as is caulking shut any windows. A dust collector also helps. Stock up on vacuums too.
One thing I have been toying with is building 4 panels that will cover the 16 foot garage door. Just fit them inside the frame and paint them to match the house. As for inside I have painted the walls and laid carpet. I still need to insulate over the garage.
