I laid the mainline on the Miracle Mile about three months ago. Latexed the track, soldered feeders to every section, went great and ran exactly like i wanted it.
Then winter happened.
For those unaccustomed to Fraser Valley winters, they’re usually not much to speak of. A few days below zero, maybe a dusting of snow that’s gone in a day or two. Not this year; we’re in the longest cold snap in thirty years. That means the heat’s been running a lot more than usual and thus the humidity in the train room (which also houses the furnace) has dropped like a stone.
For those already shaking their heads, I’ll sum up. I use hardboard spline subroadbed. I didn’t gap a thing. The track all has to come up and be relaid. My question is, what’s the target humidity in a train room? What should i be aiming to keep it at? 40%? 60%?
I spent a lot of my career selling windows and furnaces. That was a while ago so I can only relate what I learned about humidity way back then. However, I don’t think the laws of physics have changed much in the last 20 years, but that also means that the situation hasn’t gotten any simpler.
The ideal humidity target actually changes based on the outdoor temperature. As a general rule, if the outside temp is at the freezing point then the recommended indoor humidity is about 40%. That is the moisture level that will avoid excess condensation on the windows and other cool surfaces while keeping wood from shrinking too much. There will still be some shrinkage. If you go higher than 40% you are risking having condensation occur on any cooler surfaces such as window glass and frames, and worse, the foundation and attached framing. Condensation leads to mold with all the inherent health and wood rot issues.
However, when the outside temperature drops to -25F, the 40% humidity doesn’t work anymore. At that temperature with 40% humidity you will have condensation issues on any cool surfaces like your windows. At -25F, the recommended humidity is about 25% to avoid mold problems. Obviously, at 25% things like your benchwork will start to dry out so you are faced with a dilemma.
If you want to keep the humidity at a higher level there are some things that you can do to reduce condensation. One is to keep your window coverings open so that the household air can circulate up against the cold surfaces. If you close your blinds you trap air between the blinds and the glass and that air gets colder and colder. There is nothing to keep the glass warm so condensation starts to form on the glass. Another thing that you can do if you have a forced air system is to keep the furnace fan running all the time. Many modern furnaces do that automatically. Keeping the fan running circulates the air in the house so that warmer air is constantly comin
At Boothbay Railway Village in Maine we had a couple of similar problems during or after the first winter after installing roadbed and track. The plywood subroadbed had some moisture in it. Our buiding has forced hot air heat, and Maine winters are colder and dryer than in BC. The dry heat pulled out moisture from the wood resulting in a number of kinks in the track which we had to repair. After that first winter, we have had no further problems.
That speaks to letting your building materials acclimatize to the enviornment that they will be used in. Anyone who has laid hardwood flooring will know (or wish they knew) that the flooring has to be stored in the environment in which it is to be installed for several weeks before actually installing the flooring. If you don’t do that you will experience significant shrinkage with the resulting poor appearance and performance.
Sorry George, I’m not trying to be critical, but patience is a good thing when bringing any wood products indoors.
I live on the Island, Comox, so I find that high humidity is a problem indoors unless you keep an eye on it. We never have to worry about more than temperatures in our house unless it gets below freezing, in which case we do get some condensate on the lower window panes. I lift the blinds when the furnace first kicks in in the morning so that air can circulate, and the condensate disappears soon.
Out in our unheated garage, part of which I properly partitioned with framing, poly, and batts of fiberglass insulation, I leave a dehumidifier on most of the year. When humidity stabilizes near 50%, I turn it off until I feel the humidity begin to climb as the weather warms. That is where it is currently, hovering within 3% of 50 for the past three weeks or more. Even when it rains, which it does almost incessantly during our PNW winters.
I have learned to purchase milled lumber, bring it home, stack it, put weights on it to try to keep it true, and let it dry either naturally or while using the dehumidifier (it’s stored out on pallets where I get it). I wait at least three days before I begin to cut and measure…wait, I mean the other way around. [:P]
Truth be told, i should have seen this coming. Our basement has always been a must farm, mostly due to an unvented bathroom. The fan we recently installed to vent shower vapours and processed taco fumes is almost certainly a contributing factor in the newfound bendy-twisties in the train room.
Sigh… Out comes the Great Wrecking Spackler from the Sky.
Am I to understand that you are venting a shower exhaust fan into your basement? That’s a waste of a perfectly good fan. The excess humidity will get there all by itself without assistance, believe me! It’s just like the suckers (pardon my english Steven) who have been sold clothes dryer vent valves that allow you to duct the heat (and the moisture) from the dryer back into your house. Sheer insanity, that is unless you like having your kids’ noses running all the time and their eyes watering constantly too, and black splotches in the corners of your bedrooms. For those poor people, I have some swampland in Florida for sale cheap! (Rant, rant, rant…!).
If I can suggest, the fan should be pumping the moist air outside the house. That’s easy to say but there are a number of potential issues with doing that too. Best to check with a local HVAC contractor on what’s best for your home.
No! No no no no no no no. Good lord, no. The fan is venting bathroom air to outside. That means the previously stale musty basement air in all its mold-growing silverfish-breeding glory is finally being properly gotten rid of. Likely that means the humidity drop in the basement – from a previous sticky high – is permanent. Also, i’m finally paying some attention to an environmental aspect that may impact trainy goodness more than i thought.
All i need to do now is rip out and relay about fifty feet of track, then find some way to stabilize the air in a musty basement. Whoopee.
Ha! No, Dave, you don’t need to worry. I was laughing as i wrote that post.
Dave, you’ve helped me and many others in this forum and i took that in the same spirit of well-meaning advice. All is good, my friend.
For my part, i think it will shortly be time to invest in a dehumidifier. The alternative is ripping everything out, properly sealing the concrete floor and walls, and starting from scratch. I haven’t dismissed the idea, since my current layout a) is barely more than wires and lumber, b) has suffered repeated design revisions that have left it with an inaccessible staging level, and c) has serious access issues getting to one corner of the room, like a 60" reach at 50" inch floor height.
That leads to my next question. i know more than a few guys in here have torn it all down and started from scratch in the past. What was the tipping point on that? When were you sure you couldn’t save the current layout and had to start fresh?
When I started layout construction I brought in a considerable supply of lumber, masonite and homasote, and thus most of it was able to be in the basement environment for a full cycle of the seasons (some of it for several such full cycles) before construction. I think that has helped.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater! First, control the humidity the most economical and durable way. When it stabilizes, wait a week. See what the tracks do. Where any kinks are still evident, take out the Dremel and cut a 16" gap with the cut-off disk. Do it again six feet further away on either side. Wait another day if you don’t see an immediate improvement. You’ll have to add a feeder pair there.
You may have to pry up some intractable kinks and re-lay the track there with new adhesive. At some point, you’ll feel it’s looking good and the trains are running well. I would not do wholesale dismantling, or tearing up long lengths of otherwise salvageable trackwork, if I didn’t have to. Cutting in some relief does wonders.
A 16" gap will solve a lot of kinks but I think he meant 1/16". When my MR kinked I cut the thickness of the cut off disk of the dremel. I’m pretty sure I had to do it closer than every 6’ but it was easy enough to do and rewire.
Stu: If you look at something, I.e. Inaccesssible yard, duck under, etc. and think “I might regret that later…”, you will probably regret it sooner. Been there done that. Most cats on this forum have waaaaay more experience than I do, but I categorize my trials and tribulations as such: first layout: not a bad plan overall, but slopppy trackwork. Tore it out for Layout 2: thought I had learned some stuff and solved a lot of problems but made everything worse: duck under, hidden staging, lift out… all epic fails. Layout 3, moving slow and steady seems to be the ticket.
All that being said, if your track plan is sound, and your bench work solid, maybe all you need is some rail gaps. Spline subroadbed shouldn’t expand/contract much. I live in Fargo (yes, that one , in North Dakota) and nobody knows short-term climate change like we do.
I think you meant ‘humidifier’?[swg][(-D][(-D] If you install a de-humidifier your track will look like rotini pasta![(-D]
As others have suggested, try to get the humidity adjusted back to close to what it was before you get out the chainsaw. The track was happy then. Cut some gaps too to allow for easier movement.
Relaying track for me was worth it so that I could more effectively run brass steam power with ease. I ripped up part of my Kato tracked mainline this fall and relaid with new track to much larger radii of 34 and 36 inches.
Speaking of cats, the LION lives in North Dakota. Layout of him is in a third floor classroom. Is Third layout of LION. First was built in a basement room, and was taken apart when that room was to be renovated. Him snagged a room above the Library, an old classroom, and him builded a complicated layout theat as him grew older him could not maintain anymore.
Him pulled that one out and built this new one. Three decks, 14 miles of track, and for normal operation only one double crossover is required. LION runs 10 trains at a time, fully automated operation. Little Plastic Motorman runs the trains, the LION runs the tower and dispatches trains from the 242nd Street Station. Trains leave the station every 3 minutes.