Very true and my cars only get around 500-700 miles a year on them. Sometimes much less because I have so many it’s hard to drive them all a lot.

 

Well, pard.... NOT SO FAST to nix the carpet, dar bud! It's prolly quite dry in Utah in winter, but down here in the LOW country, we experience heavy condensation issues periodically during the winter..

I've found that parking the car over a carpet remnant big enough to cover entirely the concrete beneath the car that it helps considerably with condensation issues: insulates the car from the ice cold concrete.

Following a cold spell of sub-freezing temps - especially sub zero temps - we'll often get a few hours to a couple days of temps above freezing; HUMID days (not like Utah, I'm guessing). Popping the hood reveals everything covered (dripping wet!) in water as if you'd just pressure washed the motor! CARPET makes all the difference, far as reducing/eliminating the condensation issue - has been my experience for the last 15 years of winters in IL. But, I agree too that just putting a square under each tire is probably worthless. (better to place the suspension on jack stands: prevents flat spotting, AND rodents too maybe?

So, IF one puts a big enough remnant to cover the entire area under the car - then doing so has benefit, I can tell yaz.

 

I'm sure this is all true.
But it's pretty clear that Tom's carpet comments were related ONLY to flat-spotting tires, not humidity or condensation or other general storage issues.

 

By putting carpet under the whole car, you are likely contributing to the moisture under your car. That carpet is probably sucking up the moisture in the concrete if you think that's where it's coming from.

 

It was about flat spotting of tires. Note that I said 1' sq pieces.

But, note that a carpet is quite porous and no where near "water proof", vapor proof or any kind of actual liquid barrier.
Also note that, if it's cold...then warms up, you're engine (any large thermal mass) is going to "sweat" as water condenses on it, carpet or not.

"Worrin' about **** that ain't worth worrying about".

 

[QUOTE=Tom400CFI;
"Worrin' about **** that ain't worth worrying about".[/QUOTE]

Change your oil on the recommendations of the oil you are using, Flat spots are not a problem these days.

 

I would LOVE to see an actual test of that. LOVE to.

 

If you carpet your whole garage, will the garage be warmer?

 

Yup, funny. No heat source equals insulation from what?

 

I recently read a guide to winterizing a car that says you're ALL wrong about when to change the oil.

- Drum roll please -

You should change it before putting into winter storage AND when taking out of winter storage. That so pissed me off that I can't even remember the rationale for it.

I live in New Jersey too and the only way I'd ever take my vette or Harley's out in the winter is if we had several days of significant rain followed by some nice, warm sunny days good for riding (or driving now that I have my vette). They salt the roads so heavily here that when it's dry and sunny you'll have salt dust in the air which gets everywhere.

 

Same as if you whole house is carpeted. No heat, not warmer

 

There is so much variability in the carpet=insulation conversation. Everyone is refereing to their own setup. I can tell you there is a huge difference in an attached and insulated garage vs non-attached. I could see insulation benefits to a large piece of carpet under a car in an attached and insulated garage. The coldest part will certainly be the concrete floor. For me, it doesn't matter one ****ing bit since my garage is neither attached nor insulated so i'm not wasting my time with carpet.

 

Y'all can rationalize the hell outta "will or won't the carpet trick work". But, I wasn't rationalizing. I was SHARING personal experience! (Learned it from THIS(?) Forum almost 18 years ago. It WORKS!)Y'all don't know what you don't know. (But, don't take my word for it: try it out yourself and then you too can speak from knowledge instead of from (somewhere else))!

Oh, and here's a little more info to chew on: when a warm & damp weather front moves in, the concrete floor is WET from condensation. But, pull back the corner of the carpet and the concrete is BONE DRY. Leave the concrete exposed to the damp air for a few minutes and it becomes wet too. Oh, and another factoid tidbit supporting the insulating effect: back in the day before refrigeration they cut blocks of ice out of lakes and stored them for summer use by keeping the ice covered with sawdust! (Called "ICE HOUSES".) The sawdust acts as an insulating barrier between the ice and the ambient air outside. Same principal with the carpet!

So, speaking from experience... (And, while you're @ it, toss some handfuls of Tomcat rat and mouse bait around the periphery of the garage to kill the mice. (That, I dare say from experience, works too!))

 

Same quiescent temp, yes. But, try walking on the carpet in you bare feet, and then step onto the bare concrete. Then you'll understand the insulation value of the carpet PDQ!

The concrete is like a giant heat sink - requires huge quantities of heat to raise its mass a few degrees. I can (and apparently does) absorb the heat of the car's chassis, keeping it close to the temp of the concrete...UNLESS there is an insulating barrier between the car and the concrete. With the (carpet), the surface temps of the car's components will equalize with changes in the ambient air much quicker than without the insulating carpet beneath it.

However, I have found that the garage must be more or less sealed until the car's surface temp can equalize, or as soon as the warm/wet ambient air is allowed to flood into the garage, you can watch the car's glass and paint fog up before your eyes --- carpet or no carpet!

Does my carpet get wet with condensation? Um, not really - not that I've noted in the past 15+ years (of using the carpet). It can get dampish, but it seems to wick the moisture to be absorbed by the air.

Anywayz.... I'm tired of arguing this topic. I know from years of "before and after" experience to my satisfaction it works here in the relatively humid IL. Your mileage may vary where you live. Use it or don't. You be the judge.

 

Paul, I think you should learn a bit more about how condensation works. And concrete floors. Why does the floor stay dry under the concrete?

If the concrete is truly a "block of ice" and it's somehow, affecting the temps of a metal chunk, 2' above it, (cold "rises"??) then wouldn't it also have the same affect on the air in the garage too? And wouldn't insulating that "bock of ice" from the air with carpet, allow the air in the garage to warn faster and thus create more condensation on the cold metal objects? It would. If this all works the way that it seems you're claiming.

I know you like to point out that I live in "dry UT"...which I do. But know that I grew up for 26 years, in Mass. That's right. I'm a Masshole. We had concrete in Mass. We had garages, too. We also had U-midity...just like you got in Chicago. My parents had classic cars stored in those concrete-floor'ed, garages all my life. Never used "carpet" or carpet squares and some how...miraculously, the cars survived! Triumph TR's (cars NOT known for rust protection), and brass era cars. In fact, we still have one fo these "survivors".

 

Someone show us. I'd like to see this proven, please.

Wait....WHAT? But I thought above you said...
Exactly. With or without carpet. So what is the carpet accomplishing?


"Worrin' about **** that ain't worth worryin' about." I'll pass, until someone can show us something objective to support the claims. I think it's solving a psychological problem...not an actual one. That being the case, if it works for you Paul, keep doing it. I got better things to do with my time, than carpet my garage, or cut up carpet squares for my tires. (?)

 

This kind of stuff makes me curious. What is really happening?

Last night at my house, it was about 25 degrees. The morning sun shines on my crappy aluminum OHD and makes it warm, it warms up the garage some. Right after my last post, so ~9am, I went down and checked and the temp in the garage was ~50*F. I wanted to check the "block of ice" theory. Since it was pretty cold last night, how much colder would my "block of ice" be?
Well, in my case, not much. I shot the floor in about 7 spots from the front to back, side to side and near the doors. Temps of the concrete ranged from 48*F to 51*F. It was coldest by the man-door, which doesn't have a sweep and cold air sort of flows right under it.

What does this show us? Not much. But I was honestly surprised to see that my ice block was the same temp as the air in the garage. I'll keep checking as it gets colder....


.

 

If you're going to give us data tell us the setup bro! Is your garage attached to the house? Insulation and drywall for ceiling and walls or just rafters and studs? Water heater/boiler/A/C equipment? The latter are radiant heat sources that could warm your car if close. Take some temp readings of the car and slab. Looking forward to the numbers

 

O.K. Good points.

Separate building
800 sq ft
Mostly insulated
Dry wall on the walls, rafters for the "ceiling"
Insulation in the roof. Peak is about 5' above the "ceiling" (horizontal beams) and the "ceiling" is 9' 6" up
Electric heat, but never run it.

We're supposed to have the same weather the next 24 hrs; mid 20's tonight, sunny tomorrow warming to mid 40's. I could shoot the floor, car, engine block tomorrow AM and see what I get...

 

the big thing with the ice cube effect is that the thermal conductivity of concrete is **** poor.... it's actually a somewhat decent insulator. So you have say an 8 inch slab and the heat flux will only follow exposed surfaces... so anything exposed to air will cool. Basically the surrounding ground must also be cooled and that takes time as well.... you'd need several days at 22 degrees to really get that slab down in temp. My garage is attached and insulated but two or 3 days in the 20s will make most of the garden hoses freeze in it. Not a hard freeze but enough to be useless. The slab will more or less act as a thermal reservoir until it's used up but most of the effect is small because it's so **** poor as a conductor and you have exactly zero air movement... natural convection is pretty inefficient lol. That's why radiators have fans.