Does Your Woodstove Cause Condensation Inside the Cabin?
Q: We have an off-the-grid cabin with limited electricity (solar panels). We recently discovered that when we fire up the woodstove in the winter and early spring, moisture develops under the furniture. After a couple of days, the problem seems to ease up. The cabin is only about 1½–2 feet off the ground and is skirted with pressure-treated boards on three sides (I will be closing up the fourth side this year). We have been moving all the furniture and drying up the water. Is there a better solution to keep this from happening in the first place?
– “MISTERC,” via the Cabin Life A: The moisture problems you’re having in your cabin are very similar to what happens to a cold beverage on a humid day: Moisture-laden air contacts the cool surface of the glass and condenses. Since items like beds and sofas warm slower than the air, they act just like that cold beverage. This is a fairly common phenomenon for cabins built on crawl spaces, especially in damp, northern latitudes.
To reduce these issues, lay two overlapping sheets of plastic on the ground under the crawl space. This will prevent moisture from moving from the ground into the cabin, reducing overall humidity inside the cabin’s air. Then seal up that fourth side, which will reduce airborne humidity from being trapped underneath the cabin.
Typically, a dehumidifier or air exchanger will fix any moisture issues that remain. Since your cabin is off the grid, we suggest you look at one of the low-amperage (less than five amps) dehumidifiers out there. You can even set the dehumidifier on a timer to run intermittently if your system can’t handle that kind of continuous draw.
However, if five amps is too much draw for your system, you can try creating a homemade dehumidifier. Simply drill a hole in the bottom of a five-gallon bucket, glue some mesh over the hole, and fill the bucket with rock salt, which will absorb the moisture in the air. Position the bucket so it’s suspended over another bucket. The collected water moves through the grains of salt via gravity, percolating down through the hole and into the reservoir bucket below. While this method is not nearly as effective as a powered dehumidifier, it may be effective as a last-resort strategy to reduce moisture in your cabin. A five-gallon pail will be enough to cover roughly 200 square feet of space (this number can vary based on the conditions inside your cabin), so you may need to place several of these throughout the cabin.
Condensation is most prevalent when there is a large temperature gradient between the air and the condensing medium (e.g., a sofa). So you can also try placing some DC-powered fans near problem areas to help warm the cabin and furniture more evenly. Thinkstock.com
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