Will storing my power tools in a cold garage hurt them any until spring?

Humidity will be your major concern. A quick drop in temperature will cause the humidity to condense on cold tools, resulting in rust. A dessicant bag like comes with many purchases today, will dry the moisture inside a bag if you put both the tool and one of these into a zip lock type bag. Seal the bags and don't worry about your tools. You can easily get up to 3 gallon zip lock type bags in grocery stores. Larger are available online. I think Amazon sells the dessicant bags in quantity The tools will be fine sealed up like this with low humidity inside the bags. For large tools, a similar process, maybe using lawn/leaf bags is the way to go. I would spray cast iron tools with WD-40 before wrapping them up. Plastic sheeting and packing tape sealed seams would be the way to go here. Again use the Dessicant bags (many depending on tool size). The less garage humidity and sudden severe temperature swings, the safer your tools will be. Quick temperature drops with high humidity are what to look out for. Learn what Dew Point is and keep your tools below Dew Point and you will never see any damage. Keeping the garage closed up and running a dehumidifier 24/7 or at least setting it to run at 50% or higher to keep the garage humidity low is another method, but if you don't keep the collection bucket from over filling, the dehumidifier will turn itself off, and the garage humidity will rise and rust exposed tools. Many dehumidifiers have drains to allow a hose to be connect that runs down hill from the dehumidifier to the drain, so you won't forget this daily task.

Charley

During winter, my shop doesn't get heated unless I work in there. But I also have major tools in my garage, I've never had a problem. But I have coated my iron tables, etc.with Boeshield T9, a product Boeing developed to stop corrosion. Works great and doesn't transfer to the wood and affect your finish. It's available on Amazon. My garage is now insulated, as is my shop, and I think that helps.

The key thing for a shop to me if you have cold winters, is insulation, insulation, insulation. Without it,you can heat all you want and it will slip away. Get double pane windows for your shed. I also suggest that you line the inside of the shed with radiant barrier. It's the silver bubble wrap looking stuff. I have it in the ceiling too. In the garage, it dropped the temp 35 degrees, and I live in the desert. I have R38 in the attics of my sheds and garage. I don't have to heat the garage to work in there, and the shop shed, which is 12x24 takes a little time to heat up, but holds the heat until I open the door.

My sheds sit on 4x6 beams on top of crushed rock. That allows very cold air to come up through the floor. The cure was making a skirt all around the building and pushing the crushed rock up against them. No air flow, no critters in there now.

If I had it to do over again, I'd have gone for a 16x24 shed or 20x24.on a slab. At the time it would have cost another $3,500 or so (more now) If I'd done that, I would have been able to put all my gear in there.

I have a neighbor who started with a 10x12 shed (no permit required), but built it on a much larger slab. And then he did add ons until he had a very large enclosed space.

This is the exterior of my shed. To the left is a small chamber, an enclosed space between my smaller office shed and my workshop. In it is the dust collection system, with filters. It has a pass through that filters the air, and returns the AC or heated air to the shop. Here are pix of both. I strongly recommend putting your dust collector and chip collection in a lean to, out of the weather, enclosed so you can retain your heated air.


The Yellow box on the front is a failed dust collection filter. The door on the left is the DC chamber. See below


Up on the wall, behind the DC filter, is a second 22x22 inch filter through which the cleaned air returns to the shop. I got the pass through tube from Rockler. I use only Rockler dust collection fittings. Different brands don't mix well.

If you don't do dust collection, you will almost certainly damage your lungs.

One last thing, I covered one of the 24 ft. inside walls with 1/4 inch pegboard. It has proven incredibly convenient to hang stuff up there in plain sight.

Woodenhearted said:

I'm going to continue to buy some power tools until the spring. I'm just wondering if I should keep them in the house or will they be ok if I leave them in my cold garage. Will just be the table saw for now, but more to come soon.
Our daughter currently resides in the basement with the 2 kiddies, our spare room upstairs is packed with her other belongings.
So, I'm really only left with a space in the garage at this time until I build a shed this spring.
Do most have heated area's for their workshops throughout the winter months? Should I plan on a heat source in the shed for next winter after I set everything up?

Thank

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I have a 10" General Table saw and a 14" General Bandsaw that I keep and use in my attached garage along with a newer DeWalt planer. The garage is uninsulated and unheated so every fall I resign myself to not using it until spring unless we get a good day with temps above zero. I have my other tools in the basement. I use a track saw in place of the table saw as a make-do in the winter months. I used to use Boeshield T-9 on the table tops and a light spray on other moving parts. Now for the tables I use Johnson's Paste wax. I feel a little more comfortable using the paste wax because I think I can apply it a little thicker for piece of mind. In the garage I cover the table tops with a piece of fitted cardboard after waxing, then cover with a thick wool blanket topped with a poly sheet as a dust cover. I've been doing this since I moved into this house in 1990. I've always wanted to turn the garage into a shop but not everyone has been on-side with that. I make do. I would never leave any tools exposed in the garage during winter. Batteries left in the garage are a no-no as well.
I'm not sure where you're located but where I am it can get pretty cold in the off-season so outdoor tinkering can be limited. All the best in your endeavours.

All of the above comments are super great. If your table saw has a large cast iron top and you fail to give it some protection, it will rust. After several hours removing rust from my brand new table saw I now take considerable time making sure it is protected.

I tried Boeshield T9 and it seemed to work just fine. But I have since moved to Johnson Wax plus a wooden cover of 1/4 inch plywood in a frame of about 1 1/2 inch size. No rust over the past two years. I wax about once every two months. In order to use the wooden cover, I must lower the blade and remove the blade guard. I small hassle for me.

My pliers drawer has some rather rusty tools, caused by the humidity here in Texas. But I found desiccant and it is a great help. Had not thought about putting some of my less used tools in a plastic bag with desiccant, I will give that a try. FYI, my shop is insulated including the overhead doors, but not the ceiling. Even so, I have ample warmth (space heater as needed). Rust is an issue and I attempt to protect my tools. Rust forms if I take no precautions. Have had no difficulties with my battery operated tools.

I have only stored my batteries in the shop. I have 12 volt Milwaukee brand and 18 & 40 volt Ryobi brand, have experienced no problems, but then it is not cold in my part of Texas. I have a couple of hand saws my father purchased sometime in the 1950's, and due to poor maintenance they are both a little rusty. The lesson here, take some time and make some effort to protect your tools from rust.

Good luck as you move forward.

Marvin

Good luck as you move forward.

Lawseeker said:

All of the above comments are super great. If your table saw has a large cast iron top and you fail to give it some protection, it will rust. After several hours removing rust from my brand new table saw I now take considerable time making sure it is protected.

I tried Boeshield T9 and it seemed to work just fine. But I have since moved to Johnson Wax plus a wooden cover of 1/4 inch plywood in a frame of about 1 1/2 inch size. No rust over the past two years. I wax about once every two months. In order to use the wooden cover, I must lower the blade and remove the blade guard. I small hassle for me.

My pliers drawer has some rather rusty tools, caused by the humidity here in Texas. But I found desiccant and it is a great help. Had not thought about putting some of my less used tools in a plastic bag with desiccant, I will give that a try. FYI, my shop is insulated including the overhead doors, but not the ceiling. Even so, I have ample warmth (space heater as needed). Rust is an issue and I attempt to protect my tools. Rust forms if I take no precautions. Have had no difficulties with my battery operated tools.

I have only stored my batteries in the shop. I have 12 volt Milwaukee brand and 18 & 40 volt Ryobi brand, have experienced no problems, but then it is not cold in my part of Texas. I have a couple of hand saws my father purchased sometime in the 1950's, and due to poor maintenance they are both a little rusty. The lesson here, take some time and make some effort to protect your tools from rust.

Good luck as you move forward.

Marvin

Good luck as you move forward.

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Only having been in your part of the U.S. twice in my life it had never crossed my mind that the central southern area would have rusting tool problems. I had always thought it was just plain hot and dry. It just goes to show how little we know of each other. Being in a place with ridiculously fluctuating temperatures, damp cold, dry cold, from -25C winters to over +35C summers, stifling humidity at times in summer, surrounded by vast bodies of water and only about 250 feet above sea level I thought we here had a stiff row to hoe. With a frozen nose and freezing toes at times in January I would sometimes think it might be nice to be in a place where the range of temperatures was considerably less than ours. I could surely do with more time to work outside in decent weather. Most recently, though, after seeing the weather problems you have on the evening news I'm thinking I should be careful of what I wish. Weather has changed a lot. I lived for a while in the sixties in areas around San Francisco and south of Los Angeles. In the Los Angeles area during that time I saw very, very little rain all year. Much has changed in 60 or so years.

Woodenhearted said:

I'm going to continue to buy some power tools until the spring. I'm just wondering if I should keep them in the house or will they be ok if I leave them in my cold garage. Will just be the table saw for now, but more to come soon.
Our daughter currently resides in the basement with the 2 kiddies, our spare room upstairs is packed with her other belongings.
So, I'm really only left with a space in the garage at this time until I build a shed this spring.
Do most have heated area's for their workshops throughout the winter months? Should I plan on a heat source in the shed for next winter after I set everything up?

Thank

Click to expand...

I noticed you are in our great neighbor country to the north. Your issues won't be the same as someone from Florida or Texas. I live in the plains states where it gets pretty cold in the winter, and currently keep all of my big tools in my garage (table saw, jointer, drill press, etc.). I agree that your biggest enemy is moisture. I use Boeshield like some others have said, but since I don't spend a lot of time using my tools, I don't need to refresh it quite as often. I have a natural gas space heater installed overhead in my garage, which I turn on only when I need to work out there during the winter.
I agree with the caution about not keeping battery powered tools in a cold garage. Also some plastics and also rubber don't take kindly to frigid temperatures, so I prefer to keep any tool with plastic or rubber parts inside as much as possible. Obviously some can't be helped, like the plastic parts on my table saw.
Before I moved here, I used to have a basement workshop, which is ideal because it is climate controlled with the rest of the house. Getting plywood sheets into the basement was always a hassle though, since it wasn't a walkout. Dehumidification was necessary, but most of the load was handled by the furnace in the winter and the AC in the summer. Good luck with your future plans!