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Basement Fish Room Insulation/Humidity


Tink

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I have an 8x16 rectangular room that I'm setting up as my fish room and wanted a few opinions. The room is painted cinder-block and below grade. The block seems to stay around 50 degrees and at this point in the year the room itself is about 54 (unheated utility room). Three sides of the room are exterior walls (top 8' wall, right wall, and bottom wall).

I'm wondering if it'd be worth the cost (about $350) to insulate the walls with foam board (2" R13 on the exterior walls and 1" on the interior)? With a dehumidifier running the room will hit about 60 this time of year so I would still need to heat the room further to avoid the tank heaters being on most of the time. I'm just not sure if it's worth it because I imagine the cooler room would be helpful in the warmer months.

The ceiling of the room in open joists with R13 fiberglass insulation, and another concern of mine is humidity. At this point I'm not sure if it's be better to run an exhaust fan to the outside or a dehumidifier. Would it be smart to add foam board to the ceiling to create an almost sealed box type effect to keep moisture away from the joists and plumbing?

Any help or past experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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With the insulation it will make the heating if the room much more efficient. Probably not short term return on investment but definitely long term and I personally would run an exhaust fan. I know someone to get moisture buildup on his joists and they were salt treated and over time it was dripping back in his stock tanks and was destroying his tank and was too late when he fiqured out what was causing it. Lost tens of thousands in coral corals. Was a vendor type running out of his basement.

 

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Edited by khh27
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between my display, temporary tank, QT, blackworm tank, Garbage cans full of water, I have 400G of water in the basement. SUMMER MONTHS: Dehumidifier runs non stop but does a good job. Tom has mentioned several times to put an intake in the air handler down there so the A/C would help remove some of the moisture. That would help a lot and would be an easy project but I havnt got to it yet. Because I dont use a canopy my tanks heaters are fired a lot in the summer. The basement stays cool in summer because if the A/C is on the cold air settles plus half my basement is below grade so it says cool even when A/C isnt on. So I find the cool basement annoying in the summer since my heaters are fired half the time anyhow. 

 

Winter months: Humidity is not an issue at all. The air in my basement and house is actually pretty dry and I love the tanks to help put moisture in the air. The dehumidifier has been off for months. Again it would be awesome if I put an intake down there to help disperse the humidity throughout the house better. I also get a lot more evap in the tanks with the dry air. 

Bottom line I would spend the money to insulate the basement no doubt. Mine is only Insulated down to the frost line and I wish the whole thing were down to the floor. An exhaust fan would be nice if you don't use a lot of A/C. 

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One thing that you may want to consider is that foam insulation doesn't breath and may trap moisture and allow an opportunity for mold to grow.

 

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Tink, I am a big believer in insulation.  It is very cheap given the payoff in energy savings.  I think you have the right approach to insulate both the outside of the block wall and also the inside.  When you insulate the outside, be sure to clear the dirt away in the ground as far as practical to get the insulation below grade.  To protect the insulation from UV rays of the sun or animals/kids from digging into it, you might want to mix up a mortar tub of sand and cement/mortar into a parge and spread that over the foam with a trowel.   For about the first year after you start to heat the basement, energy will flow out into the soil around the fishroom, then a "bulb of temperature" will stay pretty stable and it won't absorb much more heat.  The earth acts as a pretty good blanket of insulation.

 

Insulation won't keep humidity from getting into your house, there are too many cracks between sheets of foam.  However you could spread a layer of sheet plastic (polyethylene) on your ceiling.  That would go a long way to keep your house dry if you are worried about that.  But like gmerek2 says, the moisture from a few hundred gallons isn't significant.  If you end up with a lot of tanks that would be different.  

 

Now that you're going to turn the basement into an occupied space, the insulation between the basement and the main house becomes irrelevant.  So I wouldn't recommend that you add more insulation to the basement ceiling.  

 

But like tom39 says, ventilation is important.  Not just to keep down humidity but for a lot of other reasons like radon gas, CO2 buildup, the odor of algae dying when a tank level drops for some reason, and just for fresh air.   It would also be very helpful to cut a hole in your furnace plenum and run a pipe to your room to bring in heated or cool air.  You could also locate the intake portion of your plenum and run a pipe from your fish room to that main duct.  Then your summer air conditioning would also act as your dehumidifier. 

 

I've done a lot of construction in my life and I hope my terminology isn't too technical.  

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 You could also locate the intake portion of your plenum and run a pipe from your fish room to that main duct.  Then your summer air conditioning would also act as your dehumidifier.   

 

I'm reading this thread as it's really helpful. I'm learning from it.

 

For my ow n education, does using the house HVAC to remove moisture open you up to additional maintenance on the HVAC? I'm a bit worried about putting some gear/tanks to near my own HVAC inside the basement as I've heard stories of salt creep (I think more likley moisture) ruining an expensive HVAC unit. Dehumidifiers are cheap in comparison to an HVAC, but if the HVAC can really handle it without shortening it's lifespan...

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Matt, don't worry about the impact of humidity on the life span of your HVAC.  It won't have any effect.  Salt creep isn't an issue either, unless the fan was located closely above your tanks.

 

In this part of the country, most of July and August are 90% humidity, but humidity doesn't have any significant effect our HVAC units.  Most fan blades are aluminum and I've seen very old fan blades with a lot of pitting, but the increased himidity in our homes from fish tanks is fresh water, without salt.  Its true that micro drops will go high in the air but I just don't see them corroding out your fan blades.

 

Salt spray could certainly rust out any metal in close proximity, but by that I mean splashing.  Not atmospheric humidity.

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