Drying/Storage rooms designs ideas -portakabin conversion.

wolfsbane2k

Hi.

Following a few chats with our faciltiies team over the last few days, we have an opportunity to turn an empty, smallish portakabin into a drying room for a few years for those that need it, which appears to be about 15 / 20 people this month, but more in summer times, but on a limited budget (think we are getting this opportunity only because people are complaining of the smell of drying stuff as the existing "4ft x4ft cupboard" is overflowing, rather than any other altruistic reason.
Needs to cater for motorcyclists, runners, and cyclists.

At the moment, it has a couple of electric fan heaters ,and some small windows, and that's it.
our immediate thoughts were clothes rails like you find in a charity shop, and hooks on the walls and benches around the room. I'd like lockers, but it seems most of my colleagues prefer to hang shirts up rather than fold.
Thinking humidity& temperature driving the heaters, with one area for wet stuff and another for dry.
Ideally, I think we'd add a new window or at least a humidity controlled extractor fan to improve the air flow, but not sure how feasible that is.

Is there anything that you guys would really like to see in a drying room that's cheapish to deliver?
Do you have any examples of good drying rooms/storage areas?

Ta

edrobbin

we had a long narrow drying room at my (boarding) school. series of racks down each side, small gap in the middle, stiflingly hot.

If you found a small boy, slotted a broom up one sleeve of his blazer, across his shoulders and down the other sleeve, you could hang him up on the bars....

Edit: apparently

oh, the memories....

Pufftmw

Air conditioning is good for drying stuff out as it extracts the moisture, portable ones are fine as long as you can vent to the exterior.

Why not get a 2nd hand tumble-dryer from eBay/similar as well? £5 each will cover it.

BelgianBeerGeek

Following on from that ^, how about a cheap de-humidifier? Pretty good at drying damp clothes and reduces the moisture content of the room/portakabin.

oxoman

Plenty of hanging space, clothes rails ideal so air space between them. Long narrow benches with space underneath to store footwear, idealy a bar to lift the sole of the footwear up to allow better drying. Similar to old style gym benches. Air con units and dehumidifiers are good but cost a fair bit to install decent ones and run, better with heaters that circulate the hot air around, tubular heaters are good as long as you don't pile stuff on them and finally plenty of forced air ventilation. A fan to extract the smells and dampness and vents with possibly intake fans to bring fresh air in. Don't forget security of the portakabin either. The worse thing to forget is cleaning, they must be kept clean nothing worse than lumps of hair from various parts of the body hanging around in clumps, so allow for cleaning. What about sexual equality is this male or female only or unisex think about that also.

UndercoverElephant

Shoe dryers. They're great

bigmat

One of those clothes spinners they have in gyms / swimming pools might be handy. When I was training in the gym I used to keep my lycras on in the shower, give them a good scrub then a spin in one of those things and they were dry by the next morning.

wolfsbane2k

Thanks for the suggestions, looks like we're going forward with this with charity shop style clothes rails and a few wall mounted hooks and a few benches only - forced air ventilation and other improvements aren't going to happen.

However, we'll keep nudging for the rest!

andy9964

Couple of these, or similar, in the roof


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Caravan-Roof-Vent-Motorhome-Camper-Fixed-HDK-Mushroom-/350987938914?hash=item51b882ec62:g:4hMAAOSw~gRV7X-L

wolfsbane2k

Thanks to all those that replied - I've taken it forward, and they have managed to get a council "green business" grant to support the conversion, so getting this in place.

They have now even offered to set up a maintenance area along the back of the PK using the extra cash, so quite a nice addition!

oxoman

Good luck and don't forget pictures when it's completed so that other can bully their bosses and copy yours.

thistle_

Our shower rooms at work have A/C (with the rest of the office). Sweaty stuff dries but if you've got caught in the rain and got soaked on the way in you're going home in wet lycra.

I've found the best way to dry stuff is to keep the room warmish with good ventilation. In your case maybe some sort of heater, keep the windows open slightly and maybe install some vents at low level so the air can draw through the room?

One of the roof vents would probably help as it would act as a chimney and suck the damp air out.
You can get solar powered mechanical roof vents but I don't know how well they work http://www.monodraught.com/products/nat ... l/?info=85

964cup

I'd get a dehumidifier with a laundry mode. About £200 for a good one.