Best temperature for a tack room

[Steerpike]

I've given my tack room a complete overhaul this summer, it now has insulation hooray! My question is what is the best temperature for a tack room, I have brought a small dehumidifier and a small oil filled heater for when it does get colder and more damp.

 

[newboult51]

I don’t know but mine is unheated and my saddle went mouldy last year 😱😱

 

[Steerpike]

That's what I'm worried about,mine went mouldy last winter but the roof was near enough falling in, having gutted the tack room and put insulation in I'm hoping it won't this year, I still have a few small draughs coming in through a window and around the edge of the door

 

[scruffyponies]

Unheated is fine, but mould does love the damp. I would just run the dehumidifier part time, as you don't want to dry the leather out completely either.

I'm just happy to have a roof on mine with no holes for the first time in 10 years

 

[Steerpike]

I know the feeling! When I moved to the farm, the tack room had lots of old hunting stuff in it, the cupboards were full of amazing stuff when we turfed it all out to another part of the farm, my stuff was squeezed into a corner along with the mice!

 

[Keith_Beef]

All the yards I visit over here have unheated tack rooms, but they are very well ventilated and have no damp in the walls. There's no mouldy tack.

 

[ycbm]

I think it's the humidity which is important, not the temperature. My tack locker is set to seventy per cent. I've had no mould since we stopped using heat as the control factor and started using humidity level.

My tack room is very, very damp!

You can buy a cheap plug which will switch an electric heater on and off using the humidity level of eBay,.

 

[Steerpike]

Maybe it will be OK then, I have a window at each end which are shut as best as I can but let air in, the temperature between the barn and the tack room is about 3-4 degrees difference at the moment and I have my dehumidifier going

 

[Gloi]

Nice and warm please for when I get back from riding.

 

[Steerpike]

Yes I may not freeze between horses this year!

 

[cremedemonthe]

The best temperature for leather is 56 degrees farenheit. The secret is a DRY tack room, once moisture gets in the air, it's a recipe for mould.

 

[Steerpike]

Great thank you, will turn my heater on soon then, it is certainly dryer in there now it has been insulated and I have a dehumidifier going.

 

[Keith_Beef]

A dehumidifier is a wonderful machine, especially when you get one with a continuous drain instead of a water reservoir that you need to empty now and again.

But it's most useful in a room that is not well aired, or when the outside air is really dry, too.

If the air outside is damp, and the room is ventilated to that outside air, your dehumidifier is just trying to dry out the Earth's atmosphere...

Oh, and some dehumidifiers (our big DeLonghi unit, for example) kick out some heat, too.

 

[case895]

I have a small dehumidifier, a tight fitting door and now get no mouldy leather, or rusty metal (guns and good bikes also in there).

 

[Steerpike]

I will look into fixing the Windows properly and getting some brushes or something fitted to the sliding door!

 

[Red-1]

I would not leave a dehumidifier with a reservoir unattended as if it overflows it can be a fire risk.

In my tack room we have one of the outdoor buildings heaters that is designed to be permanently on. It looks like a horizontal metal tube, and it is on all winter.

I don't get mouldy tack and our tack room is very old.

 

[ycbm]

I would not leave a dehumidifier with a reservoir unattended as if it overflows it can be a fire risk.

In my tack room we have one of the outdoor buildings heaters that is designed to be permanently on. It looks like a horizontal metal tube, and it is on all winter.

I don't get mouldy tack and our tack room is very old.

I think that will probably work for a lot of people Red. I used to have it, but it actually made my tack worse 😂. It is very wet up here! The only thing that works for me is a heater coupled to a humidity sensor, which is perfect, but I do have the tack in an insulated under stair cupboard, so the space isn't too great.

Are any of you checking how much it's costing you to heat and dehumidify? I would have thought it would be very expensive?

 

[Keith_Beef]

I would not leave a dehumidifier with a reservoir unattended as if it overflows it can be a fire risk.

A dehumidifier with a reservoir will have a liquid level detection (LLD) device to shut it down before it overflows.

The big DeLonghi I mentioned has a reservoir and a pump that can pump collected water up about five metres (IIRC), and I bought it for the basement of a house I lived in for seven years. If not using the pump, when the reservoir is almost full, the LLD (a float controlling a switch) stops the dehumidifying circuit and starts an alarm. That unit was running for almost seven years continuously in the US, got shipped over here and has been running again for about four years continuously since. By running, I mean switched on; a humidity detector means that the dehumidifying circuit only starts up when the humidity gets above a threshold that I set.

We also have a smaller DeLonghi bought last year, that has a reservoir and just a gravity outflow, no pump. That sits in one of the outhouses, directly over a drain, and works well to keep the humidity down.

 

[Steerpike]

I have left my dehumidifier running but i do always check it daily, I tend to empty it out once a week, it is only a smallish one from Aldi!