The black plastic wrapped objects in the center are summer tires, which I went to retrieve today to put back on the car. The top one in the left stack had water standing in the concave created by the plastic around the inside of the tire. And not just a few drips, a good half gallon.
No water in any of the others. No obvious standing water anywhere else or signs of a leak from above. The giant cardboard box above the tires is from a TV and it covers like 70% of the area above the tire where water could have dripped in. The box shows no signs of having been wet.
The room isn’t really kept locked, but I’m the only one who goes in there, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t leave a half gallon of water there.
Seems to be water. I poured it down the drain so I can’t check any more. Certainly possible it ran down the 2x4, but there’s no signs of it or any surrounding wood being wet. Usually leaks result in some discoloration of the wood.
It was certainly my first thought. Perhaps on the large surface area on the underside of the plasticy looking box? The lowest corner of which was positioned over the tire?
No, the box slopes down and the lowest corner is well behind the tire. The front (high) edge is above the tire, and part of the middle. Water collecting and running off the box would go elsewhere.
Also, we’re in Central Oregon high desert. Not a lot of condensing going on here. We have to run humidifiers in the living spaces to keep the relative humidity above 30%.
Vapor drive – moisture coming up from the ground – can happen without regard to the local ambient relative humidity.
Even still [no pun intended] … why it would happen to only one of the tires (or the bag it’s wrapped in) is definitely odd.
Unless the single tire with all the water was the only tire whose plastic bag wasn’t taut (and/or if the condensation did gather on the two-by and drip down from it). If the other surfaces were flatter, maybe they still get condensation, but the evaporation was much quicker, so only the ‘slack’ bag allowed accumulation.
If you have a hygrometer, it’d be interesting to measure the RH where those tires are sitting. I’d guess it’s higher than you would think (particularly if the space is enclosed and not vented), even if that doesn’t give you the true answer to the puzzle
Ok, my best working theory now is a combination of some suggestions. Water vapor coming up from the ground condensing on the underside of the TV box and then running down the box until it reaches the edge of the bag that was sticking up (and might have been in contact with the box?) Then running down the bag into the little hollow. The other tire stack definitely wasn’t in contact with the box, which would explain why there was no water in it. And the tires underneath were blocked.
The tires have been in there since November, so that’s plenty of time for some slow accumulation.
If this theory is correct, then I should expect to see some condensation on the box in the late night/early morning on a cold day after a warmer day, right?
Under your garage? Could it have been snow/ice brought in on a car during the winter. I have a concrete garage floor but it has some level water on it all winter long. Snow freezing in the wheel wells and melting to slush when parked in the garage.
As someone suggested, it could ride the bottom of that 2x4 to the plastic.
Yeah, it could be. We definitely bring in snow and ice on the cars. I generally see it melting and running out the main garage door, since the garage floor is sloped a little bit for that reason. If it’s getting to the crawlspace area, it’d have to be either going straight down through the concrete or running toward the back of the garage.
If you run out of theories and have access to your area’s weather statistics, you could try checking to see if humidity has reached record highs in recent months.
I live in a relatively dry climate and, several years ago, after a few days of unusually wet weather, there were big drops of water on the screen of my clamshell-type mobile phone. I noticed it after walking somewhere and going inside. The rain had stopped and the phone had been in an inside pocket of a leather jacket, so I figured it was due to greater humidity in the pocket caused by proximity to my body and the heat and moisture generated by walking. Mind you, that had never happened before (and still hasn’t), but I couldn’t think of any other explantion. However, I then noticed that, in the place I’d walked to, there were pools of water on some marble-lined steps near the entrance, so I concluded that it was spontaneous condensation brought on by high levels of humidity in the air.
