Gun safe in hot humid garage.

I kept a gun safe (fire rated at 1200 degrees for 30 minutes) in my garage in North Carolina for a Spring and Summer years ago. I had a Golden Rod in the safe, which only keeps the temperature a couple of degrees higher in regards to “dew point”. Many think they remove humidity. They do not. I also bought desiccant packs from Bass Pro and changed them out religiously. If the little indicator just started to become pink I replaced them.
These desiccant packs were about a pound each. They were about 8” long, 4” wide, 2” thick.
I placed one on the top shelf with the handguns and two below with the rifles, one on each side of the safe.

I had no rust issues. After that summer I moved the safe indoors and just kept the Golden Rod going.

Something of note:
One can reactive desiccant by placing it in a 250 oven for a couple of hours.
One cannot say “I am sorry” enough after doing so and finding out that plastic mesh desiccant bags melt in an oven at 250 degrees. My wife was not amused.

Amazon has a variety of desiccant options. Be sure you get “rechargeable” desiccant. It’ll save you money.
https://www.amazon.com/blue-desiccant/s?k=blue+desiccant

There are packs called Damp Rid. Plastic cup actually. I get mine at Menards. The little crystals grab humidity and turn the crystals liquid. You can get refills in large bags.

I've got a safe in my garage. I keep a dehumidifier going all the time, and a golden rod in my safe. No problems at all.

Test your theory with a piece of bare metal for a couple months and see what you got.

TheProf said:

Only small safe can fit inside the house.

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Personally, I would put the safe inside. I am also a fan of having a couple smaller safes instead of one big one. Makes thieves work twice as hard to get all your guns.

If you have to keep them outside the house, then you have to, and that's all there is to it. Is the garage at least attached to the house?

I'd be really uncomfortable with keeping guns outside the house, even in a serious safe, but that may just be a personal quirk on my part. Not just because of potential corrosion, but also the out-of-sight-out-of-mind issue. I pull a firearm out of my safe pretty frequently do do something-or-other with, and like the close access aspect of having it in the house. If the garage is part of the house, I guess that'd be less of an issue. Have you looked at the narrow steel cabinets? I have a Sentry Safe that's one foot wide and holds five rifles and about thirty handguns (I added hooks to the inside walls). I bet you could get a couple of those in the house somewhere.

There are this type of rechargeable dehumidifiers made by different companies: https://www.amazon.com/Improved-Ren...Z8/?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid={creative}&hvpos={adposition}&hvnetw=o&hvrand={random}&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl={devicemodel}&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584345022645105&psc=1 and there are also these which might help too: https://www.amazon.com/Zerust-VC2-2...tor&qid=1572094040&sprefix=VCI,aps,177&sr=8-4 They have VCI paper too that you can wrap around your firearms and there are also gun socks which you could put your guns in for storing in your safe: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gun+socks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

It's the humidity you have to control more than anything. As my father aged he had a stash of long guns he kept out in an out building that went through one western N.C. summer after another. If you know western N.C. you know what those summers are like. I came home on leave from the military one year and went out there and they were covered in mold from top to bottom. Got them out, wiped down, all the mold removed and we moved them into the main house where the climate is controlled.

My gun safe is in my outbuilding. There's a golden rod in the safe. No problems here in SWMO.

I live on the Alabama Gulf Coast. I’m 30 mins from the Redneck Riveria. To say we have humidity is an understatement. Think of it this way.....we have three seasons here.....hot, humid, and wet. Anything metal I leave in my garage will corrode or rust, period. My safe is in the house.

I did do it for about 10 years in Houston. I already had two large safes inside and had to add a third. I just used many of the large desiccant cans and constantly recharged them. Those actually seemed to attract any rust that formed and were tossed yearly.

I really only had an issue with one Winchester rifle that routinely would get a spot or two of surface rust. Despite keeping them oiled.

I since downsized substantially.

A trick a lot of Florida snowbirds use when they fly north for the winter is to put a dehumidifier in the bathtub and let it run with the bucket removed. Any condensed humidity just runs down the drain. Perhaps that can be done inside the safe with a small hose running out of a small access hole? Our gun safe already has power in it to light up the LEDs.

Never put a safe in a garage that can be seen from the street. Best way ever to be broken into. I've seen reports of burglars wrapping a chain around an anchored safe and dragging it out. Best inside the house.

The garage is attached to the house but not air conditioned.

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Have you considered adding A/C to the garage? You can get efficient "mini split" systems for ~$1000 designed for do-it-yourself installation, even easier if you can wall off a "closet" in the garage where you put the safe. These are usually "heat pump" designs that can also warm the area if needed

I'll second Pat's comments from the beginning of this thread. A Goldenrod will not help your situation at all. A Goldenrod works by raising the safe's interior temperature above the dew point. It's a good fix for condensation, but not for ambient humidity.

Dessicant packs work well, but require frequent recharging.

Mechanical dehumidification is probably the best way to go.

There's going to be a vast difference in what you can get away with depending on what guns you have in there. Well oiled AR's, Glocks, CZ's, etc. will hold up to far more nasty storage conditions than some old blued revolvers or shotguns.

My big gun safe is in an unheated detached garage. I installed a golden rod but it’s been unplugged for the last couple of years. Kentucky gets plenty hot and humid and I haven’t seen any problem with rust.

Now that I think about it, I have a few bars of mild welding steel and a bunch of other bare metal items in the garage, and none of them have rusted either. I think just closing the safe door does plenty to keep the guns from rusting. I suspect there’s almost no air exchange once the door is closed.

A good coat of Johnson’s paste wax does wonders on exposed metal.

I had a gun locker inside a room I had built in my garage. Had a window unit to try to keep the temperature in check. For the most part it worked ok, but earlier this year I opened said locker and found moldy slings and surface rust. All fixable, but still ended up with a change to a smaller outbuilding with better climate control. Now climate is monitored more closely along with multiple dessicant packs. I get them on Amazon. Don't know where you are, but I'm in NE TX. Good luck.

Mine was in Florida; just as humid, if not worse, than TX. Golden rod, 3 box desiccants, keep the metal off the concrete to avoid chemical reactions that will eat the steel.

I'm in Texas. Put it inside the house. Climate control best deal. Still regardless always keep a check on them. I pull my guns out once a year. Run dry patch then light oil inside and silicone cloth outside. Maintenance is paramount.

Renaissance Wax also does well for the outside

I would worry just as much about mold . I had most of my things stored in my dads garage from April to August while my house was being built. I had mold on some furniture and a box that had my hunting gear in it . Also on my fishing rods . What a pain in the butt cleaning everything before you move it inside your house.

In addition to the other responses, I'd get the safe a couple inches off the concrete floor with spacers. 2x4's will work, but heavy duty plastic will be better.