Though I'd pick the brains of the forum on this head-scratcher.

I've recently moved my home office over to our in-law apartment for the quiet and I'd really like to bring over most of my geek stuff from my former office in the house. The problem is, we don't usually keep the apartment well-heated because it's unoccupied at night. Right now it's set to stay at 50 and in VT it's very likely to plummet well below that very soon.

Some items, vinyl figures, metal, etc. are not likely to care too much about the cold temps or the warm-up temps when I come over to work during the day---topped out at 65 at most. But everything else I'm worried about both the cold temps and the fluctuating temps. Wondering what folks have done to combat this. I could obviously leave the place fully heated round the clock, but that's expensive and due to some recent VT regulations (don't ask...ugh...), difficult to do at the moment. I could leave my stuff at home for now and bring it over in the spring, but I'd be facing the same problem in a year.

Resin (e.g. polystone) + fluctuating temps and/or extreme temps (whether hot or cold) = major problems
Leather (as in weapon grips) not a big problem except it may dry out when it gets really cold...you may want to treat it with a leather conditioner.
Vinyl + low temps (freezing) not good. Vinyl is plastic, it will probably crack at low temps.
Metal per se, not a problem... except for rust. (ren wax time!)
Wood, as in wood grips (Strider elven dagger, legolas daggers), can dry out in the cold and split. You might consider heavily waxing any wood (again, ren Wax, or similar)
If you can keep the temps around 50F all winter most things would be OK, altho' I would still treat them....you never know when the grid will go down in an ice storm.

Deimos wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 6:57 pm Resin (e.g. polystone) + fluctuating temps and/or extreme temps (whether hot or cold) = major problems
Leather (as in weapon grips) not a big problem except it may dry out when it gets really cold...you may want to treat it with a leather conditioner.
Vinyl + low temps (freezing) not good. Vinyl is plastic, it will probably crack at low temps.
Metal per se, not a problem... except for rust. (ren wax time!)
Wood, as in wood grips (Strider elven dagger, legolas daggers), can dry out in the cold and split. You might consider heavily waxing any wood (again, ren Wax, or similar)
If you can keep the temps around 50F all winter most things would be OK, altho' I would still treat them....you never know when the grid will go down in an ice storm.

Thanks for the info!!!

So I'm starting to think maybe if I keep the place at 55-65 at all times it might be okay. As for power outage, that's just as big a risk at home. We're converting my old office to a playroom, so I can't leave a bunch of swords and a Velociraptor there for my kids to play with...heh...

Do you think a 10 degree fluctuation is too much...?

55-65 should be fine....and 10 degree fluctuation should be OK too.
I should have qualified what I said about the polystone /resin.
Resins are kind of like fiberglass, and a lot of fiberglass products are made for the outdoors. So some folks may disagree with what I said in my first post.
But SS and Weta statues and environments are made for indoor use, so that is why I said that polystone collectibles probably wouldn't do well in freezing temps.
And I do know this from experience: I put a 2 foot made-for- indoors resin statue (copied from one of the classic Greek statues) on my covered back porch.
Over the years it was subjected to temps ranging from 35F-115F. It's developed a lot of cracks (No big deal, I got it at a thrift store, minimal expense...just liked the way it looked) .

But do treat anything that is wood or leather. Even if you keep the heat on at , say , 60 deg, the air will still be very dry, and the leather and wood can be adversely affected.
So, (just my opinion,) but I would treat anything that is wood or leather just to be safe. One thorough treatment should last the winter.