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Old cars often have deteriorating interiors(not my Honda) and I got to thinking why. Obviously the sun is a big culprit, the sun will fade dashes, make leather crack, plastic bubble, etc.

Why does this happen? Because all the moisture has been evaporated off the surface, it has essentially been dehydrated.

So, how do we keep things hydrated? With hydration of course, which then begs the question, how much hydration? Too much and your glass gets foggy on the inside and you start getting nasty musky/moldy smells, too little and the interior starts to degrade.

I mean if you put a small dixie cup in a car, and fill it 1/4 way, and leave the car parked in the sun, some of that water will evaporate to steam increasing the humidity in the cabin. Now humidity in the air does have the benefit of limiting radiative heating from the sun, and it also has the benefit of saturating interior parts limiting sun based dehydration. But there's the problem of smell and mustiness that comes from swamp weather.

Old cars often have deteriorating interiors(not my Honda) and I got to thinking why. Obviously the sun is a big culprit, the sun will fade dashes, make leather crack, plastic bubble, etc. Why does this happen? Because all the moisture has been evaporated off the surface, it has essentially been dehydrated. So, how do we keep things hydrated? With hydration of course, which then begs the question, how much hydration? Too much and your glass gets foggy on the inside and you start getting nasty musky/moldy smells, too little and the interior starts to degrade. I mean if you put a small dixie cup in a car, and fill it 1/4 way, and leave the car parked in the sun, some of that water will evaporate to steam increasing the humidity in the cabin. Now humidity in the air does have the benefit of limiting radiative heating from the sun, and it also has the benefit of saturating interior parts limiting sun based dehydration. But there's the problem of smell and mustiness that comes from swamp weather.

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[–] • 0 pt

Steam is the vaporized form of water dude.

[–] • 0 pt

Water vapor is actual water in the air. Steam is a gas, and is not water vapor.

Steam is only possible when you raise water above the critical temperature for a given pressure. In our case, at sea level, water will turn to steam at 212F if enough heat it put into the water mass so as not to evaporate before it reaches that critical temperature. When you boil water in a pot, you get steam in bubbles rising from the bottom, or nucleation sites. Once they reach the surface and burst, you just have 211F water vapor.

You can't see steam, as it's a gas. Look at an an old whistling kettle. You'll see vapor blowing off, but that little bit on the whistle where you see nothing is the steam.

[–] • 0 pt

Steam is a gas, and is not water vapor.

Steam is the gaseous form of water, look it up man. Vapor is the gas phase of a substance. All steam is vapor but not all vapor is steam.

[–] • 0 pt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam

Steam is water in the gas phase. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Steam that is saturated or superheated is invisible; however, "steam" often refers to wet steam, the visible mist or aerosol of water droplets formed as water vapour condenses.

[–] • 0 pt

Gas phase and gaseous are two different things.