I was picking up dog food and noticed Walmart had dehumidifiers at around half price. I've wanted one for the shop, so grabbed one.
Bonus is overnight I got about 2 gallons of free clean water for steam engines.
It helps deter corrosion and rust in my shop and I get free distilled water? Sweet.
I have been wanting one for a while.
Sounds like I need to make a trip to Walmart.
Keep them clean if using in your engines
Mine runs nearly year round in the basement and gets all black and slimy inside the tank
Keep them clean if using in your engines Mine runs nearly year round in the basement and gets all black and slimy inside the tank
It must be that fresh Minnesota air Nick.
Or more than likely all of the oil on the engines stored down there.
I'm not touching this one.
How do dehumidifiers work in non air tight environments?
I have one for all my camera gear, but its an air tight cabinet and has an electronic dehumidifying device so all the air space is controlled at a dialed in number.
Dehumidifying a non air tight space would be like trying to dehumidify the entire surrounding atmosphere wouldn't it???
I can’t explain it any better than google, but the “humidifier” we have in the gun safe (goldenrod) is far different than the humidifier we keep in the basement. I assume what you have in the camera cabinet is similar to what we use for the guns.
I can’t explain it any better than google, but the “humidifier” we have in the gun safe (goldenrod) is far different than the humidifier we keep in the basement. I assume what you have in the camera cabinet is similar to what we use for the guns.
The camera dehumidifier is called an electronic dry cabinet. In my gun safe I have these crystals that suck out the moisture I should buy one of those goldenrods they're pretty popular down here.
Here's the camera cabinet -
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Our’s runs nearly year round and i have it draining right into my sump basket, otherwise I would have to empty it twice a day. If I didn’t have it, the entire basement would be moldy and everything would rust.
I think our goldenrod was only like $30 and it is just slightly warm to the touch.
We also have a ton of desiccant packets because my mom built computers at IBM and they threw boxes of them away everyday. We keep a few in every ammo can.
These are the Wal-mart type dehumidifiers
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Keep them clean if using in your engines Mine runs nearly year round in the basement and gets all black and slimy inside the tank
I keep a piece of paper taped to mine with all the previous cleaning dates and it seems like I get about 3 months before the hose that runs to my sump basket is plugged with slime. Well this current dehumidifier is now 4 years old and I had to tear it apart for a full cleaning (took about 3 hours) as the water was no longer going into the tank or out the hose, but instead was running out onto the floor. I didn’t take a before picture, but this was what I was still getting after flushing it out a half a dozen times.
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These will form all sort of fungus and mold, but only when running for longer periods like yours there, and never gets the chance to dry out inbetween use.
Mine is about a decade old now, and still delivers completely clean water in it´s collector, but that also only see occasional use, if i (or someone in "the circle") needs to dry out new concrete floors or similar when restoring/rebuilding.
@Nick, your pictures makes me worry about legionella decease that form in the cooling tower basins; please be careful handling & disposing of that slime. I suggest using an air filter at the suction side of you dehumidifier to eliminate particulate matters that help slime formation.
What I suggest during this COVID era is to try to buy a dehumidifier with pathogens killing UV bulbs; peace of mind that your home air is now pathogens free
The dehumidifier is down in the basement, maybe spend 10 minutes a day down there at most...
There is a screen on the front of the dehumidifier that collects dust and needs to get washed every couple weeks.