Choosing a Shed or Garage dehumidifier
Date: 12-02-2013
Some products are naturally sexy and attract attention. Take the ipad 2 for example. When it was released it was just a slightly better version of the original. Slightly thinner, slightly faster and with an extra camera and better graphics. Hardly earth shattering.
But it was front page news and hundreds of pages of copy were devoted to it.
This is quite a contrast to the humble garage dehumidifier
In the last few years there have been three significant innovations to the basic mechanical refrigerative dehumidifier that have enabled them to perform significantly better, a lot more efficiently and in a wider range of conditions than ever before.
These innovations are great news for protecting the contents of your shed from the effects of a damp atmosphere and they seem to have passed without any major fanfare.
So lets put the situation to rights and discuss them right here
However before we start on the innovations lets just recap on the problem of damp and condensation in sheds and garages. In the absence of more serious problems, such as a leaking roof or damp coming up from the ground due to lack of a decent damp barrier, the cause of damp in sheds and garages is due to lack of heating and ventilation. In an unheated closed secure store the air temperature rises and falls, sometimes the dew point is reached and dampness precipitates out of the air on to the items stored, making them damp. The temperature often does not rise enough again in the winter months to dry out this dampness.
It is this dampness that causes steel tools to go rusty and encourages mildew and fungal growth on fabrics. Many sheds and garages are left unheated overnight and any paper or books will become damp over time too. The damp environment is also helpful to moths, fleas and other undesirable insect life.
The first part of the solution is to make the space as airtight as possible. If you are going to install a garage dehumidifier then you do need to make sure that you are not sucking in air and dampness from the whole neighbourhood.
Once you have your space ready, leak free and reasonably airtight it is time to go about researching your dehumidifier options.
But it was front page news and hundreds of pages of copy were devoted to it.
This is quite a contrast to the humble garage dehumidifier
In the last few years there have been three significant innovations to the basic mechanical refrigerative dehumidifier that have enabled them to perform significantly better, a lot more efficiently and in a wider range of conditions than ever before.
These innovations are great news for protecting the contents of your shed from the effects of a damp atmosphere and they seem to have passed without any major fanfare.
So lets put the situation to rights and discuss them right here
However before we start on the innovations lets just recap on the problem of damp and condensation in sheds and garages. In the absence of more serious problems, such as a leaking roof or damp coming up from the ground due to lack of a decent damp barrier, the cause of damp in sheds and garages is due to lack of heating and ventilation. In an unheated closed secure store the air temperature rises and falls, sometimes the dew point is reached and dampness precipitates out of the air on to the items stored, making them damp. The temperature often does not rise enough again in the winter months to dry out this dampness.
It is this dampness that causes steel tools to go rusty and encourages mildew and fungal growth on fabrics. Many sheds and garages are left unheated overnight and any paper or books will become damp over time too. The damp environment is also helpful to moths, fleas and other undesirable insect life.
The first part of the solution is to make the space as airtight as possible. If you are going to install a garage dehumidifier then you do need to make sure that you are not sucking in air and dampness from the whole neighbourhood.
Once you have your space ready, leak free and reasonably airtight it is time to go about researching your dehumidifier options.