Dehumidifiers

[leesweeney]

I am the proud owner of a rather impressive looking AmberDry dehumidifier for my baby in the garage.. The thing is, the manual tells you how to swictch it on and select either an automatic setting or fixed setting but I just don't know which I need. Can someone help?

I can either choose 3 output settings of High, Medium or Low and the dehumidifier just runs constantly at these settings.

Or, I can choose an automatic setting to keep humidity below 40%, 50% or 60% and the machine vaires the output to maintain the humidty level. This seems the sensible one to me but even at 40% humidty is this too high? Am I better on a constant output setting which I presume would reduce the humidty level even below 40%.

All ideas greatfully received and I apologise in advance if I am just being thick.

 

[fergusond]

Lee, I was out playing in mine in the snow on Tuesday, frightened myself a few times, but thats what I bought it for. Drive it not hide it!

David

 

[Pickled Piper]

My 993 lives on the driveway in all weathers.

Do you purchance own a TVR?

pp

 

[Melv]

Set it on auto at about 60% -you will be very lucky to get it below that. Aim is for 56%RH, below which condensation mould will not form.

For instance, ambient RH at the mo is 76%.....

You will need to seal the garage up.

If you haven't plumbed it in, expect to empty a gallon today -good soft water for windscreen wash -don't chuck it!!

 

[leesweeney]

ORIGINAL: MoC2S

ORIGINAL: leesweeney

I am the proud owner of a rather impressive looking AmberDry dehumidifier for my baby in the garage.. The thing is, the manual tells you how to swictch it on and select either an automatic setting or fixed setting but I just don't know which I need. Can someone help?

I can either choose 3 output settings of High, Medium or Low and the dehumidifier just runs constantly at these settings.

Or, I can choose an automatic setting to keep humidity below 40%, 50% or 60% and the machine vaires the output to maintain the humidty level. This seems the sensible one to me but even at 40% humidty is this too high? Am I better on a constant output setting which I presume would reduce the humidty level even below 40%.

All ideas greatfully received and I apologise in advance if I am just being thick.

I think our current rulers might take a dim view of keeping babies in a garage, let alone the consequences for global warming of such flagrant waste of energy .. [8|]

If you must use this dreadful device, try it at auto 60% and only go up from there with serious thought. I presume your garage is hermetically sealed, or are you going to dehumidify mainland Europe ?? [&:]

Have you got a problem you are trying to solve ? My car is perfectly happy with its slot in the garage, although it has to be said the previous incumbent of my residence did place the central heating boiler in there. In my defence I have draft proofed AMAP the doors, and insulated the garage loft ... []

Don't take me too seriously, but I'm only half joking .. [][]

cheers, Maurice

Oh my, aren't there a lot of people on the happy pills tonight! I think our current rulers also take a dim view of such obviously flagrant abuses of ingested substances too!

Maurice, you suggested setting it to operate at humidty above 60% - is this to save the planet and my electricity bills or what would be recommended for cars stored over the winter?

I too have sealed the doors but with the washer dryer also in the garage and with the car getting far less use than I would like due to family and work commitments I decided a dehumidifier would be a sensible option. I am sure it would have survived without one but have no regrets getting one either.

And in response to Pickled Piper - I may be sad enough to look after my car but I am not sad enough to buy a TVR. I'd need a damn site more than a dehumidifier to keep one of those on the road! I was once at a track day and was very impressed by a chap driving his TVR like it was intended. I got chatting to him and suggested he was a brave man for tracking a TVR given their reliability issues to which he said it had been absolutely perfect with virtually nothing going wrong in his 4 years of ownership. He then listed about 6 breakdowns - some minor like the windscreen wiper motor packed up and the electrice windows wound down but then wouldn't raise them again but the majority were stuck by the side of the road wating for the AA type of breakdowns - and he thought this was virtually faultless!

Thanks for your help and even some of the sarcasm - each to their own!

 

[leesweeney]

ORIGINAL: Melv

Set it on auto at about 60% -you will be very lucky to get it below that. Aim is for 56%RH, below which condensation mould will not form.

For instance, ambient RH at the mo is 76%.....

You will need to seal the garage up.

If you haven't plumbed it in, expect to empty a gallon today -good soft water for windscreen wash -don't chuck it!!

Thanks Melv, a response without any micky taking.

 

[38F3E1]

Lee.

Set it to 50%. You don't want it too dry. What you should be trying to do it maintain a relative humidity between 40% and 60%. Below 40% rubber and leather dry and crack and above 60% rust will form on bare metal.

Ian.

 

[MrHappy]

Hi Lee, do you know what the humidity level is at the moment? I bought one of those cheap electronic weather station things that has remote sensors and measures temperatures and humidity in whatever location you put them. Outdoors it varies from about 40-95%, indoors, with the central heating, it tends to be 35-40% and the garage 35-50%. You may find, with an accurate reading, you don't really need the dehumidifier.

David.

 

[Pickled Piper]

Lee no sarcasm intended. I am surprised that you need a dehumidifier unless you have got some sort of damp problem in your garage. A well ventiliated area is all you need unless you happen to live in the Far East or other high humidity location.

Appologies for the TVR ownership jibe. It was below the belt. I too have come across many TVR owners that describe their cars as faultless just because they only break down 4 or 5 times per year.

pp

 

[38F3E1]

In Britian most of October - March will be spent with the relative humidity outside above 60%. If you have an unheated garage (especially if not connected to the house and therefore getting some heat) that's what it will be inside the garage too.

Keeping a garage constantly around 50% will benefit any car that is kept inside. However modern cars have such good body protection the benefit will be much much smaller than say a pre-galvanised car where it makes the difference between the car sitting in the garage slowly turning to a pile of rust or not.

As the owner of one of these rust buckets I have had to go to the effort of doing this. My 993 probably benefits too but not by much (although the disks never rust, ever, when inside the garage).

Ian.

 

[leesweeney]

ORIGINAL: ian_uk

In Britian most of October - March will be spent with the relative humidity outside above 60%. If you have an unheated garage (especially if not connected to the house and therefore getting some heat) that's what it will be inside the garage too.

Keeping a garage constantly around 50% will benefit any car that is kept inside. However modern cars have such good body protection the benefit will be much much smaller than say a pre-galvanised car where it makes the difference between the car sitting in the garage slowly turning to a pile of rust or not.

As the owner of one of these rust buckets I have had to go to the effort of doing this. My 993 probably benefits too but not by much (although the disks never rust, ever, when inside the garage).

Ian.

Thanks everyone for your responses. A dehumidifier is perhaps over the top for a 993 but I can't help but want to look after my car. My daily family car, which itself is a pretty decent car, is lucky to get a wash once a month. But the 993 is something esle. If I ever came to sell, which is unlikely, chances are you micky takers would be first in line to snap it up. It does get used, to the tune of about 3000 miles a year so isn't just a sit and stare at it car.

Maurice, if I didn't have such a weakness for expensive cars I could live in a much bigger house which would relieve the problem of having a washer dryer, dehumidifier and car all in the same place. But I do, and there ain't nowhere else for the washer dryer!

It's good to see free speech is alive and well. Even when I post a seemingly uncontentious thread the vast spread of responses always makes me smile.

 

[DavidR]

I have the same Amberdry (principally to stop boxes rotting and tools rusting ) but I set it to low most of the time and it works wonders. I would be concerned that on the Auto setting it would be working flat out most of the time in my relatively non watertight garage....

The water it produces is great for rinsing the car after a wash - no more water marks!!

David.