Domestic Dehumidifiers?

[Tom Kagai]

Does anybody onboard here use a dehumidifier at home? If so, where did you get it and how much was it?

I'd really like to get one for my apartment to errm, reduce the humidity level, which is spoiling furniture, clothes and I think it's also the cause of static electricity shocks when I play my electric guitar.

I've seen very good ones available in the UK for around a hundred pounds. I've taken a look at HomePro, and Homeworks and they only stock 'Air Purifiers', which look very similar but are horrendously expensive (around 24,000 baht).

[Naam]

are you aware that a dehumidifier works in principle like an airconditioner? except... it will heat up your apartment.

[kokesaat]

Yes, you can buy dehumidifiers in Thailand....available at the Daikin AC store in Udon. But as Naam says, why do you want to heat up your room? Buy a small ac that has a dehumidifier option (most new models do).

10 to 1 odds, if you're gettin shocks while playing your electric guitar, the outlets in your home aren't grounded. I'd be especially careful around the hot water heater in the bathroom! In our first rental, I was getting slight shocks as my knee rubbed the corner of a steel computer desk. Then I took the cover off our hot water heater and found no ground wire attached.

[bazmlb]

are you aware that a dehumidifier works in principle like an airconditioner? except... it will heat up your apartment.

Heres a good idea - not

[Tom Kagai]

Firstly, thanks everyone for your comments. I had no idea that a dehumidifier would generate heat. Whoops. :jap: I'm glad I asked, and so's the bank manager.

10 to 1 odds, if you're gettin shocks while playing your electric guitar, the outlets in your home aren't grounded. I'd be especially careful around the hot water heater in the bathroom! In our first rental, I was getting slight shocks as my knee rubbed the corner of a steel computer desk. Then I took the cover off our hot water heater and found no ground wire attached.

This is concerning. I get small, but very irritating, shocks when I play the guitar, for which the amp is plugged into a wall socket. I also get the same thing on the pc when some powered monitor speakers are switched on via same wall, but different socket.

If I got a sparky to look into it, is it likely to be a big job to earth (ground) those sockets?

(Sorry if this terminology or concept isn't right; I'm not at all electrically-minded)

[Naam]

Yes, you can buy dehumidifiers in Thailand....available at the Daikin AC store in Udon. But as Naam says, why do you want to heat up your room? Buy a small ac that has a dehumidifier option (most new models do).

10 to 1 odds, if you're gettin shocks while playing your electric guitar, the outlets in your home aren't grounded. I'd be especially careful around the hot water heater in the bathroom! In our first rental, I was getting slight shocks as my knee rubbed the corner of a steel computer desk. Then I took the cover off our hot water heater and found no ground wire attached.

all aircons dehumidify. what the newer models have is an enhanced dehumidification cycle which can be switched on. during this cycle the fan speed of the inside unit is reduced intermittently to an absolute minimum or even to a stop whereas the compressor keeps on running. that causes the evaporator in the inside unit to cool down to a lower than normal temperature which in turn increases dehumidification.

[Naam]

Heres a good idea - not

[StreetCowboy]

are you aware that a dehumidifier works in principle like an airconditioner? except... it will heat up your apartment.

There's not a great deal of heat output from a dehumidifier; of course, the temperature goes up a little because you are pulling out heat by condensing out the water, and that has to be dumped somewhere. But for those of us that perspire, the cooling benefit of sweat drying off is tremendous. I used to get a bit fed up with the sweat streaming off me on to whatever I was working on, and making the floor slippy. The benefits from reduced mould, wall-paper peeling and so forth are a bonus.

If it was down to me to achieve dehumidification, I would try to pre-cool the air going into the chiller by passing the chilled exhaust air and the warm inlet air over opposite sides of an air-to-air heat exchanger, so that the air gets down to a lower temperature, and more water is squeezed out of it. Running the fan slower does generate a lot of condensation, but the reduced air mixing with the rest of the room presumably means you don't get a lot of benefit from it. When the fan went on my ac unit, the only benefit I got was condensate dripping out the underside.

If you achieve a really low level of humidity, you should be able to create static electric shocks. That's one of the reasons why some heating and ventilation systems actually add humidity to the conditioned air (generaly not a problem in Thailand, though, I think). The shocks you are getting may be from induced voltage on things that are not directly connected to the mains. I suffered the same thing at one time when I introduced an isolation / step-up transformer; I never really understood the circuit, and I've been able to make the transformer redundant... It also had the spectacularly hazardous feature of a female socket on the equipment, so that the cable from mains to transformer was male to male; some of you might say that is socially acceptable, but from an electrical cabling perspective, surely its just wrong!

SC

[gregb]

There are 2 kinds of heat. Latent heat, which is what gives rise to humidity and water vapor, and sensible heat, which is how hot something is. A dehumidifier will leave the total heat in your house essentially unchanged, except for a small additional amount of heat generated from running the compressor. It's purpose is to change the latent heat associated with the water vapor, into sensible heat associated with increased temperatures. It is exactly the opposite of an evaporative cooler, which changes sensible into latent heat by evaporating water.

The difference between a dehumidifier and an air conditioner is essentially nothing more than the direction where the exhaust from cooling the compressor goes. In both, the compressor condenses water out of the air which causes the temperature of the air to rise. (latent heat becomes sensible heat). In an air conditioner, a fan cools the air back down and the excess heat is expelled outside. In a dehumidifier, the excess heat is blown back into the room.

There is always no end of backyard inventors who think that by placing a dehumidifier in front of an evaporative cooler they can get increased efficiency. What they really get is an electric heater.