Dehumidification

Anyone have any dehumidification tips? Do you use an electric dehumidifier in your shop?

How about non-electric options? I read that buckets of sand, rock salt, and calcium chloride might all work as dehumidifiers.

My shop is not climate controlled. I'm considering adding an A/c window unit as well. Outdoor RH is around 80% in my region all this week.

If you have elevated temperatures as well as high humidity get an air conditioner. If your temperature is where you want it get a dehumidifier. The baggy thing dripping in a bucket, I recall my parents using it when I was a kid. Not a lot of control, not sure how well it works. There was water in the bucket though.

I live in the tropic north of Australia. I run a dehumidifier in a closed sealed room 24/7 all year round. I keep most of my timber in there and certainly anything that will be built with in the near future. All work in progress is also kept in there with glue ups also done in that room.

During the wet season that dehumidifier will strip out at least 12 litres of water in that room every day.

I decided to start with a small air conditioner, a little 500btu window unit. (I'm in a 10'x20' metal shed by the way.) The AC worked remarkably well, in dropping the RH. Room temp was 88F, and RH was 70% before I turned it on. After a couple hours, I got it down to a more tolerable 83F and 55RH. That felt good! Still a bit high, but workable.

I think I'll need a dedicated dehumidifier in addition, though. The problem is that I'm not sure I can afford to run the AC all the time. Even with it's thermostat down, it'll be cycling on all night. It's great while I am working, but I'll need something to control humidity other times, to keep the wood happy.

Since it's cheap, I bought some rock salt too. I'll try putting a few buckets of this around, just to see what it does.

Another idea is to have a large plastic sealable bin for storing wood and in-progress instruments, which I can keep dry using salt, silica gel, or maybe calcium chloride. Then remove parts to work on once the shop is dry.

I suppose I'll break down and buy a dehumidifier eventually.

Allen said:

I live in the tropic north of Australia..

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Thank you, Allen. This gives me hope. I'm glad I'm not the only one dealing with less than ideal climate.

If you are a regular yard sale goer you can pick up humidifiers for a song. I have to run one 4 or 5 months of the year as it arid here in Northern California most of the year. You couldn't put enough salt or other material in a shop to have much of an effect. Your more likely to corrode your tools.

Michael Smith said:

If you are a regular yard sale goer you can pick up humidifiers for a song. I have to run one 4 or 5 months of the year as it arid here in Northern California most of the year. You couldn't put enough salt or other material in a shop to have much of an effect. Your more likely to corrode your tools.

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Good call on the salt. I'll be careful with that.

I'm pursuing the idea of a "dry box", which ia a 76 qt plastic storage bin sealed up with weather stripping, and containing a pound or two of silica gel. I can get a 5 pound bag of silica gel at the hobby store, sold for drying flowers. The idea is I keep wood and in progress ules in there at night when humidity approaches 90 percent RH, or on rainy days. Only remove once I get the shop down to 50 RH or ao using A/C.