Author Topic: Humidity control  (Read 5118 times)

SalMac

  • Guest
Humidity control
« on: September 14, 2008, 05:59:42 PM »
I'm currently using the top shelf of the fridge and that is running at a temp of 9-10 deg so thats OK but the humidity is a problem. a Salt pan in there with it helped but it was obviously still a problem.

I got a new hygrometer with a digital min/max temp and humidity monitor. This confirmed my fears. It actually went off the scale... it went 99% to HH, whatever that meant but I assume it isnt configured to read 100....

So I tried to set up a cooler box. Once I put a couple of cheeses in which are of course damper than they should be it hit 98% very quickly.

Tried a wide range of things, fans, cracking the lid, moved it out of kitchen etc. No dice. So in true experimentation mode decided to find out what the ambient humidity was. Aha 85% indoors and outdoors. That explains it, with anything vaguely damp around in any form of box its going to go higher.

(We've had appalling weather for about 8 weeks where it has rained every day, heres the local weather read out for today from the meteorolical office for my location
13°C
Current:Rain
Wind: SE at 11 km/h
Humidity: 94%)

So I popped one of these non electric dehumidifiers (see at the bottom of page) in the bottom of the ice box. It contains a tablet of some salt or other in it, still trying to find out, to check whether its going to cause any other problems.

The humidity with no cheeses in the box dropped to 50%, with three 500g cheeses it went to 70%, with all the cheeses in (5 X 500g + 1 X 1kg cheeses) its stabilised at 83% and 12.5 deg temp with a 2l bottle of frozen water. 4l of frozen water dropped it to 9 deg.

But this is not a long term solution.

There are these, which I thought might be safer (as it states they are safe)

http://shop.telegraph.co.uk/item-MM.D2421/

But i'd like to do the chest freezer thing like CH. However CH is having difficulty controlling humidity so I'm looking for a more complete solution.

You can buy little electric dehumidifiers like this and sit them in the freezer controlling them by turning the power to them on and off using an iButton that measures humidity and a piece of home built electronics...(ya ya i know not for everyone but my husband and I are programmers)

(An iButton is a computer chip enclosed in a 16mm thick stainless steel can. Because of this unique and durable container, up-to-date information can travel with a person or object anywhere they go. The steel iButton can be mounted virtually anywhere because it is rugged enough to withstand harsh environments, indoors or outdoors. It is small and portable enough to attach to a key fob, ring, watch, or other personal items, and be used daily for applications such as access control to buildings and computers, asset management, and various data logging tasks. Information is transferred between your iButton and a PC with a momentary contact at up to 142kbps.)

But I dont really like the idea of sitting the device inside the freezer so now thinking about some form of air extraction and return from a dehumidifer sitting outside the freezer running off a sensor inside the freezer. Anyone know of a dehumidifier that also works with pipes and is as cheap of these domestic types?

And then I found this which at £350 is a bit expensive but might make making a nice cool room easy.

http://www.solarventi.co.uk/?gclid=CKTg1oXK25UCFQEq1AodfRmzY

Solar powered air conditioning and dehumidification.

This might be good as we are looking to put in solar water heating which a bigger unit of these also does.

So stll a work in progress but anyone any thoughts on this?

Sal


« Last Edit: September 14, 2008, 09:19:01 PM by SalMac »

Tea

  • Guest
Re: Humidity control
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2008, 07:55:53 PM »
Hi Sal, interesting information.  I too am trying to find a solution to all this, (I'm looking at a wine fridge at the moment), I will be watching this space for everyone ideas and solutions.
My esky is not cutting it with the warm weather starting, and I only said to my DH yesterday that this might be the last lot of aging cheese that I will do for a while.  He suggested I get a wine fridge  :o  Must be liking the cheeses.  lol

SalMac

  • Guest
Re: Humidity control
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2008, 08:43:16 PM »
Hi Tea

Had a quick mooch around and everyone talks about wine coolers, whats different about them? Unless they have active humidity control I'm still stuffed as a result of ambient humidity lol! There are some fridges with drawers that are humidity controlled but they are expensive and the drawers are way too small for an aggressive cheese making campaign.

Sal

Tea

  • Guest
Re: Humidity control
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2008, 08:50:33 PM »
I have to admit that the humidity control business I am yet to looking into with the fridges, but the wine fridges allow for higher temps than the normal fridge range, which we need for cheese making.  Also they have wooden shelving, which is preferable for cheese.

SalMac

  • Guest
« Last Edit: September 14, 2008, 09:19:32 PM by SalMac »

Tea

  • Guest
Re: Humidity control
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2008, 09:03:59 PM »
The first link looks very interesting if you were going to build a cellar. 
The second one shows the fridges that I am talking about.  Although I have been looking at a scaled down model.

SalMac

  • Guest
Re: Humidity control
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2008, 09:56:40 PM »
Aha !

Brilliant....making progress. Im pretty sure the sensor goes in wherever and switches the power on and off accordingly of say a dehumidifier. Only sold in Germany but they seem happy to ship abroad. Only £30. Need to get the natural german language speaker to check it does what I think it does.

Ok now how to alter the humidity in the freezer without putting the dehumidifier in there, or find a way to drop the temperature of a chamber reliably and cheaply....options options!

Sal

Addnl : At the worst I can create some sort of an alarm at least. Hubby has confirmed it does what I think, there is even one that does climate and temperature!

http://stores.ebay.de/lifemat_W0QQfsubZ2QQtZkm
« Last Edit: September 14, 2008, 10:35:58 PM by SalMac »

Junglerott

  • Guest
Re: Humidity control
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2008, 09:59:04 PM »
There is a product for cigar humidors called The Cigar Oasis. I am wondering if it may be a good solution to our humidity needs.

SalMac

  • Guest
Re: Humidity control
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2008, 10:07:18 PM »
Thanks junglerott. See here for a humidifier for cigar storage.

http://www.bcspecialties.com/wineasp/storage_500U.asp

That certainly deals with the up which at times (when it finally stops raining) will be needed.

Sal