Dehumidifiers

[Rman]

My house is finally completed and I will be moving in shortly. I had a gun room finished in the basement, it's a fairly large room about 15x20 that I want to dehumidify for storage of all my rifles and handguns.



Anyone have any experience with these? I don't really need whole house dehumidification, just this room. It's relatively dry here anyway, but the basement is a bit moist and I know this can't be good for weapon storage.



Any brands I should look out for? Opinions wanted.

 

[TowPro]

I have been finding out that it has to be above 55 deg for them to work.

 

[Rman]

yes this is what I've been finding out, the room is heated so it shouldn't be much of a problem.



I have found a couple of models that work down to 33 degrees, they have some sort of hot gas defroster on the coils.



Kind of spendy though for these nicer equipped ones. I was hoping theyw ouldn't be this much.

 

[RobertBolinger]

I got a Whirlpool unit from Lowes-about $225. I was dumping the tank daily-it didn't even run 12 hours before filling up, so I got a condensate pump for about $50 that automatically pumps it outside-big difference in humidity-well worth it.

 

[JPope]

Have heard of people using small wattage light bulbs in gun cabinets to keep the temperature above the condensation point to minimize rusting possibilities. Also use larger light bulbs in well houses to maintain temperatures above freezing in winter (dependant upon size as little as 100w).

Also Campers World has powered dessicant type devices for hunidity control in a stored camper. Maybe something like this might work in lieu of the issues with a dehumidifier?

 

[QRTRHRS]

I have one made by White-Westinghouse that I picked up for 200 bucks give or take. It's noisy. You would not enjoy having that in your room. They also use a fair amount of electricity.



I too added one of those Little Giant condensate pumps to eliminate the twice daily water dumping I had to do.

 

[Rman]

I'm finding quite a disparity in pricing. There's the lowes/home depot jobs that are like 200-250 and then the nicer industrial types that are 800-1600 depending on size and options.



I haven't decided yet still thinking about it.

 

[Jerry R]

I use one from the local home depot. After the initial dry out, I used a timer. I set it up on top of a trash can and it doesn't have to be emptied very often like it did in the beginning. No rust on anything. It's kinda noisy if it's near anything. A timer with an exhaust fan helps too.

 

[TowPro]

I was looking at those lowes ones lastnight. I was checking out the 40 pint per 24 hour model. I think it ran $189 (forget the price). I was going to buy it along with a 5x8 flatbed trailer, but they started telling me how I had to go to the notary with them to transfer the tags and how they were closed.





Anyway, I left without either, but I think I might go back and get the dehumidifier. Do you guys think the 40pint per 24 hours is big enough for a 26'X26' garage that 3/4 of the walls are block, under ground?



I know its going to suck a lot of water out at first because the concrete is still green (even though it was poured 12/24!). Right now its 53deg and 87% humidity in there!



One thing I did notice they said they work down to around 43 deg or something. I think the 50 pint was like $50. 00 more, then the 70 pint was another $50. 00 or something. Plus the 50 and 70 were marked 8 amps, while the 50 was marked something like 6 amps.

 

[RobertBolinger]

Originally posted by TowPro

I was looking at those lowes ones lastnight. I was checking out the 40 pint per 24 hour model. I think it ran $189 (forget the price). I was going to buy it along with a 5x8 flatbed trailer, but they started telling me how I had to go to the notary with them to transfer the tags and how they were closed.





Anyway, I left without either, but I think I might go back and get the dehumidifier. Do you guys think the 40pint per 24 hours is big enough for a 26'X26' garage that 3/4 of the walls are block, under ground?



I know its going to suck a lot of water out at first because the concrete is still green (even though it was poured 12/24!). Right now its 53deg and 87% humidity in there!



One thing I did notice they said they work down to around 43 deg or something. I think the 50 pint was like $50. 00 more, then the 70 pint was another $50. 00 or something. Plus the 50 and 70 were marked 8 amps, while the 50 was marked something like 6 amps.

I think it will be big enough-especially of you get a condensate pump to keep it pumped out-I got the low profile Little Giant VCC-20ULS that allows dehumidifier to directly drain into the pump without raising the dehumidifier.

 

[Deezul1]

At work I have a home type dehumidifier and the room I am using it in is about 7' wide and 14' long and with anwindow AC unit running full blast in there I cant get the humidity under 65% with an outside temp of mid 80s and outside humidity of 75/80% It will fill the water pan overnight(not sure how big it is,maybe 2 gal). I am not impressed with the ability of this unit. It came from Ace hardware store and was about $200, its noisy too. The heating rods made for in a safe work good and the desicant powders do too. A combo of both may work good and be cheap and quiet.

 

[TowPro]

Condensate pump not required, I put a sump pump basket in the corner in the floor just for running a dehumidifier into! All I have to do is cut out the drain hose connection on the side.



When I built the "dream garage" I thought of everything ahead of time, well I did forget one major thing, INSULATING THE BLOCK WALLS! Now when its below freezing, the 100,000 BTU hot air heater takes 1 gallon of heater oil per day to keep it up to 45 deg in the bottom garage. I do this to stop the water that comes off the cars from freezing on the floor in the top garage, sure would hate to have the wife come home and slide on ice on the top floor, and slide on out the other side of the garage, its 12 foot down from that side!

Originally posted by RobertBolinger

I think it will be big enough-especially of you get a condensate pump to keep it pumped out-I got the low profile Little Giant VCC-20ULS that allows dehumidifier to directly drain into the pump without raising the dehumidifier.