Dehumidifier

[ericheartsu]

My Dehumidifier for my dark room died this weekend. I'd like to get a more industrial one, instead of just getting 1 or 2 small ones from Home Depot.

Any Recommondations?

[Evo]

My Dehumidifier for my dark room died this weekend. I'd like to get a more industrial one, instead of just getting 1 or 2 small ones from Home Depot.

Any Recommondations?

How big is the screen room? I looked high and low for a decent industrial unit that wasn't $1k or more. They seem to ramp up steeply in price from consumer models to industrial models.

I ended up finding an almost brand new home unit at a Goodwill store, $10. Could pull a few quarts of water out of the air in a day. They are there all the time. Also, Craig's List free section.

[blue moon]

I picked up ours at BJ's Club or something like it. It gets a hose which drains directly so there is no need to dump water out (we had to do it a couple of times each day). It's been running for about three years now non stop without any problems. 'padi about $150 for it.

pierre

[GKitson]

Dehumidifers are rated according to the amount or moisture, water, that they can remove from air in a 24 hour period.  The higher the rating, 12 pints, 18 pints, 30 pints, etc the greater the capacity.  Your first line of screen room moisture control should be an air conditioner with the dehumidifer as the extra kick to keep your screen room in the less than 30% moisture range.

Remember every gallon of emulsion is at least 50% water and every time you open the door to the screen room you allow more moisture laden air to enter, so bigger is generally better.

I agree with Pierre that you need a drain hose to the outside world because you will never remember to empty the drip pan as often as it should be and then your machine is not working for you.

We replace our hardware store model dehumidifer every 3-4 years for about $150 and my HVAC guy quoted about $4000 for a humidity controled environment, like NASA or CDC would be needing.  No brainer, I go to the hardware/big box store.

This is not the same conversation as buying a hardware store preassure washer, the dehumidifer just sits in the corder and removes water 24/7.  Not like the beating a p/w gets in the screen room.

~Kitson

[mk162]

our screen room is in the center of the shop and not close to a drain or exterior wall, so i bought a condensate pump and tapped it into a pvc line that runs overhead from the front office AC unit.

the single dehumidifier I have keep it around 16-24% humidity in the darkroom, works great.

I prefer an older style analog dial version as opposed to the newer digital models.  the one I have is from sams and I think we bought it around 10 years ago...it has lasted longer than the one I bought a 3 years ago at sams.

I find with these the fewer the features, the less to break.

[alan802]

We bought one from Lowes and it was their middle sized model and it's been working great for over a year now.  I think we paid over $200 for it but well worth it.  Our other dehumidifier ran for over 5 years at our shop and it was at least 5 years old when we got it, it was from a big box store as well.  We have the air conditioner and by itself, it would only get our darkroom to about 60% and the humidifier gets us down to 30%.  We empty the bucket every afternoon before we leave and it rarely needs emptied more than once a day.  We are always in and out of the darkroom so it's easy to empty the bucket and we have to move it around alot so I haven't put a drain hose on it yet till I can get a permanent location for it or build a shelf where it's up and out of the way.

[tonypep]

Our screen dept consists of 8 or 9 interconnected rooms, each equipped with their own specific climate control equipment and specialized lighting. Since this building was built foor Screenprinting and Embroidery I had the luxury of designing the entire facility around our processes, with strong attention to infrastructer. The coating, drying, and coated storage rooms have two industrial humidifiers that drain to the outside the back of the building. Overkill for many but we need it. We may need to process a hundred frames a day and they need to dry fast.

[GKitson]

This picture shows the dehumidifier mounted on the wall rack with a drain hose you can't see going to the drain shared with the AC unit which is over the door.  Walls are painted 122U which absorbs most of the 380-420 NM UV and the enviro stays at 25-30% RH  & 78 degrees F until we coat.  We consider this the 'wet' screen room.

50-75 screens coated in a typically batch and humidity jumps to 60-70% and is back down to less than 30% in about 90-120 minutes after coating.  Coat twice a day during busy season, once a day other 6 months of year.

[bimmridder]

I have a PTAC unit in my screen room which is like you see in hotel rooms. It is a combination heater and air conditioner. We also did buy an industrial dehumidifier, about 8 years ago. I know. I spent too much money, but it has literally been through hell and high water and still does a great job. Between the two units, I can pretty well set and monitor my screen room temperatures and humidity levels year round.