Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

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Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by Kelsey Cooter » 21 Sep 2020, 6:57 am

The humidity is already a problem here so need to protect everything inside the vault. Currently I'm using a set of work lights inside to dry the room, but they are good at chewing power.

I've never had anything do to with whole room dehumidifiers before, but from what I read on the net I understand they raise the temp of the room a little.
I like that idea over an aircon because I'm worried about the thought of the guns sweating when they are taken out of an airconned room into the heat and humidity.

I like that the aircon is part of the building and I can set and forget for days at a time.

Remember this is a vault not a gun room, so I'm not in there for long lengths of time.

What do you blokes think is the better way to go?
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by No1_49er » 21 Sep 2020, 7:39 am

Your concern seems to be that the climatic humidity is going to be a source of corrosion to the contents of your vault. I will attempt to justify my thought on this.

Simply heating the room will certainly raise the dew point within your vault, but it will not/cannot reduce or remove the moisture that is already contained within the "atmosphere" inside the vault. The possibility for corrosion remains.

If you were to use a heater within the vault which is set to maintain the average outdoor temperature for your geographic region, and additionally use a dehumidifier which will only be extracting moisture from the air volume of your vault, the air would be dry, and there would be no temperature difference when removing an item from within the vault to the outside world. Therefore, no chance of "sweating".

Lamps chew up the power because they are not, generally, operated by temperature control, but they could be. Using a little fan heater that has a good temperature control will maintain your desired temperature and keep the air moving. Once the dehumidifier has done its job it will, in essence, be redundant until you next open the vault and re-introduce a "wet" atmosphere, at which time the air temperature will need to be restabilised and dried.

What do you need?
A small heater, temperature controlled, that is only required to maintain the temperature, and, a small dehumidifier, that will not need to be operated continuously. It can only dry the fixed volume of air once, but will need to do the same next time you open the door and "contaminate" the dry air.
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by Kelsey Cooter » 21 Sep 2020, 8:24 am

Cheers for the response No1.

Using the lights as a heater is simply because I don't have a better option on hand at the moment until I buy what I need.

Considering the vault is extremely insulated, so temperature is very slow to change, will the small heater be much use? wouldn't running a dehumidifier be all that's needed?

What are your thoughts on aircon vs dehumidifier?
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by Kelsey Cooter » 21 Sep 2020, 9:17 am

Sorry I forgot to mention I will be storing my ammo and powder inside a safe in the vault as well. So would that matter as far as a dehumidifier keeping the temp up a bit
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by eddievic » 21 Sep 2020, 9:30 am

i am not an expert so take it with a grain if salt.

A inverter reverse cycle unit might do what you want and reasonably cheap to run. I have an aldi one installed in my house and another in a shed recently and was surpassing that it was only arpund 0.4x kwh use both during cooling and heating. The other aspect of reverse cycle ones is that they dehumidify the air.
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by Larry » 21 Sep 2020, 9:45 am

Heating the air will not de humidify it as No1 said at first. In fact it would more likely increase the Humidity in the room. How air can and will hold more water vapour. Using the Aircon is the better solution. A Aircon will actually remove water vapor from the room. Just make sure you run the drain house outside the room and watch it pour out.
Having cooler guns than the outside air yes condensation may form on them when you take them outside the room until they temperature stabilize. Some Aircons actually have a dehumidify mode so you can keep the warmer temp nut still remove water from the room. this does use more power as you are running the cooling to form condensation on the evap coils and also running the heaters to warm the air up afterwards. The Aircon is the best way to go.
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by No1_49er » 21 Sep 2020, 11:21 am

Kelsey Cooter wrote:Cheers for the response No1.

Using the lights as a heater is simply because I don't have a better option on hand at the moment until I buy what I need.

Considering the vault is extremely insulated, so temperature is very slow to change, will the small heater be much use? wouldn't running a dehumidifier be all that's needed?

What are your thoughts on air-con vs dehumidifier?

For what it's worth (I hate working in the "dark") I have 6x 40Watt LED strip lamps (the ones that look like fluorescent tubes) and they hold the temperature in my 3 x 4mtr gun-room at a pleasant stable temperature. Because I'm in and out of it frequently, all that I really need is the de-humidifier. Just like the one in your car, if there is an ever increasing puddle of water under the car, the de-humidifier (AC) is working. If you install a de-humidifier in your vault, be sure that you can observe the water drain. Once the water stops, the air is dry and the unit can be switched off. Make sure that you turn it on again the next time you open up the vault because there will be in influx of new humid air. Repeat the cycle. Easy.
Regarding the powder etc., a dry, stable temperature atmosphere can only be beneficial. Nothing to worry about.
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by Kelsey Cooter » 21 Sep 2020, 11:23 am

Cheers guys,
Yes I put a Mitsubishi aircon in the house at the start of the year that has a dehumidifier mode. I've not used that mode yet but the way I understand it, it still needs to cool the room a bit. So I've been wondering if an aircon on dehumidifier mode will use less power than a dehumidifier.

I'm in north qld so bringing guns out of a cool room in summer really does result in wet steel when the temp and humidity is right up. Hence why I'm worried about using an aircon.

Well I knew using the lights to heat the room would do F all, but I hoped it would do more than you blokes are thinking it does! So I'll get into town this arv and buy a portable dehumidifier for now as I really need to sort something out quickly.
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by No1_49er » 21 Sep 2020, 11:43 am

For the non technical folks, my reference to the 6x 40Watt (equivalent) LED lamps, equates to a 240Watt lamp (equivalent).
Have you ever tried to "manhandle" a 250Watt filament lamp, even after it's been running for only a short time? I'll bet you burned yourself.
When confined within a small volume, it would become toasty warm. Bigger volume, slower to achieve stable temperature. Think of a heat lamp in a captive reptile enclosure. And if you don't like the idea of a lamp, you could go done the route of a ((crazy priced) so called "Golden Rod" heater. Price comparison time :wtf:
Buy an indoor/outdoor temperature indicator from the likes of Jaycar and switch the heat source off when you are happy that they are near enough the same. A de-humidifier would also only be intermittent use until the air is dry. The drain "tell-tale" will let you know that.
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by on_one_wheel » 21 Sep 2020, 1:36 pm

Rust will mot form in the absence of oxygen.

You could simply remove all the oxygen from the room by purging it with nitrogen. :crazy:

Any method of dehumidifing an entire room will be expensive in the long run, especially if it's not sealed perfectly.

I'd be considering a liberal coating of a quality long life rustwill preventive spray designed for firearms like CRC long life.
Or vacuum sealing firearms that aren't going to be used any time soon.
Individual pelican cases with dehumidifier bags inside would be another option.
Cerakote is also a great way to manage rust.

But if your hell bent on dehumidifing the whole vault there are specifically built dehumidifiers for vaults.
Paint your walls, cealing and floor to seal out the moisture and seal the door well to reduce the load on the dehumidifier.
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Re: Whole room dehumidifier vs air conditioner

Post by Faedy » 21 Sep 2020, 2:50 pm

I'm in flood restoration
We use decent dehumidifiers for the job.
If your really keen, buy a used machine off someone and put it on a timer. Say on for 4hrs off for 8hrs. Or most have a humidistat setting. Set at 50% and as soon as rH goes over it, it will cycle on.
Look up dri-eaz for an example
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