Dehumidifiers: Pros/Cons

Hi,

If it makes 3 gallons a day and you want to leave it for a week or longer how will you get rid of the 20 odd gallons it makes a week when unattended?

Hi,

I was curious as I have thought about doing the same for a house that I have that is often left empty for months and months on end.

I have thought about drilling a hole in the floor bigger than the pipe and running a pipe outside for the drain. If the thing overflowed hopefully the excess water would drain through the hole in the floor around the pipe anyway.

I put my Florida boat on the hard for summer, shrink wrap and leave a dehumidifier running 24/7 with drain into the galley sink, keeps the boat fresh along with charcoal and open bleach bottles to kill bugs etc..boat smells just like I left it the day before...

In the old day my parents left one on a chair with the hose draining into the toilet when their house was vacant. No sense making a permanent solution for a temporary problem.
More to the point of this thread though, what year is the boat? Most systems installed during the past 10 plus years have a dehumidifier setting. The newer units make it very clear with a drop indication. On older units press heat, cool and fan together (upside-down triangle).

Entirely possible on an '87 although the controls prior to the current generation don't have an indicator for dehumidify cycle. This link shows the control I'm referring to: Cruisair Marine Air Conditioning. On this, when you press the upside-down triangle (Heat, Cool, Fan) "HU" will appear where you normally see the temp. If your control is older than these you might be best off just changing over to a modern control that can be set for dehumidifier. That way your unit turns on when humidity reaches a certain point rather than temp (which will probably have your unit running constantly until it clogs in the Gulf).
I'd also leave a few Damp Rids strategically place throughout the boat down there.

A dehumidifier has a float switch in the drain pan, so if the line clogs and the drain pan fills up it shuts off.

A dehumidifier will create a little ambient heat while it is running.

You could run the air conditioners on dehumidifier mode. Why don't you set the temp in your stateroom to whatever temp you would like it at instead of waking up cold? Why not run all of the air conditioning systems, they will cycle on and off as needed and is probably better than running the master and trying to work against the heat throughout the whole boat. Remember the a/c pump runs whether 1 unit is running or all of them at the same time

No, if in the slip, and away, everything goes off except about 4 fans , works ok for short term..

uh?

Not sure what's happening here...
I'm in the process of converting the old 3 knob controls to the newer pass-Port I/O so the A/C systems can use the de-humidify mode in 4 out of 7 stations. The latest digital display systems from the last 12 + years offer this.
No extra equipment in the galley draining in the sink or some big box draining in the bilge (somehow), it's already built in.
Remember, the A/C system was built to de-humidity, it became popular because to got cold....

,rc

Leave the dehumidifiers in the bathtubs and if there isn't a separate overflow hose just cut a hole in the pan and aim it towards the tub drain. Left one in each bathroom on a 24 hour timer so that they'd run during low rate power times. Just visited the place for the first time in 8 months and all good.

We do the same here. A dehumidifyer is an absolute must have, especially this time of year with 80-98% relative humidity. When I first started using it I got a little carried away and set the machine to dehumidify to a 40% humidity. The plaster came falling of the ceilings after a few days.

We use one Phillips, 20 Gall per 24/H unit to keep 3 floors dry.

Boats with bathtubs that drain overboard by gravity ?? most are pumped which means pump failure leads to bathtub filling up and possible electrical short ?

Hi, Houses and apartments are also being discussed in the thread.

Apologies. I should have been specific. I was responding to K1W1's post regarding a house left empty for extended periods.

In a boat I'd be inclined to find the highest point possible to mount the dehumidifier and pipe the water outside.

No, if the shower sump pump fails, the sump will usually overflow into the bilge and then be pump out by the bilge pump.

Usually is something I try not to trust too often...but, I see your point. hopefully the boat does also..lol..

Several of the vessels I work on have dehumidifiers (steel hulls+cold weather=condensation). They work great. Depending on conditions, the 1.5 gallon drip pan needs to be emptied every 4 to 12 hours. It would be easy to plumb a drain line to the pan. It's noisy and generates a fair amount of heat, though. Dayton brand. Most of the time they are off. I've also used a low wattage heater for dehumidification in unoccupied boats, and that worked well too (a unit designed specifically for that purpose).