Where is Dehumidification Needed?
Dehumidifiers are used wherever humidity (or lack of humidity control) is a problem. This includes residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional applications. Common humidity issues include damage to property (ie. buildings, books, clothing), health issues, musty odors, mold, mildew, bacteria, mites, viruses, fungi, microorganisms, plant diseases, water damage, condensation damage, frost or ice buildup, high heating and cooling costs, workplace safety issues such as icy floors or fog, slow drying times and production environments where dehumidification control is required to produce a product or remove inconsistencies.
Commercial / Industrial Applications
Ice rinks, indoor pools, spas, pumping stations, water management, and wastewater treatment facilities are all applications that introduce large amounts of moisture to an environment. This results in an undesirable relative humidity that needs to be controlled.
Medical environments such as hospitals, surgical units, and emergency rooms are dehumidified to both keep people comfortable and to reduce hygiene issues. Greenhouses and large indoor growing rooms dehumidify to reduce plant diseases that otherwise flourish in warm moist environments.
Many valuable, irreplaceable, and historically important items will become damaged in the presence of humidity. They will cease to exist if ideal conditions for mold, mildew, and fungus are allowed to flourish. Archival storage facilities like libraries and museums are safe havens for important documents, books, and archaeological items and they require strict environmental control. Specialty storage for film and classic cars provides protective low humidity environments.
Even stricter climate control may be seen in environments like clean rooms, pharmaceutical manufacturing, drug packaging, sterilization processes, silicon wafer making, and precision manufacturing.
Supermarkets have complex environmental control needs. A typical US supermarket may have produce that gets misted with water, open display refrigerated foods, one or more large banks of freezers, condensation prevention heaters, hoods for prepared foods, and a big front door that opens and closes all day long. Without proper humidity and temperature control produce will rot or dry out, frozen food will frost, glass displays will fog, and customers will find the environment uncomfortable.
Big-box general merchandise stores that also sell groceries will segment their air control efforts into specific store regions. This helps to prevent your fruit and vegetables from tasting like the tires over in the auto supply section, for example.
All kinds of cold storage applications must contend with ice and frost condensation when moisture vapor is introduced. Everything from the transparency of refrigerated display cases to the fog and ice dangers of a food storage loading area presents a risk to a business’s bottom line.
Food processing, packaging storage, and transportation environments are typically cold. When moist air enters these environments frost and ice collect on surrounding surfaces. This includes chiller walls and ceilings, loading docks, and the food being held or processed. Workplace safety, as well as product integrity, are at risk. These applications require dehumidifiers that can operate at low temperatures. Warmer environments like kitchens risk condensation damage as well as mold and mildew. Dehumidification is used to reduce condensation and make the environment uninhabitable to warm moisture seeking microorganisms.
Commercial grade portable units big and small are used in restoration, construction site drying, and water remediation. Dehumidification is used to drive the drying of an environment which may include water-soaked walls, floors, and furniture. Supplemental heat is frequently used to raise the temperature creating a larger difference in vapor pressure and increased condensation efficiency. The operator must take several factors into consideration in order to get the best performance without causing further damage.
Industrial process applications include optics, plastic resin, timer drying, paint booths, sand drying, surface preparation, product consistency, and industrial condensation prevention to name a few.
Applications by Category
Food Frozen foods Cold and chill Aging Drying cabinets Packaging Meat processing Meat / carcass storage Transportation Supermarkets
Archival •Storage facilities •Museums •Historic preservation •Important documents •Classic cars •Film
Strict Climate Control (Critical Environments) •Clean Rooms •Data Centers •Surgical Units •Pharmaceutical Manufacturing •Pharmaceutical Packaging •Sterilization Processes •Precision Manufacturing
Ice and Frost Condensation •PreventionReduce/eliminate the ice in loading dock receiving rooms •Eliminate frost from refrigerated transparent display cases •Control humidity in extreme cold storage units | Environmental Control •Indoor ice rinks •Indoor Pool & Spa Humidity Control •Supermarkets and big-box stores •Hospitals / Nursing homes / Emergency •Anywhere hygiene is a concern •Pumping stations, water management •Wastewater Treatment Facilities •Condensation free environments •Improve safety conditions •Reduce humidity in silos •Reduce heating costs •Greenhouses / large indoor grow operations •Clothes drying rooms •Military goods and munitions storage
Industrial Process •Optics •Faster drying of water-based paints •Timber drying •Drying sand •Paint booth •Leather drying •Surface preparation •Humidity control of steel •Remove seasonal fluctuations in spray drying operations •Industrial condensation prevention Temporary humidity control •Restoration / Flood Damage •Construction drying •Water remediation
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Residential Applications
The main reasons people use home dehumidifiers are for comfort, health, and property protection. The sweet-spot recommended by the EPA is an RH (relative humidity) between 30% and 50%. (https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/inside-story-guide-indoor-air-quality). In a residential environment, humidifiers are typically used when RH drops below 30% and dehumidifiers when RH is above 50%.
The National Research Council recommends maximum relative humidities for interior air based on a range of cold exterior temperatures.
| MAX RECOMMENDED RELATIVE HUMIDITY |
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