De-humidifier

[wrigglefingers]

For those of you following the sad tale of the exploding water pump on NB Surprise ......

 

I found, this evening, in Aldi, a small de-humidifier, 2l tank, removes .6l daily and uses 72w power. It's 245(w)x360(h)x185(d) mm. Works best in small spaces it says on the side of the box. Apparently it's 12V 6A, so I'm trying to work out what'll happen if I cut off the adapter (laptop type) and wire to a 12V plug? It's not a problem if I can't, as we're still on a landline. Best of all it cost 30 quid which was a substantial improvement on the 149 squid job I found in Currys that wasn't much bigger.

 

Jill

[Moley]

Well done Jill, sounds well worth a try.

 

If you have easy access to a shoreline I'd have thought you'd be better off using that. 6 amps at 12v sounds like quite a drain, if it's being left on for any length of time.

 

Having been there and done that, I hope you can dry out sufficiently and there's no long-term dampness lurking beneath your floorboards.

[wrigglefingers]

Well done Jill, sounds well worth a try.

 

If you have easy access to a shoreline I'd have thought you'd be better off using that. 6 amps at 12v sounds like quite a drain, if it's being left on for any length of time.

 

Having been there and done that, I hope you can dry out sufficiently and there's no long-term dampness lurking beneath your floorboards.

 

'Fraid that's unlikely Moley, The water pump was bolted to a railway sleeper and I rather suspect that the rest of the ballast might be wood too ....... I shall see what Nigel the boat engineer says tomorrow, but I think it's a floor up job.

 

Jill

 

PS Ellen says I'm getting ahead of myself at the moment; at least the electricity is still holding up at the moment!

[Yoda]

'Fraid that's unlikely Moley, The water pump was bolted to a railway sleeper and I rather suspect that the rest of the ballast might be wood too

 

Jill

 

Take up all the flooring that you can and open the doors and windows for as long as you can, it will dry out quicker. Use the de-humidifier when your not on the boat. If you have railway sleepers as ballast, they are probably coated in tar or creosote so will be dry. Never come across wooden ballast before but there is always a first time. Bad time of year to have an on-board flood as the autunm dampness is setting in.

[Breals]

I also had a waterpump blow on me this year, seems I'm in good company!

 

Timber sleepers as ballast? Oh dear, that doesn't sound ideal! Although I've had to remove lots of sopping wet concrete slabs, they're not much better. I wish there was some other non-porous material which could be used (reasonably cheaply).

 

If I had a landline I'd get one of these dehumidifiers, but one thing that would irk me, is whether it can actually do any good considering the cabin floor is pretty much sealed off, but the rest of the boat is well ventilated by moist canalside air. Guess you'd have to tape up all the vents?

Edited September 25, 2006 by Breals

[hnb2907]

For those of you following the sad tale of the exploding water pump on NB Surprise ......

 

I found, this evening, in Aldi, a small de-humidifier, 2l tank, removes .6l daily and uses 72w power. It's 245(w)x360(h)x185(d) mm. Works best in small spaces it says on the side of the box. Apparently it's 12V 6A, so I'm trying to work out what'll happen if I cut off the adapter (laptop type) and wire to a 12V plug? It's not a problem if I can't, as we're still on a landline. Best of all it cost 30 quid which was a substantial improvement on the 149 squid job I found in Currys that wasn't much bigger.

 

Jill

 

I've got one, by all means chop the plug off and wire it so that you can use it on your boats 12V system. There's no exciting electronics in there that will get damaged, even if you could get 15V or so at it. Make sure you wire the plug the correct way around, otherwise the cold bit that condenses the water will get hot instead of cold

 

Even though they do work, don't expect miracles - on the rare occasions I use ours, even after 5 hours it's only removed a table spoon full, when the relative humitidy is in the 90% region.

 

 

Cheers,

Chris.

[wrigglefingers]

I've got one, by all means chop the plug off and wire it so that you can use it on your boats 12V system. There's no exciting electronics in there that will get damaged, even if you could get 15V or so at it. Make sure you wire the plug the correct way around, otherwise the cold bit that condenses the water will get hot instead of cold

 

Even though they do work, don't expect miracles - on the rare occasions I use ours, even after 5 hours it's only removed a table spoon full, when the relative humitidy is in the 90% region.

Cheers,

Chris.

 

Thanks Chris,

 

I'm not expecting much either but at least I feel I'm doing something to help the floor and ballast dry out. I'm debating whether to heat the boat at the same time to speed the process as even the box suggests only 6l per day at 30 degC and I'd guess that's optimistic. I might try to direct the draw to the underfloor by jury-rigging a binliner, cut to form a sleeve and taped round the inlet and the inspection hatch. There's probably a good reason why I can't do this but hell, at 30 quid it's probably worth a try.

 

Jill

[DHutch]

Also, just make sure thats not 12v AC.

- But otherwise, i cant see a problem, its unlikly to be very high tech, and therefore likly to be faily resilent as hnb says.

 

 

Daniel

[Noah]

.......I'm not expecting much either but at least I feel I'm doing something to help the floor and ballast dry out. I'm debating whether to heat the boat at the same time to speed the process as even the box suggests only 6l per day at 30 degC and I'd guess that's optimistic. I might try to direct the draw to the underfloor by jury-rigging a binliner, cut to form a sleeve and taped round the inlet and the inspection hatch. There's probably a good reason why I can't do this but hell, at 30 quid it's probably worth a try.

 

Jill

Jill

 

I would definately give the dehmidifier a try with some of the floor up and cupboards and inner doors open to increase airflow. Increasing temperature will also increase water recovery rate. Running the engine for longer periods to power the dehumidifier will also increase boat tempeature. Just expect the process to take a long time, especially with a 12V dehumidifier. I had serious pipe leak (badly assembled Hepworth fitting) just after I bought my boat and a dehumidifer (240V version) really dried the carpet and woodwork after pumping out the lowest part of the cabin bilge. Even block and chipboard can survive a soaking without swelling if they are dried as fast as practicable. Hope you've got no MDF though! Your home made bilge-blower might really help, just be careful not to cover the demudifier as it will get a bit hot! There's still some dry and breezy days left in the year, so opening all doors and windows while you're there might be better than any dehumidifier. Good luck.

 

Noah (flooding expert!)

[hnb2907]

Also, just make sure thats not 12v AC.

- But otherwise, i cant see a problem, its unlikly to be very high tech, and therefore likly to be faily resilent as hnb says.

Daniel

 

Hi Dan,

 

Good thought to check! But, they use a ~12V peltier heat pump and fan, both of which are definitely DC. Even if you put DC in and it was expecting AC, it would be recitifed inside the dehumidifier anyway to drive the peltier/fan....

 

 

Cheers,

Chris.

[DHutch]

...they use a ~12V peltier heat pump...

Ah right. Well if its a peltier-based one, which i guess i could have guessed, no problem!

 

 

I always thought of geting a on of them and using inplace of the load-restister of a wind turbine regulator.

- Rather then waste all the energy in the middle of winter, but it to some use and dry the boat out while your not there.

 

 

Daniel

[Hairy-Neil]

I wish there was some other non-porous material which could be used (reasonably cheaply).

 

 

 

There is, but its unsuitable for retro fitting. What you do is specify a 25mm base plate when the boat is built new. Removes the need for ballast other than for trimming, plus it will never rust out in a lifetime.

 

Another benefit is the increased headroom it can give you as there's no need for 3 inches of ballast under the floor.

[John Orentas]

Only just found this thread, don't quite understand it. Exploding water pumps? during the summer we have just had you could empty a bucket of water under your floor and within a couple of days everything will be totally dry.

 

It must be said if you have wet ballast under your floor at this time of the year, the probability is that you either have a hole in your boat or more likely your plumbing system is leaking.

 

Forget de-humidifiers, fix the leak. With just a bit of ventilation to the below floor area it will dry up naturally in no time.

[wrigglefingers]

Only just found this thread, don't quite understand it. Exploding water pumps? during the summer we have just had you could empty a bucket of water under your floor and within a couple of days everything will be totally dry.

 

It must be said if you have wet ballast under your floor at this time of the year, the probability is that you either have a hole in your boat or more likely your plumbing system is leaking.

 

Forget de-humidifiers, fix the leak. With just a bit of ventilation to the below floor area it will dry up naturally in no time.

 

Hello John,

 

Yup, the water pump failed rather spectacularly except I hadn't realised for some time, chasing problems with the calorifier and accumulator tank. I found over 4inches of water in the cabin bilge last week which has soaked the ballast. The bizarre part of this is that the ballast material in the area under kitchen consists of large blocks of teak and mahogany, which supported a tiled floor (now an ex-tiled floor!). The reason for my concern is that the soaking the ballast has received and the warm weather have combined forces to produce a fantastic array of different moulds on the wood. It's all coming out at the weekend to be replaced with real stuff. Nigel-the-Boat and Ron both reckon that the coat of bitumen it has down on the floor has done the job and that's there's no corrosion developing.

 

In the meantime, I've pumped out the bilge, have the de-humidifier running and will have replaced the Shurflo with a Flojet by tomorrow evening. I appreciate that the bilge would have self-dried in the height of summer but down in the mouldy west it's now quite damp most of the time and so needs some help. Ellen and I are liveaboard so if I can speed up the process it would be less stressful to us both. For some reason Ellen objects to stepping across ballast and bearers to get to her bedroom and I find it difficult to cook on mouldy timber. Must be 'cos we are women!

 

Regards, Jill