Principles of drying a structure, #2, #3 and #4

12/31/2015 (Permalink)

These are our air movers. They speed up evaporation (see principle #2).

Continued.

The second principle of drying a structure is evaporation that occurs when water is moved from a liquid state to a vapor state in the air. Evaporation does not remove the moisture, it just moves it from the materials to the surrounding air. Once evaporation is occurring, the moisture can now be removed through dehumidification. 

The third principle is dehumidification, or the removal of moisture from the air. This is achieved by using dehumidifiers—refrigerant or desiccant. The refrigerant ones are most effective in 70-90 F, and work by condensation. In simple words, the warm and moist air is drawn over cooled coils, causing the moisture to condensate on the coils and drain off via a tube connected to a sink or a toilet. Desiccant dehumidifiers are completely different technology, and work by adsorption or absorption. They remain efficient down to 32 F and even below. 

The fourth principle is temperature control, which directly impacts evaporation and dehumidification efforts. Understanding of the correct temperature for each specific type of loss is extremely important. 

This is all we wanted to share about the science of drying today. We will cover more on this topic soon. Stay tuned!