Dehumidifiers typically come in a refrigerant-style. The easiest way to understand how dehumidifiers work would be to consider how condensation happens in your house. You see it in the dots of moisture that collect outside your window on a crisp spring morning.
If you live in an area with a warm climate then you know how uncomfortable humidity can get in the warm summer months. You feel it on your skin and its heaviness hangs in the air to create an uncomfortable sensation for many. Now, humidity isn’t all bad because the right amount of it can make for good indoor air quality, while too much can make you feel wretched. Luckily, you don’t have to endure humidity if it makes you uncomfortable. Enter; dehumidifiers. Read on to find out how dehumidifiers work and how you can use them to prevent excess humidity.
What is Humidity?
What comes to your mind when you think about the atmosphere in your house? Your mind probably draws a blank because most of us don’t give much thought to it. If anything, most people just assume that it’s a gas or something intangible. The truth is that the air around us is mostly made up of water which if you look up at the sky is either dry (vapour) or wet (rain). The same thing happens inside your house. The air isn’t dry completely. Instead, it has a fair amount of moisture that allows you to breathe comfortably. But, humidity levels tend to increase when we perform activities like stove-top cooking or indoor laundry. It can get even worse if you don’t have proper ventilation. That’s why you’ll notice water dots on the windows or dripping down the windows. If you see these signs, it means you might have a humidity problem.
How Do Dehumidifiers Work?
Dehumidifiers typically come in a refrigerant-style. The easiest way to understand how dehumidifiers work would be to consider how condensation happens in your house. You see it in the dots of moisture that collect outside your window on a crisp spring morning.
Now, there are refrigerant cooled coils inside the dehumidifier which transform the moisture present in the air into coils. The coils emit cooler air because they’re colder than the warm air coming in from the “outside” to your room. This leads to cooler air temperature which makes for a more comfortable space. But, when there’s too much moisture in the air, it tends to condensate into a drip of water which you can catch with a bucket or drip pan. It’s like creating water out of thin air! That’s humidity for you!
Now, the dehumidifier heats the air up slightly in order to suck out the moisture in the room.
Here’s a step-by-step of how dehumidifiers work:
- A fan within the machine attracts air to the unit
- The air goes over a cold surface
- The air cools down in order to condense its moisture
- The resulting liquid drops into the container
- The unit’s heat recovery system re-heats the air
- Air comes out significantly drier and about 2 degrees Celsius warmer
- The dehumidifier’s defrost system de-ices its internal components automatically
- Once the internal container is full, the unit automatically switches off
- Also, when it has reached optimal dryness levels the unit will also switch itself off automatically
