Need To Cool Down? Use A Dehumidifier!
James Monahan
A dehumidifier is a device which removes excess moisture in the air. This
device performs this process by condensing the moisture on a cool surface. A
dehumidifier is simply an air conditioner. The air conditioner cools the
temperature of a humid room by condensing the air in its cold coils.
A dehumidifier has hot and cold coils that are built in the same box. The
unit’s fan draws the air in the room through the cold coils of the
dehumidifier to condense its moisture. When this happens, as in the case of
window type air conditioning units, water drips out of the unit. Dry air
then goes through the dehumidifier’s hot coils so it can we heated up again
back to its previous temperature.
An example of a dehumidifier is an air conditioning (AC) unit. It is a
device that was designed to remove heat out of an area using the principles
of refrigeration. An AC is a good example of a dehumidifier because it is
designed to lower the humidity in the air which goes through it.
Human bodies have natural dehumidifiers in form of sweat. When we sweat, our
bodies cool because of the evaporating perspiration from our skin. Dry air,
then coming from an AC unit creates provides comfort as it creates 40-60%
relative humidity in an area.
As a dehumidifier, an AC unit is basically another form of refrigerator
without an insulated box. It uses a refrigerant like Freon for its
evaporation to cool an area. Freon is one of the many non-flammable
fluorocarbons which are in use today as refrigerants.
In an AC unit, the evaporation cycle works in this manner: 1) cool Freon gas
is compressed, making it high-pressure, hot gas; 2) the hot gas then goes
through the set of coils in the AC unit so it can disperse its heat and then
condenses into liquid form; 3) Freon goes through a valve, and through this
process it becomes low-pressure, cold gas; and 4) the cold Freon gas then
goes through a set of coils in the AC unit that will allow the gas to take
in heat and chill the air within the area. A special type of oil is mixed
with the Freon gas to lubricate the AC unit’s compressor.
The coldness that a dehumidifier can provide depends on the air’s relative
humidity and the barometric pressure (this is sea level normal pressure).
When there is 50% humidity in the air, water temperature will drop at about
6 degrees to 89F.
Change that to 20% air humidity and the temperature drops to 28 degrees to
67F. These small temperature drops affect energy consumption because the use
of these AC units places a large demand on electricity especially on warm
months when more units are operated.
During these peak times, more power plants must be online to cater to the
large demand for energy. Studies of residential air conditioning showed that
AC units wasted 40% of energy. This energy gets wasted in the form of heat
waiting to be pumped out.
When you see large quantities of water running through plastic hoses at the
backs of big buildings, you’ll know that there are dehumidifier units
inside. Many apartment and office complexes now use centralized AC units
and the chilled water coming out of these systems is directed to underground
pipes.
James Monahan is the owner and Senior Editor of
http://www.DehumidifierHub.com
and writes expert articles about
dehumidifiers.
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