DEhumidifying a room (without the obvious dehumidifier)

General Questions
#1

Hi, are there any effective ways to do this, like, manually? Here’s what I’ve got for a theory: take some large-surface-areaish object and chill it in the fridge for a while; take it out and place in the room to be dewetted, and allow water to condense on it. Wipe-down with (prepared dry) towel and then immediately evacuate moist towel to an outside location to dry (or even replace object with another chilled object); Repeat a bit. Would any meaningul amount of moisture be removed from the room in this fashion?

I hate humidity. Help me be unhateful the rest of summer. :frowning:

#2

That would work, if you wanted to spend your whole day doing it.
Or, you could buy a huge quantity of desiccant and spread it around.
Why not just get a dehumidifier?

#3

What is your goal? To help cool off some humans or to de-funk a musty area?

If it’s the latter, you could try something from these guys (DampRid)

#4

You can have dozens of pounds of water in the humid air in a room. On a hot muggy day, there’s about half an ounce of water per cubic yard of air (if I did that right in my head just now).

#5

Um, air conditioning?

A dehumidifier will remove moisture from the air. But it won’t lower the air temperature. In fact, it will increase the room temperature.

#6

I collect the condensation that runs off of our 5000btu air conditioner. On a very humid day, I can collect five gallons. That would be a lot of wiping off of the Kool-Aid pitcher.

#7

Anhydrous chemicals will remove the water when the air contacts them.

#8

a) Can the room be pressurized?

b) Do you have access to a large quantity of dry ice, construction materials, and large fans?

#9

a) no
b) no

I do have access to a lot of fresh sweat though.

I’m trying to make the room less torturous for humans, but I guess my cloth-wringing plan is not the winner.

#10

>any effective ways to do this, like, manually

I keep missing the part where you explain why air conditioning isn’t the ideal answer.

But here’s something kind of manual: Buy a few bags of ice, and put them in some sort of a box with open top and grating bottom so they can’t fall out. With a fan, or by putting the box on top of as tall a chimney as you can fit into the room, draw air through the ice. Put a basin under it. The ice will melt and also collect water from the air, and the basin will fill with more pounds of water than you bought pounds of ice.

Someone may point out that the ice will make the air 100% humid right next to it. That’s fine, you want this, because 100% humid air at freezing temperature doesn’t have much water in it, and will be bone dry when it heats back up to room temperature.