Humidity

[Shawnd]

It is that time of the year where the humidity drops like a rock in our building, I wanted to see what other SMALL shops do for bringing the humidity back up? Thought about just going over to one of the box stores and buying a humidifier but wanted to check to see if a better solution is out there.

Thanks guys!

 

[lfelton]

I wouldn’t bother with a domestic one. We bought a small industrial humidifier a couple of years ago that can be plumbed into the water supply. Not very expensive & getting spares is easy. We use one of those environmental monitoring stations so that we’re sure the print room is perfect temperature & humidity 24/7 and it works well for not much expense .

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I wouldn’t bother with a domestic one. We bought a small industrial humidifier a couple of years ago that can be plumbed into the water supply. Not very expensive & getting spares is easy. We use one of those environmental monitoring stations so that we’re sure the print room is perfect temperature & humidity 24/7 and it works well for not much expense .

Care to share make/model information with us? How much you paid, where extra parts can be had, etc?

 

[printing656]

For small to mid sized shops, I'd stick a Honeywell TrueSteam on any HVAC in a room over 1,500 sq. ft. Going on the heavy duty size of residential has worked out great for us and it's a fraction of the cost of industrial. Stick to quality brands like Honeywell and stick to a steam version over evaporative for better efficiency and less water usage. These units easily attach directly to the duct work, but you do need to be handy in order to wire a Honeywell thermostat that runs this and the HVAC. The correct settings will turn the HVAC fan on when there is a call for humidification. Plumb your R/O system directly into it for fewer headaches. We clean our units at the beginning and end of the seasons and have had no issues for many years. I cannot say if there's more advanced units that have come out in the last 4 years or so as I have not researched it since puchasing these units.

 

[msaeger]

I have seen places successfully use those residential big box store ones but I have also seen many places where they never fill it.

 

[HPC]

We use the big box ones at each press, trying to keep humidity on our building is a loosing battle. Metal tinsel and static spray are our friends. Once main reason we use them is no one takes good care of em so when they die we just replace em

 

[printing656]

Humidity isn't a problem for us in our 10,000 sq ft. You just need to commit to treating it the right way instead of using a band aid which is far too often the case for print shops trying to always do things on the cheap. The amount these places spend on labor dealing with the cheap equipment more than pays for the solution I've implemented, not to mention the fact that what we did actually works and I never worry about humidity, even in Minnesota.

 

[lfelton]

Care to share make/model information with us? How much you paid, where extra parts can be had, etc?

Well it's all pretty basic I'm afraid, but FWIW here's our setup. Our print room is just 90 square meters (about 1000 square feet I think), we're in an industrial unit, so that area is self contained with a false ceiling using insulated tiles. There's a dirty great big 3 phase air conditioning unit to keep things cool, but obviously that sucks moisture out of the air, a lot. To monitor the room, we have a Sensormetrics Neon 100, which is basically a small box connected to the network that monitors humidity and temperature. These (temperature, humidity) are displayed on one of the monitors used by the proofing team (in the office) and any alarms for out of "q-zone" get emailed through to me. We use a Prem-i-air PCMH45 humidifier and I get spare parts from Electrovision UK (we're in the UK). That puts out 1.8 litres (a little over 3 pints) an hour and can be plumbed into the mains. It has a built in humidistat and that seems to work accurately enough for us. I like the product as it's simple and reliable, it's basically a big wheel with pads, a reservoir, a motor and a powerful fan. We tried an ultrasonic one before this (a high end domestic unit) and it wasn't anywhere near up to the job. I think Prem-i-air is an American product, so no doubt you can find a local supplier.

Sorry, that's probably a lot more low tech than you were thinking, but it works for us!

 

[Shawnd]

I went with the aircare just to see how it does, sitting at 24% right now hoping to get it up to around 40-45. If need be I will upgrade to an inline unit.

 

[Brett S]

Just curious which Aircare unit you grabbed and if it is still working OK. We are looking to solve humidity issues for a xerox V80, and it sounds like the responses have been pretty helpful. Our shop is about 2500 square feet

 

[Shawnd]

Its OK. I am getting tired of having to constantly refill it, I need to figure out a way to get a water line to it with a float switch.

 

[msaeger]

I have seen these in places.

https://www.amco.com/spacehumidifiers.php

http://www.hydrofogger.com/inc/sdetail/35

 

[dabob]

I just saw this thread (or re-sawed it . .. ) but I remember that my dad was in the newspaper business and in Houston they would air condition the filtered air to de-huymidify it and then heat it if necessary during the winter . . . seems a bit extreme but maybe not . . .

 

[Prestogroup]

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