HOW DOES A DESICCANT DEHUMIDIFIER WORK?

7/6/2019 (Permalink)

At SERVPRO of Downtown Long Beach/Signal Hill, we use a variety of equipment to restore water damaged materials and revert your Long Beach property back to preloss conditions. One such piece of equipment that excels at large loss drying is the desiccant dehumidifier.

Desiccant dehumidifiers differ from regular dehumidifiers since they utilize chemical attraction instead of condensation to remove water from the air. They do not collect water in a pan for automatic pump-out. Instead, they produce damp reactivation air, which must be vented outside the structure using temporary ducting. The process is as follows:

1. Dehumidifiers absorb moisture from the air into desiccant materials.
2. The air to be dried, or processed, is ducted through the rotor in one air stream.
3. The rotor brings the moist desiccant to the reactivation air stream to heat it up.
4. Moisture is expelled from the desiccant material as water vapor.
5. Moist, warm air is ducted outdoors.
6. The separate air streams move in different directions, blowing any debris away from the processed air.
7. Dried processed air is circulated back into the area.

Desiccant dehumidifiers range in size and configuration dramatically. They can be as small as a roll-on suitcase or as large as two semi tractor-trailers. Large desiccants are often self-contained dehumidification systems, utilizing onboard generators and running on propane or diesel fuel. When large catastrophic events occur, such as hurricanes, large desiccants can provide a means of dehumidification when little or no power is available.

If you experience water damage in your home or business, a desiccant dehumidifier might be used, depending on the extent of water damage. Regardless of the situation, we have the tools to handle the job!