Starting Construction

**DeeDubya** · 06-15-2009, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by DeeDubya

This is a Honeywell evaporative "bypass" type humidifier. It has a drum filter that slowly turns (1rpm) picks up water and allows air to flow through the filter media. I chose this model for several reasons. 1) Absolutely no white dust fallout, 2) water pan with float fill as opposed to the curtain type that runs water continuously during the on cycle, 3) very low power consumption of only 30w when running, 4) overflow drain just in case of a stuck float valve. It is fully automatic and has a capacity of up to 2000 sq ft and can use either hard or soft water. I'm tapping into the soft water just to help keep calcification to a minimum. The filter media is easily replacable ($10) and should be done twice a year.

Here you can see the fan that pulls air through the unit. Since it is a "bypass" type humidifier it normally depends on the house A/C ductwork to push and pull the air through the unit. I bought this 6" "duct booster" fan (250cfm) and attached it where the ductwork bypass would attach. It is controlled along with the drum by the humidistat so that they are both turned on and off at the same time. This should make for a very economical system. Also it should provide ample air circulation within the humidor.

Note the color difference between the cedar next to the door and the redwood siding that the humidifier is mounted to. The redwood makes the cedar look brown. These are the back side of the beveled redwood siding. I reversed it so as to level the mounting surface for the humidifier. I love redwood. Too bad is has little or no fragrance.

**Galvanicfish** · 06-15-2009, 05:24 PM

Wow man, I am thoroughly impressed.

**DeeDubya** · 06-16-2009, 04:10 PM

Finally got the "Traceable" Humidity/Temperature meter. It is NIST certified and they send the ISO calibration certificate with it. Guaranteed within +/-2%RH it will be great to calibrate my other cheapies. I like the Min/Max recall on both temp and RH. This thing is small enough to fit in all but the smallest humidors. It's not unreasonable at $60 when it removes all the doubt that I had with the other units. I ordered this one from The Weather Store but you might find it for less. The Wholesale Dist. is: http://www.control3.com/

**Roger** · 06-16-2009, 07:07 PM

Looks like you are nearly ready to go guns on stocking it up. I was wondering if you had a sensor of some kind to measure the humididty that is connected to your humidifer? Can you set it and forget it or are you going to have to micromanage the equipment to make your RH right? Looks great!

**DeeDubya** · 06-16-2009, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by Roger

Looks like you are nearly ready to go guns on stocking it up. I was wondering if you had a sensor of some kind to measure the humididty that is connected to your humidifer? Can you set it and forget it or are you going to have to micromanage the equipment to make your RH right? Looks great!

Go back to the pic of the humidifier. A Honeywell humidistat (cheap one) came with the humidfier and is mounted right above it. I will have to (by trial and error) adjust it to the humidity I need according to the hygrometer. So, some tweeking will be necessary, but I should be able to manage that. We'll see. I set it up when I got home today and I'm reading 81 degrees and 60%RH. That's not a bad start without even running the humidifier nor having any additional cooling (It's 100 degrees outside right now, nearly as bad as Kansas weather, but at least we still have birds).

**DeeDubya** · 06-22-2009, 08:36 AM

As you can see I've moved some cigars into the humidor this weekend, but still have much to do. I still have some boxes to put in but need to save room for some small wooden antiques that will appreciate the 65% RH too. I'm filling the humidifier pan manually for now. It's the only way to tell how much water it's using. So far, about a gallon/day. The RH went from 45% on start up to 65% in about 4 hours, so I know there is plenty capacity. Still, it's cycling quite often and I suspect that the wood will be sucking up a lot of moisture for a few days. Once it levels out I'll connect the water supply and let her go. The humidistat has about a 5% differential (not adjustable) so I'm setting it to 68% to cycle off which then causes it to drop to 63% before it cycles back on (for an average of 65%). Since I will keep the boxes closed this RH "swing" should have little or no affect on the sticks.

Whatcha think? I love it and have convinced myself that it was worth the efforts. It's so nice to browse and choose. Hell I found some cigars down in one of my coolers that I had forgotton about. Padillas wouldn't you know. Now they can't hide from me.