Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: maxcarpets on November 27, 2006, 09:32:44 pm
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Evening all,
Turbo dryers/air movers confuse me a bit. Wouldnt they work better if they blew warm air? I know it would make us even warmer, but if you placed it in a room that had been finished blowing warm air, surely this would speed up drying time. Just a thought.
Cheers
Justin
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They are basically designed to dry water damage and they often run for weeks on end. Using heat would make the electricity usage prohibitive.
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YES, the amp draw if a heater was added would be more than a 13 amp plug couls handle.
Often you can position them next to a radiator so that warm air is convected towards the area being dried.
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not only that but wouldn't it create humidity or not?
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jason
last time hi put mine towards radiator a thought it was mucky snow
darren
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Has anyone tried the downdraft fans?...How do they compare with a traditional air mover for drying times?
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The subject of drying is massive but this is a simple friendly explanation which might help some and I will apologise now for the obvious bits.
Surfaces stay saturated because there is a heavy wet barrier of air very close to the surface restricting the evaporation rate. Air movers are simply used to remove that wet barrier allowing the underlying saturated surface to evaporate rapidly as wet air is renewed with dry.
Whilst drying, the evaporating moisture tries to reach an equilibrium by saturating the ambient dry air in the room, like a dry sponge next to a wet sponge the water will migrate across until both are equally wet.
The water is still there, but now its everywhere helped by the air mover. Unless the ambient dry air in a room has the capacity to absorb the moisture and without ventilation or dehumidification to cope, the dry air itself becomes heavy with moisture restricting the speed of evaporation and therefore slowing the drying time.
Raising the temperature of the ambient dry air seriously improves its ability to absorb moisture allowing more grains of water to kilo of air (yes air has a weight) initially improving drying time as the moisture can evaporate quicker. However this also means that saturation levels are reached much much faster and without adequate ventilation to match, not only will drying slow down just as quickly but the risk of secondary moisture damage increases dramatically as the air has far less time to renew itself.
And the point is!!
The key to drying using air movers on their own is therefore to replenish the damp air often by ventilation (when climate allows) or increase the volume of dry air by opening internal doors so you are using the volume of the property not just the room.
Hope that made sense ;)
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Very well put ;)
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the short version being:-
open the windows as well ;D
steve
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DP
Very good post ;)
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I am aware of this, however I still think it would help with warm air!
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Derek
Yes the downdraft type fans do work better as i have one but they are very big, akward to lift, store and work with in confined spaces. I only use mine for drying rugs although they are good for drying suites due to the larger area of air being moved.
I remember seeing a smaller blower with a built in heater recently on a American website. Cant remember which one.
Mark
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didn't 1 company start building smaller turbo driers?
smaller out put, looked like a baby turbo.
Shaun