How to make a Drying Room better at drying stuff

I have access to a drying room which is used infrequently for outdoor gear. The problem is, it is rubbish. We’ve had kit in there for 24hrs and it it still really wet. Although relatively new, it wasn’t designed well and I am now looking at options for upgrading it.

The room is about 2.5m by 1.5m. Current set up is a small, domestic bathroom style extractor fan and a ceiling mounted infrared heater. There is no real movement of air in the room and very little heat generated. Usually racking etc in there for hanging kit.

I think the options are:
1. Improve heating with hot air blower type heater (unsure what type though)
2. Improve ventilation with meatier extractor fan (although the external wall is quite close to neighbours so need to be careful to not create too much noise)
3. Remove moisture by use of a dehumidifier.

What combination of the above do you think would be best? The building is unattended so ideally want stuff on timers and it to not catch fire (although fire would help dry stuff).

Cheers

You definitely need air circulation – ideally heated from bottom, extracted from top. You could just try a normal desk fan in there as you’d prob find even that makes a difference. Chances are your ceiling infrared heaters aren’t having any impact at ground level for boots etc

Move the heater to floor level and have some kind of vent also at floor level and opposite the extractor fan. Get warm air convecting through the room as it rises and create a flow of air. That’d be my first attempt.

Oil filled radiator, I used to have a pantry style cupboard in my old flat about that size, had no ventilation though, put one in there and strung some lines across, it was brilliant.

I like the idea of heating from the bottom but am concerned about wet kit and low down heaters. Would an over door fan heater, like the one you get in shops be an answer. It will be mounted high but will blow hot air down low. It is a small room so a small blower should manage this

Oil rad is both more efficient and safer IME.

I would go

1) Dehumidifer. This will move dry air around.

EcoAir DD1 CLASSIC MK5 Desiccant Dehumidifier with Ioniser and Silver Filter, 7 L – Blue

2) A small amount of heat – I really don’t think you will need much heat (we have a heated drying rack – that’s probably enough).

Hear and air flow is important – Fans on the wall would be an idea (desk fans), and a dehumidifier, but you’d need the ability for it to drain, or be emptied daily. Most allow a permanant drain, so depends where situated.

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/HETH451.html?source=adwords&ad_position=&ad_id=415703895099&placement=&kw=&network=u&matchtype=&ad_type=&product_id=HETH451&product_partition_id=940253952958&campaign=shopping_excluded&version=finalurl_v3&gclid=CjwKCAiAwrf-BRA9EiwAUWwKXtp49EN8nxp8s0sdodvPGobtNypGkts2KzFqo7xXcX53wazea6siqhoC3GQQAvD_BwE

as above. space heaters depending on what mods you can do (is it a work room your house etc) and a bigger axial extractor.

you want the heat at floor level and extraction at the top.

We have the dehumidifier StirlingCrispin links to.
I used to have an 8m x 3m drying room for 100 people to use.

The dehumidifier is a fan and blows air around. Being dessicant it also mildly warms the air as well. Ours will take a load of washing and dry it within a half day or so – we aim the vent air directly between the clothes.

Even my big old room would not dry unless there was some heat – but it had two old dehumidifiers that added no heat at all.

To paraphrase Tony Blair ventilation, ventilation, ventilation. Oh & +1 for an oil filled rad to add a bit of heat.
If you’ve got an extractor fan already – look at where the air is coming in from, an air brick od vent in the door might help

Move the heater to floor level and have some kind of vent also at floor level and opposite the extractor fan. Get warm air convecting through the room as it rises and create a flow of air.

IsConfusion

We just use a dehumidifier, we can hang towels etc up in the spare bedroom overnight and by the morning everything is bone dry.

So consensus seems to be that airflow and humidity are a bigger deal that loads of heat.

So a vent in drying room door will allow air in from the (large) corridor area. Dehumidifier, ideal draining if possible.

Dehumidifier and a fan to circulate the air. The dehumidifier is about 200% efficient so if it’s big enough no heater will be needed.

+1 dehumidifier and a tube heater.

Not a problem mounting low down as they are generally IP55 rated.

Our mountaineering club hut has a drying ‘room’ (large cupboard) that is only about 1m x 1.5 m. Heat is a only couple of 100 watt tube heaters and there is a large dehumidifier with a pipe that deposits collected water through the wall into the drain. No other ventilation and it dries a full cupboard in a few hours, much more effective than even hangin things by the fire and risking them melting and/or burning.
In short – dehumidifier FTW.

N.B. the smell of wet socks cannot be removed unfortunately.

I would have thought negative air pressure was more important than heat.
So you want to be sucking out more air than you are pulling in.

N.B. the smell of wet socks cannot be removed unfortunately.

Only to be outdone by the smell of caving suits. Now that is a memory from 20 years ago I still haven’t lost….

It looks like the correct answer of dehumidifier has been arrived at, eventually. They’re brilliant – couldn’t live without one now. Our dessicant one is in the conservatory which is our drying room. Even over the last few days of dank weather, wet kit has dried really quickly.

IsConfusion

If the door is closed and reasonably well sealed, the extractor fan is basically trying to create a vacuum in the drying room. You need a way to let air into the room, a vent in the bottom of the door from the adjacent corridor, as suggested, would be ideal IMHO.

And yeah, moving the infrared heater to floor level might be a bit of a fire hazard, I skipped over the infrared bit. 🙄 A little tube heater or oil filled rad would be much better. Personally I’d not go with a dehumidifier as the first action.

Dehumidifier +1

APF

We just use a dehumidifier, we can hang towels etc up in the spare bedroom overnight and by the morning everything is bone dry.

Same as above, also make sure everything is wrung out as much as possible, before hanging it up (spin drier or a mangle might be good here.)

+1 Dessicant Dehumidifier. Sucks out water, heats the room, has a fan to move the air around. So ticks all three boxes.

Get one you can set to a certain humidity level and plumb in to a drain and it will be fit and forget with no need for even a timer.

I have this in my cellar and it is a great bit of kit;

Stupid amazon link thing. It’s a ProBreeze 10L Dessicant model.

Try and find one of these second hand, or get one on cycle to work if you’re feeling flush:

http://www.pekodryingcabinets.co.uk/products/peko-ed-1900r-drying-cabinet-new-model/

A couple of hours in one of these and soaking wet cycling kit is nice and dry. Give it a quick blast before you leave work and your kit’s even nice and warm when ou put it on!

I use mine all the time for cycling and motorbike kit. Best money you’ll ever spend if you ride all year round.

If the door is closed and reasonably well sealed, the extractor fan is basically trying to create a vacuum in the drying room. You need a way to let air into the room, a vent in the bottom of the door from the adjacent corridor, as suggested, would be ideal IMHO.

IsApology 🙂

I hadn’t realised you were building on the scenario where the extractor is already there at the top of the room. I’m a doofus.

You need a way to let air into the room, a vent in the bottom of the door from the adjacent corridor, as suggested, would be ideal IMHO.

I agree with the “your extractor can suck all it wants but it there’s no make up air it will do nothing” argument, but if you are going this way consider:
– how you stop any bad smell / draught coming back through the door vent into the room
– is the air outside warmer or dryer than the air inside (eg. if it is an unheated corridor/vestibute that people traipse through in wet kit is it actually cold and damp)
– when it’s not being used as a drying room will there be a draught that causes you other problems
– if you are paying the bill or care about the environment is it more energy-efficient to extract water from the air (dehumidify) or keep warming air and blowing it out the vent.

Personally I’d not go with a dehumidifier as the first action.

Is that based on physics or just a gut feel that moving warm wet air around is more efficient?

To dry kit you need to take the liquid water and turn it into water vapour. Once the air in the room becomes saturated with moisture then no more drying happens. You can: (a) increase the temperature so that the air has more “capacity” for moisture but notice that in the range of temps that a room is likely to be at the curve is fairly flat: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/docs/documents/281/air-moisture-holding-capacity-si.png
(b) push the saturated air out the room and bring in less moist air – that’s what your extractor fan does, but a typical puny bathroom extractor is probably not changing the air in the room very often, and the air it is drawing in to replace it is not dry – right now the relative humidity in the UK is between 80-100%. That’s essentially saturated, the only way to get it to help dry the kit is to warm it, you are either doing this by warming it on its way into the building or once it gets in the room. You are essentially just blowing warm air outside.
(c) reduce the moisture in the air (by condensing it out in a dehumidifier) so there is more capacity. The dehummer has the advantage that they usually contain a humidistat so once the air reaches a level of dryness (which is in equilibrium with the kit) it will switch off and stop consuming energy. You could of course wire fans and heaters to humidistats too but that a bit of work.

Work one is an oil rad and dehumidifier in a 5m x 1m room and dries kit overnight, even thick chainsaw trousers.
Generally better to hose yourself down and put kit in wetter than to put it in dirty and damp, clean things dry better.

Found this recently as I’m planning to build a drying cupboard in the garage.

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php/Clothes_dryer

http://homelaundrystudy.net/design.html

We’ve got the dehumidifier first linked to, one of my better facebook marketplace purchases. Hardly ever use the tumble drier now, and mould issues in the house from wet clothes are resolved.

When the heating is off it must have an extra heater because the room can be quite warm after a night of it running, I’m sure it doesn’t heat to the and extent in milder weather.

It also has a facility for a permanent drain if you don’t want to empty it once every 12 hours of runtime

Although relatively new, it wasn’t designed well

And

You need a way to let air into the room, a vent in the bottom of the door from the adjacent corridor, as suggested, would be ideal IMHO.

Just be aware that the door may be fire rated, and form an integral part of the fire compartmentalisation within the building. Cutting holes in things, if it isn’t your building is a bit naughty and would be frowned upon if ever the worst was to happen and there was an inquest.

Similarly, the existing fan may be crap, but it or the nearby ducting may have a fire damper or an intumescent strip in there that seals in the event of a fire to prevent spread. Might be worth checking before swapping.