Airconditioning in wooden boats.

[ccscott49]

My airconditioning in the boat is drying the air too much, and the boat is suffering for it. Is there a way of moisterising the air and stopping it dryiny the air too much, like a tray of water in front of the AC outlet or is there a more elegant way of achieving this?

 

[Carmel2]

A Humidifier?

 

[Steve 59]

Somewhere on your a/c unit you must have a condense drain. That's basically the amount of water that you have to put back in to the air to maintain the humidity

A re-humidifier would be an answer.

You could try plants, but I doubt they'd be able to keep up with the rate that the a/c unit dries out the air.

.......... or, switch the a/c off?

 

[TradewindSailor]

Surely there's a humidity setting on the dehumidifier?

Be careful ..... I know of carvel boats that have left the dock and gone to sea, and the sea poured in through the seams above the waterline .... one was nearly sunk!

 

[Steve 59]

There won't be a humidity setting on most a/c units.

Most 'air conditioning' units are not 'air conditioning' units, they're air coolers. They take warm air, pass it over a cold surface and then blow the chilled air out in to the cabin space. The effect of cooling the air knocks the humidity out of it (condensation on the cold suface of the a/c unit).

Proper 'air conditioning' conditions the air before blowing it in to the cabin space. After the cooling process has been carried out, it re-humidify's the air (usually by steam or fine water droplets injected in to the air flow).

Re-humidification is fraught with problems and rarely carried out. The biggest scare is with regard to Legionella and ensuring that the re-humidification part of the process is kept clean. This usually requires the injection of a controlling biocide - and so it goes on