HOW DO I LOWER HUMIDITY

[MaransGuy]

Quote:
I am sorry, but I disagree. It is impossible to "create humidity" without adding moisture from somewhere. If the air is 68 degrees and has 30% humidity, for example, the humidity level can only drop when that same air is heated to 99 degrees since 99 degree air can hold more water vapor than 68 degree air. Those are the laws of physics, not just my opinion. "Sweating", or condensation, occurs when warm, moist air comes into contact with a relatively cooler surface. That is why you will sometimes have condensation on the inside of the windows of the incubator when the humidity is high inside the bator and the room temperature cooler. The cool room air cools the surface of the window which lowers the moisture holding capacity of the warm, moist air hitting it, causing the water to condense out of it onto the window.

In this case, you are in just the exact reverse situation. Even if the air were more humid outside the incubator, the relative humidity would drop as soon as it was warmed up. You really need to check to see what the humidity in your room is otherwise nothing else will help. Once you determine that you will be able to determine if the problem is the hygrometer or not.

Richard

 

[MissPrissy]

I guess you have never been in my 100 year old house and seen what cool air and an incubator can do.

 

[dddCT]

I turned off the a/c to see what happens. My hubby is getting another hygrometer to measure the room humidity

 

[klf73]

I would definitely get the second hygrometer. The only way I drop humidity is to run my dehumidifier

. Please let us know what the second hygrometer says. FYI, I open my bator and have not had it ruin an entire hatch(or any of my hatch for that matter), I doubt that was the lone culprit. It could be factored with other things.

Krista

 

[dddCT]

The humidity is down to 51% which is a great improvement. I have the a/c back on low and I hope all is levelling out. The 2nd hygrometer reads 50% as well. Thanks for all the input.

 

[Akane]

It's not so much creating humidity as just gathering it. The air does come in and go out of an incubator. If the moisture in the air settles in the incubator due to extreme temp differences then the humidity could go up. The air coming out would have less moisture than the air going in. You can see that happen in other situations and like MissPrissy I have an old house so I often see it with my damp basement. Even when no moisture is coming into the basement it will have a higher humidity than upstairs due to the temp differences causing the water to settle on the cool concrete in the basement.

When my incubator had too high of humidity I just pulled the vent plugs but then I keep my ac set on 78-80F.

 

[MaransGuy]

Quote:
This is precisely what I am talking about and you have helped illustrate my point. Your 100 year old house (just like the many around here) are total water sinks. The plaster in the walls helps hold all of the humidity in the air all summer long. They constantly release that moisture as well, and when you run an air conditioner and surfaces start to cool down....BAM you get all sorts of condensation, exactly as you would expect. Your sheets feel like they were never put through the drier after taking them out of the washer as well ( I know - I live it every summer). Molds are a real problem in these old houses due to those very same factors - moisture condensing on cooler surfaces. That is also the very reason that Akane's (and everyone else's) basement gets damp at this time of year. The warm, moist air from outside hits those cool cement walls and condenses. Dew in the morning happens because the air cools to the point that it can no longer hold the amount of moisture in it, not beacuse more moisture was added to it. The laws of physics at work. All of this is an example of the laws of physics and the fact that warm air can hold more moisture than cool air so, unless you are adding moisture inside the incubator, it will always be lower than the air drawn into it. I am not making this up, and no house, anywhere on planet earth, will contradict the laws of nature regarding it.

DDDCT - What is the humidity level in your room?

Richard

 

[Akane]

Yes but using your own logic shouldn't the hot air in the incubator hold more moisture and end up with more humidity while the cold air outside the incubator easily loses it. Plus the edges of the incubator especially the viewing screens would be cooler than the air temp in the middle which can lead to that condensation you see elsewhere and a collection of more water in the incubator. The humidity difference between inside and outside my incubator was higher for the last hatch when I made my house cooler despite the same amount of water in the incubator.

 

[MaransGuy]

Quote:
This is exactly right. Now, if you were heating your basement to 99 degrees, the humidity would be lower than the house because the air down there would be able to hold more moisture. The basement is not trapping moisture because it is below the house or enclosed, it is because it is cooler than the house. A cold glass of iced tea sweating on the coffe table has lots of air moving around it, it's not enclosed, it is just cooler. Likewise, the incubator, being warmer, will have lower humidity than the room it is in unless moisture is added to it somehow, i.e. water in the trough or if eggs/chicks are giving off a great deal of moisture. That is why it is so important to know what your room humidity is in the first place.

Richard

 

[dddCT]

We ended up replacing the hygrometer in the incubator and amazingly like magic, the humidity went down to 45% which is what the room humidity was reading. So the 65% that we thought we were getting was probably wrong and I'm glad we replaced the hygrometer.

Thanks to everyone. I'll be keeping the a/c on low and keeping the temp in the room closer to 74-76.