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JustinDaniels

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My dad just bought a Dehumidifier from Walmart, and it got me thinking... "Maybe THIS could fit in a Zombie Apocalypse!" After about five hours of being turned on, it already picked up around a quart of water, if not more, just from the air! He also told me that it's pure, but that one might be debatable in an apocalypse. The other awesome feat about it is that it barely makes any noise... almost like a simple fan being blown.

 

Anyways, I just thought I'd shout that out. Sorry if it's not enough details to go by, but I kinda figured "Takes water out of the moisture of the air" could sound like something people would go for in a zombie apocalypse.  (clyde)(tophat)(clyde)

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That's a really original idea! It'd probably consume a really impractical amount of energy or produce an impractical amount of water/noise though. The small, quiet ones don't really extract enough to feed a group/garden and the big, powerful ones could attract unwanted company on top of sucking up all the power.

But oh my god the water extracted from my dehumidifier tastes so disgusting you couldn't get me to drink (much of) it if I were dying and that was the only (vaguely) edible liquid available in town. I know orchids and other plants love it though!

Also wow apparently dehumidifier condensate is technically considered unusually clean greywater because of the high incidence of contamination with lead and other metals from solder in the humidifiers.

Edited by Footmuffin
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There are thre major kinds of dehumidifiers:

 

Heat exchanger : This friend lowers the temperature of a surface to force liquefaction, while heating another object instead which nobody cares about., exept you buy his brother, which can run a shower by eating your wallet crop is around 3 litres per day.

 

Salt based: e.g. Calcium chloride, which is also used as road salt. Effect starts because the salt is so dry and water so wet, so they start kissing roughly. It soaks about 0,4 litre per kilo and day.

 

Adsorption: Silica gel, which is found In package who needs to be dried. The Water gets caught by the big surface of the little balls. It soaks 0,1 litre per kilo and day.

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Around where I live these things are necessary albeit on a larger scale. We have big ones up in our a

ttic, all they kinda do is just drip the water on the ground and make a big mud puddle though.

I have a creeping suspicion your dehumidifier's malfunctioning!

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But still Nothing compared to rain. Most People don't know, but.. ... Rain Contains a Lot of water. Some scientist would eben go so far to call it wet, but thats highly speculated.

Rain can't always be counted on, though. It's rained almost every day this week, but for almost a full month before that we had no significant rainfall at all. It came down in little bursts from time to time but nothing I could have wet my tongue with.

 

Honestly, I had a similar thought to this a while back when I was working on the air conditioner for a store on top of the roof of the local mall. If I ever got trapped in the mall during a zombie apocalypse and we managed to secure all the entrances, first thing I'd do is head up onto the roof and rig up some storage containers to all of the outdoor units to catch the condensation dropping off of the coils. There were literally dozens of different air conditioners keeping the shops cool and every single one of them was dripping water like a bunch of faucets.

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I used these devices to prevent mold growth in my basement after it becomes flooded from a storm or if the boiler springs a leak. From experience, I can can tell you that they can produce large amounts of water. It does take time since it the water slowly drips into its container, but after a while the water produced can probably support 1 person's water needs reliably. Not quite sure if the water is pure though. It is produced from condensation, but you never know when there may have been mold or chemicals in the air that made their way in.

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Could always install a UV Light where it can shine into the source of the water. Kills fungal spores, bacteria, parasites, and all other sorts of pathogens. It'd have to be shielded so the light doesn't touch our bodies and cause damage, but it would keep the condensers clean and free of mold, mildew or any other sort of organism that would poison the water.

 

All you'd have to do beyond that is try and keep the condenser clean of dirt or rust and you wouldn't have to worry about much else contaminating the water. The gas inside might be a problem, but if it leaked out the unit would stop condensing anyway.

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I heard the solder in some units like actually gets into the holding container and totally pollutes it. Super deadly if they used lead to solder it. So as I said above, most water out of dehumidifiers isn't reliably pure. I think whatever chemicals are bound with the water get past the condense-y thing too so it might be wise to make sure you aren't dehumidifying an area with greywater in it.

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Well, if we're talking about the condensing unit on an air conditioner (unsure about dehumidifiers) the solder won't be of any concern since all solder used in the industry is a copper/silver alloy. Further, the pipes and the fins used in the construction of the condensing units are all usually made out of either copper or aluminum so that won't be a problem either.

 

The biggest problem you'd have with chemical pollutants would be if the refrigerant leaked out and mixed with the water. All industry refrigerants are some compound of carbon, fluorine, chlorine, and hydrogen. If mixed with water, this has the chance for creating hydrochloric or hydrofluoric acid. This would likely be a pretty rare, if not completely unheard of, event, though, as most leaks wouldn't guarantee enough mixture between the gas being leaked and the water being condensed to create any meaningful amount of acid.

 

As I said, your biggest problem would be keeping the condenser free of accumulated rust dust, mold and dirt. A UV light would kill any organisms and a simple filter made from a sock and some charcoal from a fire would get rid of anything else.

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Regardless of the source of water, remember: A solar still covereth most sins.

 

Filter and UV the hell out of the water, put in an open topped container inside a solar still, collect condensed moisture, filter/UV again for good measure, and you're good to go. Works with muddy water, urine, etc. Lots of good survival tips out there about purifying water. Also, if heavy fog ever ends up being a thing (likely on a map situated outside Kentucky would be my guess), you can collect a surprsiing amount of moisture out of a fog bank using rough fabric with a high surface area. It just collects and dribbles down, albeit slowly.

 

Now you've got me thinking. Seeing as UV emitting LEDs do exist (i.e: Some antibacterial toothbrush holders), with a small amount of battery, a small solar panel, and a few UV LEDs, you'd have a pretty good method for sterilising your water. Of course, I'd still boil and filter it first, but it could be a useful little extra.

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