Many dehumidifiers work similar to air conditioners in as far as they use a refrigeration cycle.

Dehumidifiers use a fan to pull moist air into the dehumidifier. The compressor pressurizes the refrigerant gas, which moves to the evaporator coil, where it expands and cools. The incoming warm and humid air is cooled by the very cold evaporator below the dew point and the moisture condenses into water and then drained from the growing room. After the evaporator coil, the condenser causes the refrigerant temperature to increase and the cold now dry air is heated and returned to the room.  The gas in the system is recycled to the compressor.

Investing in dehumidifiers is a necessary and serious capex decision. Avoid the investment and you won’t optimize your VPD and yield and worse you risk crop failure. Due to the value of cannabis, both scenarios are more expensive than any dehumidifier purchase. Investing in quality will always be more expensive and for this reason the capex cost of QUEST machines is higher, however the opex costs of running dehumidifiers is what you need to consider, especially with our rising Eskom rates.

QUEST has achieved energy efficiency that is unparalleled in the industry with their patented M-Corr technology. This design uses a multi-coil strategy where instead of just 2 coils, QUEST has 4 coils. The evaporator has been divided into 3 stages. The first coil is a pre-evaporator, which cools the air, next the evaporator extracts the moisture. After the water is removed, the 3rd coil recovers energy and recycles this back to the evaporator to make the process 30% more energy efficient. Fact: The KW/H used per litre of water extracted by a QUEST machine is without doubt more cost effective than any other dehumidifier in the market.

In addition to the energy saving, the M-Corr technology allows the machines to be smaller than other machines saving valuable space in the cultivation area and because they recycle energy, they don’t expel as much hot air into the growing room, which reduces temperature spikes and a further saving on your AC bill.

Dehumidifiers all have efficiency ratings, and you should be able to get the performance curve from your supplier. The performance curve of the machine shows how many litres of water per day (or hour) the machine can extract from the environment at different humidity and temperature variables. Don’t be easily fooled by the litre/day claim on the box. The rated efficiency of many commercial dehumidifiers is at 80% humidity and 30 deg centigrade. At this rating, the litre per day can look impressive, but at cultivation temperature and humidity the litres/day will be significantly lower. QUEST performance is rated at 26 deg and 60% humidity.

In Part 3 I will discuss redundancy and how to calculate your load in a growing space.

For more information contact me at brett@hydrobiz.co.za or the Hydrobiz team at info@hydrobiz.co.za