Have a dilemma

[pcrowder]

Our huge pantry is in the basement, and has very heavy deep shelves that the previous owner installed. Lately I've noticed that it seems to be much more humid than I remember in years past, so much that I've noticed that some of the cans of veggies and fruit are starting to rust. Not all the way through, but rusting just the same. I took the thermometer/hygrometer from my incubator down there and discovered that the humidity is 66%. (I wasn't imagining it was humid). We live in NE Colorado where it is a pretty dry climate most of the time.

My question is: I am concerned that the cans will continue to rust, and I will start losing preps. My only other alternative to store everything is in the 3 bedrooms in the attic which gets pretty hot in the summer (one room faces south). I suppose I could put up heavy black out curtains up there to try to cut down on the heat, but I'm also concerned about the added weight to the floor. I do have some things stored up there now (in the dark haunted room that faces east with a teeny window).

I really don't want to have to invest $$ in a dehumidifier that will use electricity every day, and I would have to empty the water it collects into buckets and haul them up the stairs, which is no easy feat for me since my chest surgery. It would also be a HUGE undertaking to haul all the food up to the attic, and then purchase free-standing shelves to put it all on.

Any ideas on what would be the solution to this problem?

[grumble]

Is the moisture coming in through the basement walls? Or is there some other source of the moisture, like a dripping pipe or something?

First step would be to try to stop the humidity at its source, either with a coating or by making sure the exterior french drain isn't plugged up. Sloping the dirt around the basement walls to direct runoff away from the house also helps a lot.

Next step would be to get some circulation of air through the basement. Just a plain old fan that you run when it's dry outside will help a lot.

[Dame]

A dehumidifier would be cheaper than shelving and the water can be emptied into a floor drain if you have one.

There are also chemical dehumidifiers. We had a damp basement about 20 years ago and a friend showed up with this fabric cylinder of crystalline substance that collected the humidity and dripped into my laundry sink.

Does anyone know what these non electrical things are called?

[Mad_Professor]

1) Mount a stove pipe from the basement up the outside wall (sunny side). When it warms up outside it will create a draft and pull moist air from the basement. Add a draft shut off to the pipe . May need another intake vent at floor level.

2) Buy a bunch of large G.I. ammo lockers and put the cans in those, you ammo/powder stash too.

3) See if there are any drainage issues around the foundation. Do you have eavestroughs/gutters on the roof?

[pcrowder]

We have the hot water heater down there, and a furnace, but don't know why we have the humidity. The weather is more humid than usual lately, but I don't recall it being this bad. No pipes dripping, nothing leaking that I can tell. Can't move the dirt around the house, and coating the walls would be extremely difficult (gotta move all the preps!). The guttering is in good shape, and we don't have any water around the foundation.

Boy, if anyone knows the name of the chemical dehumidifier, I'd really appreciate it. Maybe I'll price dehumidifiers on Amazon and etc. Even if I only used it part of the time, it might help. I'm in such a quandry. It's hard for me to even consider moving the preps because I'm still so weak from surgery. But, something has to be done and soon.

[pcrowder]

There are no windows in the basement. I don't know how I'd put a stovepipe in. Also, the walls of the basement are surrounded by dirt all the way up to the ceiling. (The house was built in 1900). The walls are also very very thick.

[Naughty_Pines]

http://www.bing.com/search?q=chemical+dehumidifiers&FORM=MYMSNA&mymsn-headersearch.x=83&mymsn-headersearch.y=19

This may help you. Scroll down to the shop for chemical dehydrators with the pictures.

[pcrowder]

Thanks alot!

[J R Adams]

You mention a furnace in the basement. Is there any way the flue can be used to create a draft from the basement entry circulate air.

What is temp in basement? Cool air will not hold as much moisture as warm air raising the relative humidity.

[KarenBC]

My cold room is divided in 2 - the side that I keep my canning and dry goods, I have an RV dehumidifer - it is a simple plastic box, that has a big packet of moisture absorbing crystals in the top. As the packet absorbs, the liquid accumlates in the plastic box, holds about 1/2 a gallon. The packet lasts a long time.

[pcrowder]

You mention a furnace in the basement. Is there any way the flue can be used to create a draft from the basement entry circulate air.

What is temp in basement? Cool air will not hold as much moisture as warm air raising the relative humidity.

I have no idea.

65 degrees.

[pcrowder]

My cold room is divided in 2 - the side that I keep my canning and dry goods, I have an RV dehumidifer - it is a simple plastic box, that has a big packet of moisture absorbing crystals in the top. As the packet absorbs, the liquid accumlates in the plastic box, holds about 1/2 a gallon. The packet lasts a long time.

My problem is that the entire basement is open -- it has interior walls, but the previous owner who put them in didn't run them all the way to the ceiling. (Why, I don't know. The original house was built in 1900, but the addition and the renovations were all done in the early 1980s - it's kinda like The Waltons meet The Brady Bunch.) So it's impossible to seal off any one basement room from the others. Yes, the house is WIERD. It's really sturdy, but it has things that make you shake your head, too. That is my problem. This part of the house has a hot water heater and a furnace, and the addition that was put on in the 1980s also has a hot water heater and a furnace, and they are completely independent of each other.

Maybe if I got a couple of those RV dehumidifiers that it would be enough to handle the entire basement. I hung a thin temporary door at the bottom of the basement stairs, but I have another solid door that I need to hang in it's place. I want that not only for security if someone breaks in while we are gone, but maybe it would help the dehumidifier work better if it didn't have to try to deal with the upper floor too.

[NCLee]

For the section where you have your shelves, can you staple 6 ml plastic to cover the distance between the top of the "walls" and the ceiling? Should be fairly easy to do and relatively inexpensive. This would give you a smaller area to de-humidify. And, if you're collecting moisture (as in seeping through the walls, in another part of the basement), the plastic could help shield your shelving area.

Check with Lowes and Home Depot. Seems that I've seen those dehumidifier crystals at one of those places.

Yes, here it is. Product called DampRid. http://www.damprid.com/ I haven't used it, so can't comment on the effectiveness.

Oh, and another thought... Can you hang that 6 mil plastic over your shelves? Floor to ceiling. Hang (staple) like drapes with edges overlapping a few inches to make access to the shelves easy. Then, set some of the dehumidifier packets on your shelves.

On another note, agree with other posters about ventilation being one of the key's to helping control humidity. One thing to think about is to open the basement door and set a box fan in front of it. Turn the fan so it blows away from the basement door, thus pulling air from the basement. While not as effective as a dehumidifier, it can help extract some of that cooler damp air from the basement. Or, if your furnace has a fan only setting, use that to help circulate the air.

Go ahead and start using those cans of food that are already showing signs that rust is beginning. Since it has established itself, in time, it will eat through the metal. (sigh) Depending on what you have, dehydrating some of the canned items is an option. It's a lot of work with flavor and nutrition loss, but recanning into mason jars, may be another option. But, IMHO, it's better to salvage some of the food value than to lose all of it. Again, it depends on the individual items involved.

If you have a vaccum sealer, that may be an option for some of the more expensive items that you have. Seal cans that aren't showing signs of rust. It won't be cost effective on inexpensive cans of produce due to the cost of the plastic used. At least I don't think it is. But, honestly haven't compared pricing of the plastic to the cost of replacing the cans of food.

If all else fails, there are other ways of protecting cans of food in a humid environment. Again, work with cans that aren't already showing signs of rust.
*Dip cans into melted wax.
*Remove labels and spray/paint cans with polyurethane. Reapply labels when poly dries.

Hope some of these thoughts are helpful and maybe something you can use while you're recovering.

Lee

[Aamylf]

If the packets are like the 'deumidifier in a can' do NOT set the packets on a shelf.

I speak from experience. We bought a few of the cans to use right before we moved here. There were other more important things to do, so we just set them on a shelf in the garage. I went out one day and there was water pouring from the shelves (pouring -- this is FL and there was 98% humidity) -- the shelves were warped, the paint cans were rusting. It was an enormous mess. Whenever you use anything that dehumidifies, make sure it's sitting in/on something to hold the water it pulls out of the air.

[pcrowder]

Thanks for all the great ideas, guys. I'm going to try the end of this week to start to take all the cans that are showing any signs of rust and re-can them in mason jars (still weak from surgery - have to pace myself). I'm thinking that one solution would be to try to have as little food as possible in cans, and more in jars (less surface area that's metal and subject to rust.) I'm going to try the idea with the box fan at the top of the stairs and see if that helps for the short term. Am hoping I won't have to do it this fall and winter - (we have the highest per kilowatt hour electricity rates in the state!)

Thanks again for all the advice!
Pat

[midmo]

You mention there's a furnace in the basement... are there any vents into the basement? If so, you could maybe close all the vents in the house except for the one in the basement and one more upstairs somewhere, then put a duct fan on the one upstairs. Turn it on and it should pull basement air through the ductwork and exhaust it into the upstairs.

[CapeCMom]

Pat,

You need to paint your basement walls with a product like dri-lok paint. It absorbs into the cement and helps to seal out any moisture that may be seeping through. You may not be able to see the moisture but it's there. Do the floors too-It's an amazing product. Very stinky though so if you do it, provide plenty of ventilation! If there is still an issue, you can buy an adhesive membrane that is self stick that you can apply directly to the painted cement wall surface. This also provides an RH value to your cement walls. Once the vapor barrier is down you would be safe at a later date to even put sheet rock up or flooring.

Our basement walls never looked wet either-but they were-the difference has been amazing.

I'm happy to see your feeling better.

[J R Adams]

You mention that the walls do not go all the way to the ceiling. I suspect that the basement was added to a house built on pilings. You will find a patch of open earth between the partial basement wall and the outside walls of the house that were closed in to the ground. A plastic ground cloth could be layed in that area and weighted down with bricks etc. to form a vapor shield. That would reduce the ground moisture into your basement. My grandparents had a house like that and the circumference was filled in with concrete.