[Nhcoll-l] Alternatives for room climate

Tue Dec 8 02:36:46 EST 2020

Dear Lennart,

definitely support Paul's cautionary remarks; we currently have 
professional humidifiers/dehumidifiers installed in our collection 
space. The units  are roughly 1 m high and 60 wide and deep. As massive 
as the machine is the fan that propels the air - leading to increased 
evaporation on surrounding shelves. Even this professional device needs 
close monitoring to prevent spillages in the collection space from the 
tank that collects the removed water. Definitely can confirm the cooling 
effect Paul mentioned, even though this device is equipped with a 
heating element that should keep temperatures constant - while 
"[electric] heating" surely is another element on the list of undesired 
things you want to avoid in your fluid storage: a huge potential 
ignition source in the middle of your alcohol collection.

My advice would be to keep the situation as stable as possible. An 
interesting anecdote we found during the research on our upcoming book 
on best practices for fluid collections was a collection that had a 
minor humidity issues because the floor in the storage space was wiped 
wet regularly at least twice a week. Actually it was mildly flooded 
twice a week evenly several millimetres high. The Advantage was that the 
storage space was basically dust free, the disadvantage that the 
concrete flooring saturated with water triggering a mould outbreak 
because of high humidity inside the storage space.

To mitigate your situation you could carefully try to wipe the isles in 
a selected storage room with little water evenly and monitor closely how 
the humidity levels behave. This is the only method to my mind where you 
can exactly determine and measure the amount of water you bring actively 
under controlled conditions into your storage space (with the hopefully 
desired effects on the room climate). But less surely is more here, and 
if you have wooden collection furniture in your storage, you should take 
great care.

Hope this helps
Dirk

Am 07.12.2020 um 16:45 schrieb Callomon,Paul:
>
> Dear Lennart,
>
> Safely adding humidity to a collection space is hard and always 
> expensive. The problem if you use a humidifier (such as the home ones 
> you mention) is that there will be a gradient of humidity around it – 
> damp enough to create mold near the machine but still dry at the far 
> end of the room. If you have multi-outlet ducting for your building 
> climate system, then, at least try and rig something up that uses that 
> ducting to distribute the moisture as evenly as possible. Otherwise, 
> you could set up a system of fans to create air circulation throughout 
> the space and try to even out the humidity that way – but be aware 
> that doing that could then drop the temperature through the 
> evaporative cooling effect, causing folks to turn up the heating and 
> make the problem worse.
>
> *Paul Callomon MSc*
> /Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia***
>
> 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
> /prc44 at drexel.edu <mailto:prc44 at drexel.edu> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 
> 215-299-1170/
>
> *From:*Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> *On Behalf Of 
> *Lennart Lennuk
> *Sent:* Monday, December 7, 2020 10:16 AM
> *To:* nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> *Subject:* [Nhcoll-l] Alternatives for room climate
>
> *External.*
>
> Dear curators,
>
> We have broken climate system in our collections room and the main 
> problem is too low humidity.
>
> What would you suggest for quick alternative for rising the humidity.
>
> Are the ordinary humidifiers (meant for homes or Office) ok to use?
>
> Head!
> Lennart
>
>
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-- 

Dirk Neumann

Tel: 089 / 8107-111
Fax: 089 / 8107-300
neumann(a)snsb.de

Postanschrift:

Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns
Zoologische Staatssammlung München
Dirk Neumann, Sektion Ichthyologie / DNA-Storage
Münchhausenstr. 21
81247 München

Besuchen Sie unsere Sammlung:
http://www.zsm.mwn.de/sektion/ichthyologie-home/

---------

Dirk Neumann

Tel: +49-89-8107-111
Fax: +49-89-8107-300
neumann(a)snsb.de

postal address:

Bavarian Natural History Collections
The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology
Dirk Neumann, Section Ichthyology / DNA-Storage
Muenchhausenstr. 21
81247 Munich (Germany)

Visit our section at:
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