In today’s fast-paced building sector, where time is money and homes are going up faster than ever before, winter construction can be challenging. The last thing you need is project delays and cost overruns due to high moisture levels in your timber framing that impact on your ability to pass your pre-line building inspection. However, the combined use of a commercial dehumidifier, heater and fan is a game changer and a highly effective solution for reducing high moisture readings in your timber framing on any site. 

Why the combination?

You may think that setting up a dehumidifier, fan or heater in isolation will do the job to reduce moisture in timber framing and while it might eventually do the job, to get the most effective outcome in the quickest period, you need to be using all three in combination. 

So what’s the science behind using a dehumidifier, fan and heater combo? Dehumidifiers work best when the air is warm. The warmer the air the more moisture they can extract. This is where adding the heat source comes in. However, not all heat sources are created equal, so you want to use a radiant heater rather than a direct fire. Why? Because radiant heaters heat surfaces like framing more effectively and are not affected by wind, Additionally, direct-fire heaters put moisture back into the air, making them counterproductive. 

While heaters do a great job of warming the air to help the dehumidifying process, without a fan to move the air around, heat will naturally rise, limiting the area you are trying to dry. So by adding a fan to the mix, the warm air can circulate easily around your timber framing, getting into the tight spots to remove stagnant pockets of humidity and provide maximum efficiency and moisture reduction.

Dehumidifiers, fans and heaters are easily transportable and easily manoeuvrable around on-site to shift to different rooms and through door frames. 

The numbers don’t lie!

McCore Group Site Engineer and Supervisor, Geng Chen is a big advocate of the dehumidifier, fan and heater combination and how effective it can be to reduce moisture levels to ensure they don’t have any issues with passing their pre-line inspections.

“After 4-5 days drying with a fan, dehumidifier and heater trio from Hirepool, our timber moisture content dropped from 40% to 8%, well below the required 18% meaning we successfully passed our pre-line inspection.

Safety Tip - Keep any heat source 2 metres away from the object you are drying

Need to control moisture on site? You Can Hirepool That