Dehumidifieng the Natural way with Rock Salt ~ No Electricity needed

Fman

Has anybody used rock salt to bring down humidity? If so how much do you need. How long does it last ? And can you dry it out and use it again?

scott06

I have heard of people using a type of volcanic rock for odor...and you can heat it and reuse it, it can be found at HomeDepot, but never anything like that for humidity. Is it your idea or did some one try it already?

scott06

Hey look what I found...some guy named Videoman recommended it over a year ago

"You mention a dehumidifier, running constantly, are you meaning 24 hours a day? Because if you are, that's pretty high humidity problem. Do you have fans circulating the air?
Also a bowl of rock salt would help ya. Do you have an exhaust fan?"

He also went on to explain that low temps raise relative humidity quite a bit as the ability of air to hold the moisture drops with the temperature...that's why we have dew in the morning

So my advice is to ask Vid when you see him online

ileso

unrefined rock salt is hygroscopic because of some impurities in it, basically what that means is that, yes it absorbs moisture, to the point of disolving in the water.

when its full just place it in the oven or out in the sun to dry out and re-use it...

funny that, I'd never have thought to use salt as a dehumidifier.. would it help to dry the herb as well?

In europe they have this wonderful ham thats dried and cured in salt... hmm tasty

scott06

I guess we will have to add "salt cured" to our list of drying techniques

Pappy

When I was a kid, my dad had burlap bags of rock salt hanging from the floor joists in the basement. They would drip water into old coffee cans. At least I think it was rock salt. We always had cans of water in the basement, that needed to be poured down the floor drain.

Pappy

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Fman

Im not sure where I saw it posted, thats why I was asking. I did find some things that contian silica gel. They are small containers of silica that absorb humidity, when they turn color, you put them in the microwave or oven to dry them out. They are on ebay and are mostly adversised for gun safes. Im looking for a way to lower my RH, with out having to PLUG in another electric device. I dont need to lower it much. The RH in my room is 60% to 63%, so I dont need to lower it that much.

ileso

i guess salt will do it, dry out the water afterwards

Fman

Im going to Home De Pot tomarrow to get some, Ill let you know if it works. Thanks everyone for your help

jangel

From the sounds of it, you could also hang a bag like pappies dad did and save yourself the step of having to dry it out. My guess is it would have to be a cotton bag, like a sugar sack which I have tons of. That would be so kewl and these days of having to reduce our carbin footprint with lower power usage, this could be just the ticket! I might have to try this as my humidifier raises temps too much in my grow room but I still need to lower humidity. Thanks for this useful post. I think I will even work on making this a sticky.

Would you mind if I change the title to make it more clear what it is about?

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