Heat pipes

Two people wanted to know more about the heat pipes I mentioned last
week as a way of controlling subtropical humidity and the insects that
come along with it.

Heat pipes do not produce heat, as their name suggests; they attach to
air conditioners and increase the amount of humidity they can take out
of the air, by a method that once was explained to me, but did not stay
with me long.  All I remember is that the method is not straightforward
or obvious.

I don't know if heat pipes can be attached to central air conditioners.
I have asked the company to send me some reliable up-to-date
information.  Most of my information comes from telephone conversations
I had in 1989 with the Dinh Company, which is now known as Heat Pipe
Technology.  Their address is P.O. Box 999, Alachua, Florida 32615
(904-462-3464).  I covered this in the May 1989 Abbey Newsletter on p.
27.

Heat pipes are a good investment; you get your cost back in a year or so
in savings on your electricity (air conditioning) bill.  A community
college in Orange Park, Florida, has installed them in one building
after another. They confirmed when I spoke to them that their electric
bill was now 30% lower than it had been before.  You can buy heat pipes
or rent them.  They do not work in temperate climates, only where it is
hot and moist, and where air conditioners are already in use.

As for Moisture Control Services (aka Munter Moisture Control), I have
not had contact with that company for over five years.  They (or at
least one of their branches) are in Amesbury, Massachusetts.  This
evening I called the number that the information operator gave me,
508-388-5020, because the old number didn't work any more.  The woman
who answered said that I had reached a small branch of the company.  She
didn't even know the number of the headquarters office and couldn't tell
me anything.  My investigation continues.  If you want information on
drying out a building after a flood, or keeping a very moist area dry
enough to prevent rampant mold, a good person to call is Larry Wood, who
now has his own company, Disaster Recovery Services, in Fort Worth,
Texas.  His numbers are 800-856-3333, 817-535-6793, fax: 817-536-1167.
Other good advisors on portable or supplementary moisture control can
probably be found in the disaster plans in Conservation OnLine.

More later.

Ellen McCrady

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 8:38
                 Distributed: Sunday, November 20, 1994
                        Message Id: cdl-8-38-003
                                  ***