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Posted: 3/27/2008 12:26:11 PM EDT
I did not think I needed a dehumidifier for my concrete vault. I live in northern Colorado and I have NEVER had a humidity/moisture problem in my gun safe. Now that I built my vault I noticed that it felt humid in it. I keep my guns in a Browning safe inside the vault. I keep a close watch on the gun to make sure they did not rust in the new vault. Well 6 months into using the vault I got a couple rust specs on a couple gun. Nothing bad but it still got me very worried!!!! I also noticed water droplets forming on the flash hiders on a few guns!!!! Looks like the concrete is drawing and hilding enough moisture to start rust on the guns. I need a dehumidifier good enough to get all the moisture/water out of my vault and safe. It need to be quality and built to last. How big will I need it to be? Also I have never used a golden rod in my safe as I never needed one. Should I add one to the safe or will the dehumidifier be enough? Here is a link to some dehumidifiers forsale. Are any of these good: http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_constraint=0&search_query=dehumidifiers&ic=24_0 My vault is pretty small....maybe 10 ft deep by 4 ft wide buy 7 ft tall:    Thanks for any help!!!! |
What do you mean but lining the walls better? No guns in the safe developed any rust. Only one gun outside the safe but in the vault developed a few tiny specs of rust and it took months for that tiny bit to develop so I'm not to worried about it. The safe must seal out the moisture well. |
No sealer was used.....wish I had but never thought of it. Now the walls are lined with plywood and painted and shelves installed and I don't want to rip it all out. Those silly murals painted on the walls took me a looooong time to paint.  Hopefully a good dehumidifier will do the trick! |
That's what we use in our basement, except we have a hose running from it to a drain so we never have to empty. I'd be leary about putting a rod in your safe with no way to monitor the humidity if you have any nice wood stock guns. |
No Rod huh? Do you think the safe will be ok with just the dehumidifier in the vault? |
The condensation on the flash hider was on the one gun left out of the safe. All the guns in the safe are fine. I'll try the flashlight idea and report back. |
| I have a small goldenrod in my safe and a dehumidifier in the room (7'x12'). I put a humidity guage in both and keep the room at 38 -40% and the safe stays about 30%. I have been told that anything above 40% can rust but I got tired of dumping water every other day too when I kept the dehumidifier at 30%. Lowes sells some cheap dehumidifiers that are small cans with a chemical substance that collects moisture. Make sure you keep your ammo cans off of the floor, rubber mats are good. |
| if you have already bolted your safe to the slab, this may be tricky, but if you did not, get out your safe manual and find out where the access hole is for a power cord. Either install a golden rod dehumidifier or mount a 20 to 30 watt incandescent bulb above the guns. Then seal the hole back with silicone or something. This will help the guns at least. Also, put incandescent bulbs in your safe room and leave them on all the time. Might help. |
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First, because it "feels" damp doesn't mean it is damp. Get a humidistat/thermometer that tells you the percentage of Relative Humidity. It's a MUST have because even after you get your dehumidifier you want to know what the RH is so you're not running the dehumid 24 hours a day, and you will likely have to adjust the dehumid depending on the season, eg, in winter I don't run my basement dehumids because it's naturally dryer than shit. It's called RELATIVE HUMIDITY because 50% humidity is RELATIVE to the temperature. 50% RH at 90 degrees has a LOT more water than 50% RH at 32 degrees! Someone suggested to get a HUGE dehimd. You don't need anything huge, the smallest SEARs one will be overkill for your vault. You don't wanna make it TOO DRY in there either because this will dry out any wood stocked guns you have. The inside of the vault must have some type of vapor barrier. I'll tell you why. There is a large underground film storage facility in Europe, Denmark, I believe. Everything was state of the art when they built it. They use mega dehumidifiers that run on gas and have big revolving dessicant wheels. Anyway, they notice that MOLD is growing on the walls INSIDE the vault, on the drywall. Why? BECAUSE THE DEHUMIDIFIERS WERE WORKING SO WELL THAT THEY WERE SUCKING MOISTURE NOT ONLY FROM THE CONCRETE BUT FROM THE SOIL BEHIND THE CONCRETE. Two easy ways for your situation. Plastic sheets glued to your wall and then drywall over them OR waterproof paint meant for basements. (This paint will also cover the graffiti left by those vandals who got into your vault.) Then get yourself a regular old SEARs dehumid and you're set. You said you had plywood on the walls. You could put the drylock paint over the plywood perhaps. |
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