Hi Guys,

I have a safe with a Golden Rod that during the summer was at 50% humidity, the safe is inside the house with AC always on between 75 and 78. I was looking at the humidity a week ago and it was at 60% and today is at 70%. Any ideas why the humidity would go up specially in the winter?

BTW : I live in South Florida.

Some Golden rod type dehumidifiers work on a timer or thermastat device. A good guess would be yours is not working properly, that is, it is not going or staying on long enough. 50% is a bit high it is best to keep it at 45% or lower. Maybe the Golden Rod is defective as even if your safe leaked a lot through open vents it should be able to keep it below the % you stated.

Quoted: Some Golden rod type dehumidifiers work on a timer or thermastat device. A good guess would be yours is not working properly, that is, it is not going or staying on long enough. 50% is a bit high it is best to keep it at 45% or lower. Maybe the Golden Rod is defective as even if your safe leaked a lot through open vents it should be able to keep it below the % you stated.

I can only touch the golden rod for like 2 seconds since its hot, and every time I touch it is hot so it looks like is working. I may have to call the company that makes Golden Rods or get another one and put it inside the safe.

Quoted: Hi Guys, I have a safe with a Golden Rod that during the summer was at 50% humidity, the safe is inside the house with AC always on between 75 and 78. I was looking at the humidity a week ago and it was at 60% and today is at 70%. Any ideas why the humidity would go up specially in the winter? BTW : I live in South Florida.

How are you measuring the humidity in your safe? If the Golden Rod is hot, it's working- Maybe the device that your measuring the humidity is defective?

Quoted: Quoted: Hi Guys, I have a safe with a Golden Rod that during the summer was at 50% humidity, the safe is inside the house with AC always on between 75 and 78. I was looking at the humidity a week ago and it was at 60% and today is at 70%. Any ideas why the humidity would go up specially in the winter? BTW : I live in South Florida. How are you measuring the humidity in your safe? If the Golden Rod is hot, it's working- Maybe the device that your measuring the humidity is defective?

Thanks. I am going to get another humidity device today to make sure the one that I am using is not out of whack.

Quoted: A golden rod is just a heater, nothing else it works by warming air down low, and heat rises drawing cooler air from the vent hole down below, up and out the vent hole in the top of the safe.  Some safe manuf. do not have these vent holes because thier cheap drywall fireliner would not get as high a rating.  Your safe needs vent holes top and bottom for the Golden Rod to work.  You have trapped warm air in your safe and warm air can hold more humidity than cold air.

I got a Browning Fire Safe that has a hole at the top but there is a firewall in the top part of the safe that covers the hole. Should I get those pellets that collect humidity also?

The only way to get the humidity out of the safe is to either absorb it inside or remove it. A golden rod with do neither of those two things. You can either hook an AC unit up to your safe (unlikely) or use descants inside.

I prefer the type of safe specific descants where you can bake them when they have absorbed their max moisture. Another option however is DryZ-Air found at wally world.

Either way a golden rod will do nothing more than make your safe warn inside. I personally do not like the golden rod and threw mine away a long time ago.

A golden rod works by heating up the inside temp of the safe by 1 to 2 degrees from the outside temp. This stops condensation. They do not lower the humidity. The hole in the top of safes is not for airing out the safes(well never seen a safe that had it for that but havn't seen eveything out there). They are used for moving the safes. i.e. an ibolt in it and using a crane to pick the safe up and put it in. I've used it more then once putting safes in houses. Your golden road is working fine. But if you are worried about the %, I would get some silica gel to use with the golden rod.

*edit*
What ian187 said.

Need to read all the posts before posting

try putting a light bulb in the safe, it will warm up the inside of the safe and keep it dry.

Quoted: try putting a light bulb in the safe, it will warm up the inside of the safe and keep it dry.

Thanks I turn on a fluorecent light that I have in the safe last night and the humidity has go down 5% since last night.

If the Golden Rod does not reduce the humidity, what does it do to protect against rust.

Maybe the rod is wired backwards.






j/k

If the fluorescent doesn't bring it down the humidity enough try a regular low wattage light bulb. I ended up using a desiccant box that you can get anywhere that sells safes.

you cant wire it backwards on a A/C (alternating current) circuit, on in DC

Quoted: Quoted: try putting a light bulb in the safe, it will warm up the inside of the safe and keep it dry. Thanks I turn on a fluorecent light that I have in the safe last night and the humidity has go down 5% since last night. If the Golden Rod does not reduce the humidity, what does it do to protect against rust.

The same thing the light bulb does.  Heats up everything so that water doesn't condense.  You could use a second Golden Rod or a low wattage light bulb, same thing.

Quoted: you cant wire it backwards on a A/C (alternating current) circuit, on in DC

      Not to get off topic , but I will  , You CAN wire AC devices backwards .  Why do you think they use polarized plugs ?    

I got it doen to 45% with the fluorescent light on for a couple of days, I turn it off this morning to see if the GoldenRod can keep at that humidity.

i got an actual dehumidifier for my safe room - it works like a charm. ymmv.

Put some of that white silica cat litter in a paper bag and staple it shut.  Don't use the stuff with the blue crystals.  (Never tried the crystals- just following the urban myth not to.  Besides, it looks more like cat litter that way.)  Every now and then put the litter in a cookie pan and cook it at your oven's lowest setting for several hours to dry it back out.  BTW, your new "dessicant" doesn't work worth a shit as cat litter.

I don't know who originally turned me on to that cheap, simple solution a couple of years ago, but it was someone here, and I appreciate it.

ETA: The litter bag will actually say 100% silica on the side of it.

Cheers!

Quoted: Quoted: you cant wire it backwards on a A/C (alternating current) circuit, on in DC       Not to get off topic , but I will  , You CAN wire AC devices backwards .  Why do you think they use polarized plugs ?

'polarize' is a misnomer.  AC is not "polarized"  The large/small lug is to properly index the hot wire from the neutral.  This is of particular importance when a device uses the neutral and is common with any metal chassis or housing.  If you combine two such devices, where one is wired backward, you will have an arc welder.  Likewise, if a 'hot chassis' device touches ground, you will also have an arc-welder.

A golden rod and a good coating of rust preventing oil (I use CLP) will prevent rust.  I run a swamp cooler in the summer that easily gets my house in the 60%+ range on some days and I have zero rust.  Dessicant is useless unless it is regularly recharged.

A silicon impregnated gun sock may be a good solution for you too.  I use some of these to protect my pimp guns, but not for any rust prevention features.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: you cant wire it backwards on a A/C (alternating current) circuit, on in DC       Not to get off topic , but I will  , You CAN wire AC devices backwards .  Why do you think they use polarized plugs ?

'polarize' is a misnomer.  AC is not "polarized"  The large/small lug is to properly index the hot wire from the neutral.  This is of particular importance when a device uses the neutral and is common with any metal chassis or housing.  If you combine two such devices, where one is wired backward, you will have an arc welder.  Likewise, if a 'hot chassis' device touches ground, you will also have an arc-welder.

     I did not say that AC is polarized . I said that some plugs are polarized and that you can can wire AC devices backwards .   And I agree , in almost every case it's a safety issue .

I think that there's something that you're missing here.  What are you looking for the golden rod to do for you?  It does not and cannot absorb humidity.  Is corrosion forming at the average humidity level that you have?  Nature hates a vaccum, and every time that you open the door to the safe, fresh air gets in and the humidity level evens out to whatever atmospheric is at the time!  If you're not experienceing any corrosion now, be satisfied that everything is OK and go on to worry about more pressing things in life!

Reduction in humidity by absorbing, heating out, whatever, will not replace good common sense storage of clean and well lubricated.  If the humidity is going up, likely you need to track what the atmospheric humidity is in your storage location.  Unless you have some water in the safe, there's no reason why it should be any higher than the room it's in assuming your safe is sealed and not a vented unit.  Heated air devices, like the the rod, work on convection.  The heated air has to have somewhere to go or it simply heats up, expands, and can hold MORE moisture.  In a non vented safe, the theory is that it will keep that moisture suspended in the air rather than allowing it to condense onto the surface of whatever you have stored, but it will not remove the moisture.  To do that, you need an absorber.

I wired two 7 watt bulb night lights into my safes, mostly for lighting.  Together, they not only provide light, but work better than my golden rod did, so I ditched the golden rod and wired lights into both of my safes.  As added insurance, I have a small container of the Damp Rid pellets in each one.  I empty the little bucket and add new pellets twice a year, as they do fill up and work correctly.  I live in Norfolk, 3 miles from the ocean and my safes are bolted through a 4x4 platform to a concrete floor in my garage.  Since I set up everything this way, I have not had a problem.  No rust or any other corrosion has happened in 7 years.

Something that I learned from my buddy of mine.  He used to store his rifles bolts closed.  After a 6 month deployment, he had some corrosion form in the bores of a few rifles and on a few bolt faces.  I deployed the same time that he did same cruise, and did not experience any problems and we have exactally the same safe (Cannon Eagle, 550lbs), purchased at the same time (bulk discount) and live 3 houses down from each other and we oiled and preserved our guns the same day (going away party with our gun buddies), and have the same lights and damp rid pellets.  In short, having moisture traps with the bolts closed allowed any condensation to collect with the bolt sealed chamber as the low point.  I kept my bolts open as the only difference.

YMMV, but again, if you're not getting any rust, keep cleaning and preserving correctly and stop worrying, you're doing it right!


Tom