Air conditioner or dehumidifier?

We live in a fairly humid coastal area.

I bought a dehumidifier for my 10x8 outdoor grow shed but am finding that when it’s warm outside the dehumidifier plus 900 actual Watts of LEDs heats things up a bit too much during the day but it’s perfect at night with just the dehumidifier running. I run a 90CFM exhaust fan only when the lights are on.

Im thinking of switching it for a portable air conditioner so that I can redirect a percentage of the heat from the units warm air discharge duct back inside.

I could use some kind of temperature controlled diverter vane to regulate the warm return air.

I think this could work unless these portable units try to reject humidity through the discharge so there is less condensate water to get rid of. This would completely defeat my plan.

I’m wondering if this would use more power than a regular dehumidifier also as this is not the intended use for an A/C unit.

Has anyone experimented with using A/C for dehumidification? I would be interested in hearing what works.

I have an outdoor grow shed room, I run a 70L dehumidifier as well as a 8500btu window ac unit.

BUT my exhaust fan is 750cfm, your is only 90?? I don’t think that’s near big enough for a 10x8

1 Like

Here’s my build:

I’m only using a small area of the shed. 4 plants in the corner.

Typically what is the humidity of your outside air?

Im dealing with 85-99% humidity so drawing in more air means the dehumidifier runs more and I get more waste heat into the room.
I’m drawing about 6-10L of water out daily for 50% humidity.
I could cool things with a small A/C unit but that won’t be as efficient as it should be. A dehumidifier IS just an A/C unit that recovers all the waste heat. I need the ability to reject and vent a percentage of it.

I’m in Southeast Asia on a 20 mile wide island 2000 miles from the closest continent at 13degrees north of equator, so I’m at 100-% humidity every day all day no breaks ever it seems and it feels like 500% sometimes cause you sweat just for thinking about shade

1 Like