Sump room help

[cdub]

i'm moving into my new house on tuesday and was planning on constructing a small sump room in the garage. i went to the house yesterday to take some meansurements and found out that where i want to put the room is the same place that the breaker for my house sits.

will the humidity in the room cause a problem? any ideas on how to work around it?

 

[cameron]

Breaker boxes are pretty sturdy units, but if you are concerned a couple things could be done. First, you could just run a dehumidifier in the room. It is maintenance to empty the container from time to time but otherwise pretty simple. The other thing you could do is seal up the breaker box. The cheap way would just use weather stripping around the existing door. The cool way would be to remove the door and put a plastic access door in front of the break box like this:

 

[budsreef]

Your garage is already probably the most humid spot in the house and is typical of where the breaker box usually is. A dehumidifier is probably the simpliest solution as Cameron says but if you do that I'd run a drain hose from it so you wouldn't have to ever worry about emptying it. Depending on the quality of the water it pulls out of the air you might even be able to put a pump in it and pump it back to the sump where it came from anyway. Now that would be an auto top off unit!

 

[mojo]

You're right - if you don't do something, then it'll be a problem, assuming you'll have an open top sump.

I personally wouldn't recommend a dehumidifier - you'll end up spending a TON of money to solve a problem that's much easier to solve.

I'd use a plastic sheet to only drape over the top. The problem I had was salt mist in the air - it covered the top layer of everything, rusted tools on the top of a box, etc - ie- only the top of things. Cover the breaker box with a plastic drop cloth, and I think you'll be fine (unless you're evaporating a LOT in the basement).

 

[purplegorilla]

Yeah, I am in the same situation. One of the solution I am planning to do, is add a fan and have it vent to the outside. Running the dehumidifier can be costly since the basement is already humid.

 

[scsinet]

Removing the humidity only encourages more evaporation. A dehumidifier is a means, but they do add some heat to the environment and they are primarly designed to remove humidity from areas that are not having humidity continuously introduced.

Some sort of enclosure around the sump would be the best way to do it IMO. A simple wood box with an access door to get to it, assembled with galvanized fasteners and with all wood surfaces coated with polyurethane should work, and at least this way you'll be keeping the water where it belongs... in your tank.

 

[cameron]

$35 bucks for that plastic cover I listed above... water tight no rust or absorbtion.

Dehumidifier will indeed cause more evap, but that can be a good thing in many situations.