The London floods of 2000

My biggest experience with industrial dehumidifiers was in late 2000 when London was hit by very heavy rain that caused a lot of very serious flooding across many parts of the capital. At the time, according to the report by the Greater London Assembly, as many as 50% of people living in flood-prone areas were oblivious to the risk of flooding so it took many by surprise. Add to this the fact that many homes had been built on the Thames flood planes and the number of cellar and basement conversions in areas where real estate is very valuable, and you can imagine the wide-scale disruption it caused many Londoners – both businesses and domestic properties alike.

At the time I was involved with a company that, among other things, they rented out dehumidifiers and other equipment used for drying out properties and buildings. Normally used for things like drying plaster or decorating, there was suddenly a massive demand for these machines once the waters had subsided and people were able to see the damage that had been caused.

Dehumidifiers are able to reduce the humidity in a room by removing excess moisture from the air. The moist air is drawn into the dehumidifier by the fan which then crosses over the dehumidifier’s refrigerant cooled coils, causing the moisture in the air to condense on the coils within the machine – in a similar way to how moisture forms on the outside of a cold drink on a hot day

Dehumidifiers are important not just in the home where they’re often used to remove moisture from the air to tackle damp and mould, but they’re also very important in the workplace. Too much humidity, or simply excessive variation in levels of humidity, can cause big problems in industries as diverse as the agri-food & food processing sectors; industrial bakeries & pastries; the pharmaceutical industry; and the chemicals industry – not to mention all companies involved in the process of seed storage. This is where the industrial dehumidifier comes into the picture by providing moisture removal on an industrial scale. Without them, many of the foods and chemicals we use on a daily basis would be much more expensive or even not able to be produced in the first place.