doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com De-humidifier in Safes

I took delivery of my second safe today (Champion Medalist-30 w/custom inserts for longguns only)

It has a rod that you're supposed to leave on to fight away moisture and combat rust, corrosion etc etc)

1. Does anyone use such a thing in their safe(s)?
2. Does anyone recommend using it on and off for a set period?
3. If you do use one, have you ever dried out old wood stocks to the point of danger?

yes
no
no

The thing is just a small heater.

It raises the internal temperature a bit, thus lowering the relative humidity in the enclosure.

I'm going on 20 years on mine... it still works and seems to do a fine job. No issues.

Don't expect it to do much in a real humid environment... it's for a safe in a reasonably dry location.

Brand name use to be Goldenrods. They work well and never had any damage. Now I use a dehumidifier in a enclosed gun room.

I have two cheap metal cabinets filled with klunkers and deactivated guns that have goldenrods in them that sit in semi plain view. These cabinets, safes if you wish, are filled with decoy guns so thieves find some guns and stop searching. If lost they are of no great value and not a danger to others unless used as a club. All are missing firing pins or other key parts.

Many Thanks to the both of you. Here in western Mass we have periods of hot, humid weather during the summer, moderate to heavy moderate-humididity in the winter.

Based on what you've told me, jones, it seems like this rod will work out fine.

KY Jon - GREAT set-up with the decoy "safes". I would love to have a big enough house where I could dedicate a room to firearms. Ah well, I'm not going to be buying more guns anyway. Really. Just ask my wife, she'll concur.

they work just fine for me. Make sure they are not touching any stocks.

I use Eva Dry dessicant humidifiers which do not heat up the safe. Own 3 for 2 safes. Keep one plugged in and recharging and one in each safe. Rotate them in NC about once every three weeks in a very humid year here. Seem to soak up a lot of moisture. The beads in the viewing window turn pink when they are saturated.

http://www.eva-dry.com/products/eva-dry-500-mini-dehumidifier/

Excuse me! That's de-humidifiers!!

As dumb and fundamental as it sounds, the best way to reduce and keep humidity down is to use a dessicant, a fancy word for something that takes moisture out of the air.

I burn coal, anthracite, for heat during winter and in the off season, and have the unenviable task of removing the sulfurous/acidic ash that corrodes the heat boxes of both of my stoves. As a chemist, I found that removing moisture/humidity worked wonders in avoiding corrosion (exfoliation of the boiler plate steel) out of the fire box of both of my stoves.
The simplest way of doing such is to buy magnesium sulfatehydrate (Epsom salts) from Wal-mart, placing it (~5 lbs) in an aluminum pan and heating it at 450F in an oven for 1-2 hrs. This drives the water out of reagent and the anhydrous magnesium sufate acts as a sponge to remove water out of the firebox during off season. I applied this concept to my gunsafe and it worked gangbusters. I start this in May and re-heat/recharge the mag sulfate in August. It's better than the "Goldenrod" to suppress corrosion and pitting

OR-build a vault(a safe is not big enough anyway)and install a regular de-humidifier,but instead of collecting the condensate, install a drain to the outside. It works great and you don't have to remember to empty anything or dry anything.
Mike

You can make a project out of anything.

The safe comes with a Goldenrod... plug in the Goldenrod and forget about it.

It's safe, it works, and it costs about $10/year to run.

The company has a website if anyone really wants to research it.