Comments on: Building show: Smarter homes, water out of air

Technology at the West Coast Green 2008 building show includes a device to deliver water from ambient air, a $14,000 solar table, and energy monitoring systems.

[twotall610]

The making water out of air, it is just a dehumidifier.

[bornlikethis38]

lol. you just owned them

[Penguinisto]

Exactly - why pay $$$ when you can get one right now at the nearest Wal-Mart?

That said, I doubt you get a whole lot of water out of such a setup... unless it were big enough to consume one of the rooms in your house entirely.

[brentonay]

There are some good ideas around - just a shame its so expensive to implement many of them.

[42istheanswer]

Pure marketing for the watermill. Probably an ex-Microsoft marketing dude. A dehumidifier???? OMG

[sleeknub]

Cement is recyclable, all you have to do is crush it up and re-bake it.

[stampy932]

yuh! a $1300 dehumidifier with some extra filters on it...sheez

[bornlikethis38]

lol. you just owned them

[chunklover57]

Finally, I can start my own moisture farm.

[Str8-razr]

You ever try drinking dehumidifier water? It's distilled water.

[Joe Real]

There are many types of dehumidifier, and the most common is removing air by condensing it and water is extracted from the air and collecting unto a container. Another type is by using dessicants. The most common ones available from Home Depot condenses water from the air to lower the ambient air humidity.

The main problem with such dehumidifier is that water will also contains indoor air contaminants such as particles from your indoor cooking (the best vents in all the houses I've been to really cannot vent out 100% of those fumes), resident molds and dusts in the air, bacteria, viruses from the sneezing and coughing of guests or household residents, aroma from various perfumes and candle essences, paint thinners and other volatile compounds especially from a newly painted house, and when you vacuum a carpeted house, anything can hitch a ride along with the water condensing in the dehumidifier coils.

That is why you needed active carbon filter to remove many of these undesirable organic compounds and large particulate matter from the dehumidifier condensate, and a UV light to kill the microorganisms.

But I agree with everyone that the device doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. One could tinker with an ordinary $150 dehumidifier from Home depot, add an activated carbon gravity filter and a UV light, which at the most could add $50 more.

So the introductory price of $1,300 is way too much compared to what is basically a dehumidifier with a couple of cheap add-ons.

But I'd love to see a dehumidifier extract water outside the house when the RH regularly dips down to 15% during the hottest days of summer. If these can be solar powered, they might be good enough to water my rare plants in the garden without problem of salts and ground water contaminants.

[allen415]

Love the video much! Very interesting! Good ideas to preserve money and use natural resources! I saw more information at: http://www.cjarticles.com check it out!

[iamkelmorris]

http://www.bobbys-healthy-shop.co.uk/shop/page/8