Climate control

Now Peggy is safely tucked up in bed in her new home, I am concentrating on making the transition from her former one as comfortable as possible.

This is the enclosure in which she is sitting.

It's assembled from 50 mm foil-backed insulation panels screwed to a timber frame, and it is very close-fitting to the boat. Air humidified to 85% (relative humidity) is fed in though ducts on the port side (we're using a Defensor PH28A humidifier). Self-closing vents on the starboard side allow the release of excess pressure from the sealed enclosure. Because of this positive pressure we've not needed to worry about sealing every joint in the enclosure, though we could always do so if I think the enclosure isn't maintaining the desired level of humidity. For now it seems the efficiency of the enclosure is very high, because the humidifier appears only to have deployed once. Peggy herself of course presents 1.5 tonnes of humidity-buffering material containing 17-20% water, so perhaps it's not surprising we're not putting the machinery under too much stress! The conditions inside and outside the enclosure are monitored continually with Eltek GD10 radio sensors. I'm also recording the wall and floor temperatures using GD21 sensors with thermocouple probes, and there are flood sensors surrounding the humidifier in case it springs a leak. All the data is fed to a networked logger that is accessible over the internet. By these means I hope to make the management of humidity and it's eventual reduction as tightly controlled and energy efficient as possible.

Plant and equipment supplied by Novatron Scientific Ltd. (UK).