Storage cases with environmental control

Don't overlook the obvious alternative: constructing a wall and
installing a door to create a small, environmentally controllable space.
As the University Archivist and Records Manager at Appalachian State
University in Boone, NC, from 1986 to 1992, I installed two 5,000 BTU
air conditioners in the kind of space noted above, along with a
dehumidifier and a humidifier. The latter was actually never needed,
although I had originally suspected that the winters would be dry enough
to require one. The dehumidifier should be connected with a hose to an
outside window so that drainage can be automatic. Through this kind of
admittedly jury-rigged operation, I maintained temperatures of 70-73 and
an RH which varied from 40 to 50 percent, the latter figure occurring in
the summer. The latter also sounds high, but I have been told by
archivists in the business much longer than I have been that regardless
of system, it is extremely difficult to achieve an RH of lower than 40
percent in the South, in the summer.

The space I have described was about 30' by 30'.

Ed Southern
N.C. Division of Archives and History

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 8:16
                 Distributed: Thursday, August 25, 1994
                        Message Id: cdl-8-16-005
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