About 1/1000th of the earth’s water is in the atmosphere. All you need is a dehumidifier to get it out. But, you can do better than that.
Atmospheric Water Generators
An AWG cools the air below the dew point which causes air to give up its water. It then runs it through a filtration system before pumping it into your glass. The water is delicious.
The rate of water produced depends on relative humidity and air temperature. Our machine struggles with anything below 35% humidity. At 65 degrees it works very well. We’ve never tested it below 65.
Personal Experience
We have two AWGs. The one upstairs quenches our midnight thirst without tripping down stairs to the kitchen. It looks like a water cooler and blends in to the furniture on the landing.
We haven’t used the downstairs unit much because we have a 3-stage water filtration unit under the sink. I could always use it for spare parts in an emergency if one of the machines breaks down.
Recommendations
The machines are easy to maintain, but, you have to understand them and how to clean them out once in a while.
We change the filters every six months and the water tastes delicious. We did have a problem with one machine because the grate in the nozzle dispenser was not installed right at the factory. That eventually blocked the water from coming out. Unfortunately, I didn’t take the time to fix the problem, immediately. I did the worse thing you can do with one of these units: Shut it off and let it sit.
I recommend not shutting these units off and letting them sit. It creates standing water in various stages of the machine. To clean it out you have to run hydrogen peroxide through it a few times and change all the filters.
I recommend having a backup generator to run the units in an emergency. To be a true emergency backup water supply you’ll need to be able to power the unit if the grid goes down. The operating power for ours is listed at 500 Watts. Even a small generator will leave you with power to spare to run a refrigerator and TV.
Turn the hot water heating element off to save electricity. It’s listed as using another 500 Watts which is as much as the main unit.
1 Comment
I want to make sure that my home isn’t too dry. I didn’t even think about getting an atmospheric water generator! It would be so nice to not have to worry about dryness.