Project 1 from CGCINC: Category: General welding repair

[CGCINC]

***Custom brackets to hang dehumidifier in crawlspace***

So two months ago my friend and I completely sealed his crawlspace with 12mil plastic sheet. Taped all the joints and sealed the small vents/windows shut. He was tired of loosing all his AC and heat to that area and it really worked well! He said the electric bill dropped by 40% which is huge!! He got to thinking and didn't want to create another problem by holding in moisture so he decided to buy an industrial sized Dehumidifier to install down there......... and on to the project.

We decided to hang the unit from the beam under his floor joists so we needed some brackets.
I used 1/4" x 2" flat bar for the "U" of the bracket and 1/4" x 2" angle for the lower mounting tab.
It would have been easy to MIG weld it, zippity doo, and forget about it but I decided to use the TIG to get the job done since I have more fun with it.







This weld was done quickly and I just left the rod in the corner and used small circles with the torch...I was hot and in a hurry!



Once it was welded we drilled holes to run our threaded rod through. We had no luck finding any metric threaded rod locally so we bought some longer metric bolts that would thread into the unit and welded some 5/16" threaded rod to the bolts.




Of course we needed to paint the brackets....



And we wanted to keep any vibrations to a minimum so we lined the brackets with foam rubber... As well as rubber bumpers for the threaded rod to rest on....






Next was to mount the Dehumidifier....

[CGCINC]

Up it goes! We used a level to fine tune it and it was up!





Next process was to cut a drain from his bathroom and tie into it. We used a "Y" with an assortment of other pieces to get to the barbed fitting that the drain hose would fit on......






There were no outlets at all in the basement so we changed the single switch for the lights down there to a double switch, ran wire over to where it is mounted and installed an outlet that is controled by the switch....






And that is pretty much it!
The only thing left is to install some duct work that will come off the 6" outlet on the side of the dehumidifier and run to the other side of the crawlspace.

[undercut]

Nice job! I like how you improvised on those long bolts. You got to do some TIG'ing too. Looks like you are making really good use of that TIG machine!

[CGCINC]

Nice job! I like how you improvised on those long bolts. You got to do some TIG'ing too. Looks like you are making really good use of that TIG machine!

We thought we needed longer rods than we really did... looks stupid with those rods sticking up but we were tired said..... Well, you know what we said!

[zoama]

Fine looking job. Did he get a quote on spray foam insulation ?

[CGCINC]

Fine looking job. Did he get a quote on spray foam insulation ?

I don't think so.... He saw this plastic kit on some website and decided to do it. I think it was about $1000 for the kit and he spent $942 on the dehumidifier. Alot of money but his electric bill went from almost $300 down to $176 last month.