Humidity Meters and use outside?

[ericmark]

I have a friend who owns a small woodland and he was interested in the effect of humidity and was wondering how the stream drying up was effecting his woodland. So we bought a cheap electronic humidity meter.
Something like this.

He put it in a bird box to protect from direct rain but very soon after starting to use got either zero or 100% readings and took to more sheltered location in porch where it seems to have shown 100% for most of the time.

It could be 100% for some of the time but not all of the time.

So latter I bought a weather station giving temp and humidity both direct and from a remote with also direct reading of pressure and time.

Interested in tomatoes the remote was placed in the green house first day got varying readings as expected but after first day always 95% which is the maximum on the out door station range 20% to 95%.

I moved to shed and still always showing 95% so wanted to monitor some wine so moved indoors where the base station was showing 54% humidity and very slowly the humidity of the remote has been dropping. After around an hour falling to 67% so meter is working it would seem.

However I am starting to wonder if dampness inside the remote was resulting in false readings where even when the atmosphere dried out the sensor still has so much water in it the readings are always high. The readings are still dropping and I wonder if these electronic humidity meters are really giving a useful reading for outside?

Converting to dew point between 5.4 and 14.4 degs C over last week which does seem within the expected range and in the woodland it is the dew point which is of interest.

I am sure gardeners also use weather stations and measure humidity so wondering what you all use to measure humidity. Looked for wet/dry thermometer seems they are quite rare today.

Thanks for any replies.

 

[Safety First]

I have a friend who owns a small woodland and he was interested in the effect of humidity and was wondering how the stream drying up was effecting his woodland. So we bought a cheap electronic humidity meter.
Something like this.

He put it in a bird box to protect from direct rain but very soon after starting to use got either zero or 100% readings and took to more sheltered location in porch where it seems to have shown 100% for most of the time.

It could be 100% for some of the time but not all of the time.

So latter I bought a weather station giving temp and humidity both direct and from a remote with also direct reading of pressure and time.

Interested in tomatoes the remote was placed in the green house first day got varying readings as expected but after first day always 95% which is the maximum on the out door station range 20% to 95%.

I moved to shed and still always showing 95% so wanted to monitor some wine so moved indoors where the base station was showing 54% humidity and very slowly the humidity of the remote has been dropping. After around an hour falling to 67% so meter is working it would seem.

However I am starting to wonder if dampness inside the remote was resulting in false readings where even when the atmosphere dried out the sensor still has so much water in it the readings are always high. The readings are still dropping and I wonder if these electronic humidity meters are really giving a useful reading for outside?

Converting to dew point between 5.4 and 14.4 degs C over last week which does seem within the expected range and in the woodland it is the dew point which is of interest.

I am sure gardeners also use weather stations and measure humidity so wondering what you all use to measure humidity. Looked for wet/dry thermometer seems they are quite rare today.

Thanks for any replies.

I can't be of any use but was wondering if you had any updates on the merits of the unit you bought- did it behave? My reason for interest...

I don't want the loft sprayed for woodworm which is active. I have 400mm of insulation to go onto current 100mm but want to wait until the loft has dried out. 1930s house, just re-roofed. Formerly black felt (non-breathing), with insulation stuffed into eaves, and pan tiles that leaked.

So, I hope to put a remote meter in the loft and watch levels drop towards next winter when I will lay out the new insulation over dry ceiling joists.

If you recommend the make +model, send me a PM please?

 

[ericmark]

The Lidi unit indoors worked well the humidity in house 34% to 69% started in October steady reduction as winter progressed which is what I would expect.

Outside it was first used in greenhouse and always 95% (Max) which was expected and then in shed over a disused pond with a leak in the roof also most of the time 95% but moved onto window sill and even in January after noon the reading drops to around 85% so clearly location was the problem.

Humidity is slow to react temperature can be dropping every 5 mins but humidity takes around an hour to alter as moved room to room which for the idea of moving one unit around the woodland to see how the humidity changed was rather useless. Also moving from max to other location it can take days to dry out so both master and slave show same reading.

I am sure in your loft the Lidi unit would work well think they are on sale at the moment.

For other functions I was surprised that even in North Wales it picks up German time signal and auto corrects the clock. It did go wrong once I thought I would need to correct manual but looked next time and it had corrected. The hPa reading one is supposed to be able to change to inches of mercury but needs correcting to ones own altitude and since web sites show it as hPa I have left it at that and got use to new units. History is interesting as one can see trend with pressure.

Other readings the trend is too fast reading and while I have been writing this slowly temperature outside dropped 8:18 at 1.1 deg C now 8:59 at 0.3 deg C but the trend arrow shows it as steady. Oddly indoors showing a trend but think due to PC cooling fan blowing in direction of the device.

 

[Safety First]

So latter I bought a weather station giving temp and humidity both direct and from a remote

I bought a unit from amazon that had two remote sensors-paid 11 quid extra for second sensor . Gutted to find they don't actually detect humidity remotely, just temp. Humidity is only from main unit. I'm not complaining, buyer beware etc

No good to me as all I really wanted was to watch humidity changes without opening the loft and going up there. The Lidl ones do not detect humidity remotely. Are you sure yours did?