This is a small, electric dehumidifier that channels the water it pulls from the air to drip-water plants through plastic tubing. The tubing could be very small in diameter and made clear to be less obtrusive.

It could be a table-top device, and could water three or four plants simultaneously, depending on how close the plants are and how far you want to run the tubing.

Obviously this would only be useful in relatively humid climes (pun intended).

A quick search indicates a possible side benefit: reducing the moisture levels in a room increases the plant's transpiration rate (how quickly water leaves the plant through the leaf), which in turn increases the plant's nutrient uptake rate, thus increasing the plant's growth rate.
-- waugsqueke, Jun 16 2002

In my experience, dehumidifiers can often heat a room instead of cooling it. The only ones I've ever used, though, were nasty, clunky, huge, old ones. I used to live in a nice, cool basement which was also, unfortunately, extremely damp. It was always torture to sleep on the nights when I needed to leave the dehumidifier on because of 1) the racket but most of all because of 2) the suffocating heat the unit put out as it sucked the water out of the air. But, as I said, it was a near-antique and as a result was probably pretty inefficient compared to today's models.
-- jester, Jun 16 2002


I think [UnaBubba] meant a window-mounted or central AC system as opposed to the tabletop device [waugsqueke] describes.
-- phoenix, Jun 16 2002


not all of us live in hot countries, UB.. plenty of moisture available, though..
-- yamahito, Jun 17 2002


You live in the tropics. You don't *have* winter.
-- angel, Jun 17 2002


You poor, chilled soul! Somebody go brain a chicken and strangle some noodles while I bring the water to a boil-- this young'un needs some hot soup!
-- jester, Jun 17 2002


dehumidifiers cool the air on coils to collect the water, then heat them with the same coil.
-- -----, Nov 03 2004


This should be a kit for retrofitting a kitchen plant watering solution to your fridge - condensation from the back of the fridge would be chanelled via a series of beautifully reproduced minature Roman aqueducts to the pot plants in your kitchen.
That was "pot plants", not "'pot' plants", by the way.
-- hippo, Nov 03 2004


Not sure how long this system would work since the water you are condensing from the air would be missing minerals that i think the plant might miss. Try putting a Goldfish in water without minerals and see how long he will last, my record was 15 minutes.....poor fish, someone mixed up my water containers for my tanks.
-- mawgadog, Oct 06 2005



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