Day 36, a 1600 CFM Rigid Air Mover
Today's installment in Garage Gems is a departure from the tools and knick-knacks that have been the bread and butter of my ongoing series in documenting the eclectic collection of things that I have acquired over the years, and strays into the absolutely practical: a 1600 CFPM Air Mover, made by Rigid.
Some 25 years ago, we returned to our house from a vacation to find our dining room carpets were sodden and full of water. Some thousands of dollars later, we found that a tiny pinhole had formed in one of the pipes that came up through the concrete slab, a hole so tiny it was hard to even blow any air through, but since it was on the pressure supply side, over time it had saturated and seeped up through the slab into our dining room.
Sigh.
During that time I thought "gee, I should go out and buy something to help dry out our dining room" and I bought the largest air mover I could get from Home Depot. At the time I remember thinking "Is this a dumb purchase? Surely I'll never use this again, right?"
But it turns out that "yes, I will use it again."
Like:
- two different problems with water in our garage
- a catastrophic failure of a water supply line in our laundry room
- and several smaller issues that didn't rise to the level of catastrophe, and remained "inconvenience."
Each time, it kept an annoyance from becoming a disaster.
Like today, where we were using some of the washing machine cleaning tablets that we use on occasionally to ensure our fancy washing machine stays working well. Unfortunately, the particular brand we used seemed to foam excessively, and this caused our washing machine to go into an error state which created another (in the grand view of things, relatively minor) mess with water on the floor of our laundry room. Not a flood, but more than just a spill that you would clean up with a couple of paper towels.
So, we moved it out of the way, cleaned up any standing water, and set the air mover in place. And I suspect that in a couple of hours it will again be bone dry, before any chance that mold or mildew could form.
Ours is now 25 years old or so, so the particular model that we have isn't sold anymore, but there are some modern equivalents.
This one appears to be the spiritual descendent.
One of the things I like about the model we have is that it has a carrying handle, as well as wheels and a retracting handle like you see on suitcases, which makes moving it around pretty easy. It also has an amply long cord (30 feet), so you don't have to go digging for a separate extension cord. These features seem to be carried onto the modern equivalent.
Tomorrow now doubt I will return to the more whimsical world of antique tools and the like. But in terms of purely practical items, the Rigid air mover is a garage gem.
Thank God It's Friday. Stay well all.