mildew resistant safes?

[rosawendel]

we have a small fire-resistant document safe for passports, social security cards, birth certificates, etc. The problem that we're having (and i think it's common to the industry) is that over time, we've had mildew develop inside the safe, which is really stinkifying the documents. we've tried dessicant packets out the yin yang, as well as opening the safe to let it "air out", but to no avail. when i ask the manufacturers for siggestions or alternative products, i get the dessicant packet speech.
are there really no alternatives to this? thanks in advance.

[Methanolandbrats]

Sentry?

[G.]

dessicants get full. They need to be dried out. I have a big jar of the stuff (no idea where you could buy this offhand) that I "recharge" every 6 months or so and put back in the safe. I put a couple of shot glasses worth of the bulk crystals/globs in the safe after I turn it bright blue in the oven (about an hour at 300 degrees, with it spread out in a pie tin).

You may want to try ripping open a bunch of packets (I would recommend the ones that have round-ish boogers in them, not the sand type - just because I've never messed with the sand type), putting them in a throw-away pie tin and seeing if they are indicating globs. Some dessicants do not change color when they are ready. My safe also came with some magic paper that you are supposed to leave in there (and roast occasionally, but not at 300).

Reading this ^^^ makes me sound like an anal engineer. :laugh:
But you gots the mildew, and I don't.

I use 2 plastic cups full in the gun safe, but gun safes actually have aftermarket driers that you can install, a heater for your heaters, if you will.

[cameraman]

Moving to Utah will solve that problem.

Otherwise you might try Drierite (http://www.drierite.com/)

It is the blue stuff you see in every laboratory on the planet. You can recycle it by tossing it in the oven for a while to dry it out again.

[nrc]

Is the safe you have now supposed to be water proof? A typical fire safe isn't necessarily air tight. So as others have suggested, desiccants will eventually lose their effectiveness. A water tight safe might do a better job of keeping moist air out to allow a desiccant to last longer.

[rosawendel]

cool. thanks for the help, everyone.

[G.]

cool. thanks for the help, everyone.

Another way of saying, "GDammit! Another desiccant packet speech!"
:D

It was a good reminder for me to cook some boogers to a royal blue hue.

[Insomniac]

This is interesting. Do banks do anything special to keep the mildew out of safe deposit boxes?

[cameraman]

Depends greatly on the bank. The good ones keep the building around the vault dehumidified and they have industrial amounts of desiccant in pretty containers in the vaults. If your "bank" is actually a store in a strip mall you are pretty much on your own. I don't know when bank branches turned into stores but it is just one more step in the slide.:shakehead