Make your own wet and dry

bulb hygrometer

To make a wet and dry bulb hygrometer you will need:

2 x alcohol thermometers

1 x 2 litre plastic bottle

Sticky tape

A short length of string, or a piece of fabric

1 x rubber band

Scissors

Assembly instructions:

Using the scissors, cut a small hole about 3” from the bottom of the bottle. The hole should be
about 1” square.
Attach both thermometers side by side on the side of the bottle using the tape. Ensure that the
bulbs of the thermometers sit just above the hole.
Hold the string (or fabric) onto the bulb of one thermometer and wind the rubber band around
the bulb and string (or fabric) to keep it in place.
Feed the other end of the string (or fabric) through the hole and into the water. It may be
necessary to cut the string to a shorter length.
 Helpful hints

Use alcohol thermometers in preference to mercury thermometers wherever possible – they are
safer.
The string (or fabric) is going to act like a wick, carrying water to the thermometer bulb. For the
hygrometer to work properly, the string and ‘wet’ thermometer bulb must indeed be wet!
Allow sufficient time for the water to travel along the string length.

? How does this type of hygrometer work?

A hygrometer measures the relative humidity (water content) of the air. To make the
hygrometer work, moving air is required to evaporate moisture from the wet bulb, but
not have a cooling effect on the dry bulb. The wet bulb will ordinarily show a
temperature reading lower than that on the dry bulb. That difference in temperature is
dictated by the humidity in the air. The greater the humidity, the less difference there
will be between the two temperatures. In this example, the dry bulb reads 21oc, and
the wet bulb shows 19oc, indicating 90% humidity. 100% humidity means that the air is
saturated with moisture, so cannot absorb any more moisture from the wet bulb.
Without evaporation there will be no cooling, so at 100% humidity both thermometers
will display the same temperature.

? Still not sure about ‘Evaporative Cooling’

When you have a hot shower in a bathroom without the window open, or the fan on, the air will
remain moisture laden (and the mirror will remain steamed up!) until an air flow is created
which will allow the moving air to absorb moisture and lower the humidity. As the air dries, the
temperature drops and the moisture in the air evaporates.

At a swimming pool you feel quite warm at the water’s edge. Once you come out of the water,
and are wet, you now feel cold. Our skin feels temperatures differently when it is dry and when
it is wet. For example, will you catch the cold with wet hair, or just feel cold? Our skin is
naturally dry and does not stay wet, but as water evaporates from the skin’s surface, it has a
cooling effect as evaporating water molecules take heat energy with them in the process.
Would you feel a temperature change in a rain forest if you had to travel through deep water
and out the other side?