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Why Wet?


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Leaky containers in damp/unsheltered spots. A properly sealed container won't need ziplocks to keep the log dry.

 

I found a cache last week - hidden in 2000, original logbook was there, not in a ziplock, and was dry and in good condition. It was in a secondary container inside a buried bucket.

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She believes it's from people leaving the zips open.

A couple of drops of water per find (or if it's opened in a rain shower), can cause a log sheet to be wet. Once wet, if it's then wrapped and placed into a rather water-sealed container, it stays wet.

 

My sealed match tubes and genuine Lock-n-Locks are the worst of my cache containers for having water inside. The contents will get more and more wet in just a few finds, if water is on the outside of the box and it's opened with no care. I don't see soaked logs when the container was not opened, so I think those containers aren't letting water in through the seal. But a 5-gallon bucket around here is a different animal. Gamma-seal O-ring lid, sealed tight, nobody touched it. Check it in 6 months after the normal amount of rain, and there's a half-gallon of water inside. Weird.

 

And I've seen my metal pin buttons (handmade sig items) rust inside a mint condition ziplock bag over time, when the bag was not touched. Water gets in. Plus there's humidity in the air.

 

One or two of my caches are sheltered, and that keeps some water off the seal that may otherwise get in when opened. My driest Micro was a plastic 35mm film canister which didn't seal well. It was hanging on its side lengthwise, and had a cover from rain. Water evaporated and the log would dry. But the signatures bled. You could tell that the paper was getting wet at times.

 

I use a quality ziplock bag sized for its container, in Lock-N-Locks and Ammo cans. I visit the micros more often, dry them, and change the log sheet.

Edited by kunarion
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The container must function to keep the interior dry, no plastic baggie is going to do this job for long, regardless of care taken or not taken in handling the bag.

 

The best containers are ammo cans, for micros, preforms work, and there are other containers: quality matters.

 

Using a container that was meant to survive outside and keep the contents dry will work for a while. Even among the better containers, most aren't meant for many repeats of opening and closing and will need to be replaced.

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I found a cache last week - hidden in 2000, original logbook was there, not in a ziplock, and was dry and in good condition. It was in a secondary container inside a buried bucket.

 

Don't say that, before you know it someone will say "against the guidelines" and wants it archived :ph34r:

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Nobody has answered the question.

I believe that it is from humid air being trapped in the container that condenses.

 

Kunarian did in the first line, but I'll say the same thing, just a different way. Crappy caches (orbit being left open) will let water in, it's a given. But a watertight cache (or cache that's closed/no air in ziplock) will keep water in, as well as out. So if it's raining or the log gets dropped or whatever when the cache is fkind, even that one raindrop will stay in the cache.

Edited by T.D.M.22
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I found a cache last week - hidden in 2000, original logbook was there, not in a ziplock, and was dry and in good condition. It was in a secondary container inside a buried bucket.

 

Don't say that, before you know it someone will say "against the guidelines" and wants it archived :ph34r:

 

And then someone else will point out that in 2000 it wasn't against the guidelines.

 

 

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I found a cache last week - hidden in 2000, original logbook was there, not in a ziplock, and was dry and in good condition. It was in a secondary container inside a buried bucket.

 

Don't say that, before you know it someone will say "against the guidelines" and wants it archived :ph34r:

 

And then someone else will point out that in 2000 it wasn't against the guidelines.

 

That hasn't stopped some. :ph34r:

 

BTW, choosing which caches to find will drastically lower the amount of wet logs. We begin to see "double containers" more too. Film canister in a tupperware box, tupperwarebox in an ammobox,... Ziplock bags tend to be left open or get punctured quickly. Wet logs are mostly a problem because of cachers not taking the time to firmly close containers (and subsequently rehiding a cache in a decent method).

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We use Rite in Rain paper, and no baggies for most our hides, though we do have opened gallon size (just to separate the log & trackables from swag) in our ammo cans.

Maybe we should make shelving instead, as on maintenance the baggies are always sealed.

Every once in a while we receive a log, "someone took the baggy, replaced it for you. :) ", and nearly every time maintenance is done, the log's inside a (often) too-large baggy.

I don't get it...

 

A quality container needs no "baggy" to keep the log dry.

We have a plano stowaway product testing, sitting in the back yard for over two years now, with its loose (no baggy) original piece of construction paper in it (we wanted to use something that'd soak up water). It's been opened for five minutes (or how long it takes me to have a smoke...) twice a week.

- Still dry.

We're seeing pretzel barrels and plastic coffee cans with logs in film cans, as a means to keep a log dry while in a carpy container.

Sheesh...

The few times we've ever had wet logs were people who cached in the pouring rain, with no means to protect the cache/log (a simple umbrella will do...).

"Pouring today ! Wanted to play anyway. Good thing we had our raingear."

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I found a cache last week - hidden in 2000, original logbook was there, not in a ziplock, and was dry and in good condition. It was in a secondary container inside a buried bucket.

 

Don't say that, before you know it someone will say "against the guidelines" and wants it archived :ph34r:

 

And then someone else will point out that in 2000 it wasn't against the guidelines.

 

That hasn't stopped some. :ph34r:

 

BTW, choosing which caches to find will drastically lower the amount of wet logs.

 

Given that cache listings typically don't include what type of container was used how does one choose which caches to find based upon the container type?

 

 

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Given that cache listings typically don't include what type of container was used how does one choose which caches to find based upon the container type?

 

As you might know by now, we carefully select caches we want to do. That means reading listings and logs. A lot can be learned that way. We don't do LPC's and the lot but go for (what we consider) quality caches which means less messy containers/logs.

While I don't always log NM on a web/moist log I will almost always mention problems in my log or occasionally send an e-mail to the CO.

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Nobody has answered the question.

I believe that it is from humid air being trapped in the container that condenses.

There was a very helpful post here that said that and covered other possibilities well.

 

It's not just condensation, since nanos and similar micro caches tend to be soaked even with an intact O-ring, and there's not a lot of volume for condensed water to occur. Also, I don't see the effect as often in ammo cans, although smaller containers tend to have pooling water. If it's due to condensation, maybe it's a temperature thing.

Edited by kunarion
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A quality container needs no "baggy" to keep the log dry.

In one ammo can hide, I have a cache log book inside a ziplock bag. A finder closed a corner of the ziplock bag in the ammo can's lip seal, set the can back on its side, and that week the monsoon arrived. Everything inside was soaked except the log. So the bag is the reason the log was dry and the reason everything else got wet. :rolleyes:

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What's a wet log? He said from southern Arizona..

 

:laughing:

 

I had to laugh at this. A few years ago I went on a short trip to Phoenix and found a few caches in the desert while I was there. I can't believe what you guys can get away with in that climate! A briefase? Real Tupperware? Cookie tins? Are you kidding me?

 

I've found caches in briefcases, Tupperware, and cookie tins here in eastern Ontario, and let me tell you, they were in sorry condition.

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This is what three years of condensation looks like in a container that's not perfectly airtight (a coffee can).

 

8182bbcb-51cf-4933-ac27-823b76f7908f_l.jpg

 

Cools down at night, cache inhales, moist air condenses. Heats up during the day, exhale, repeat.

 

23b51fe7-e88b-4c8f-91ac-6712468f7c20_l.jpg

(That's an inner coffee can you can see through the lid, and much to my surprise, the contents inside that were dry. And now that it's been six more years (this cache), I fully expect the next finder to report it's finally rusted right through.)

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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I believe squeezing the air out of a baggy can help keep a log dryer by reducing the amount of humid air in there, but it isn't the full answer. The idea of double enclosure mentioned here intrigues me, I may start putting logs in a separate pill bottle or similar. In fact, just did so with old logs at one cache to preserve them.

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I was utterly shocked that the last cache of the day today had a dry log (in fact the only dry one of the day). There was a baggie, but the "container" was just duct tape folded into kind of a pocket. Was the original log (2013) and looked like it had never been so much as damp, right down to crisp corners and folds. Granted, it was an LPC...yeah, yeah, not my favorite, but I didn't know until I was there. What I suspect was that the baggie had stayed flat, and hadn't ever been rolled or folded or squished into a bison tube, with the bonus of no edges or corners rubbing on the bag, either.

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What's a wet log? He said from southern Arizona..

 

:laughing:

 

I had to laugh at this. A few years ago I went on a short trip to Phoenix and found a few caches in the desert while I was there. I can't believe what you guys can get away with in that climate! A briefase? Real Tupperware? Cookie tins? Are you kidding me?

 

I've found caches in briefcases, Tupperware, and cookie tins here in eastern Ontario, and let me tell you, they were in sorry condition.

Tis true. Although the rattlesnakes and scorpions are very fond of briefcases, tupperwear and cookie tins. What we lack in moisture we more than make up in the sningy/bitey/creepy department.

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Here is my view. Condensation is a huge factor. But just as big is the ziplock bag interfering with the seal (or other debris). Usually, a ziplock bag will actually work against you. It will only function as intended for less than 5 finds, but will very often interfere with the seal, making the whole cache wet. Just say no to ziplock bags!

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