What is DryBook Equipment?
The Equipment section records where equipment is placed, when it was installed, and when it was removed, giving you a complete timeline of your drying setup.
It tracks where drying equipment is placed, not just which equipment exists. It answers:
- What equipment is on site?
- Where is it located?
- When was it placed?
- When was it removed?
Adding Equipment
- Open Equipment.
- Select a chamber and room.
- Tap Add Equipment.
- Choose the equipment item.As you tick items, the recommendation tiles for the target room and chamber update straight away, so you can see whether you have met the recommendation before you save. Ticking an air mover will not move the dehumidification count, and vice versa — each item counts toward its own equipment type.
- Confirm:
- Placement date
- Placement time
- (Optional) Enter removal date and time.
- Save.
This creates a time-stamped placement record for each piece of equipment. The tiles refresh when you land back on the equipment page.
Note: Equipment already placed in the room you have selected is left out of the list, because picking it again would not change anything. Equipment in use on another project still appears, but Albi will ask you to confirm before reassigning it.
Note: Equipment marked as removed stops counting toward the recommendation tiles, so a tile can go back to amber or red after a demobilisation.
Moving Equipment
Use the Move Equipment sheet to relocate a unit that is already placed.
While the move is in progress, the destination's recommendation tile counts the unit as though it were already there, so you can see the effect before committing to it. Nothing is saved until you save.
- Cancelling the move leaves everything as it was.
- Choosing the room the unit is already in will not count it twice.
Equipment Recommendations
Albi calculates how much drying equipment the affected areas call for, following the IICRC S500 standard, and shows the result on tiles throughout the app. There are two separate recommendations:
- Air movers — calculated per room
- LGR dehumidification — calculated per chamber
The recommendations appear in three places: the mobile app, the web DryBook, and the printed drybook report. Albi calculates the numbers once and shows the same result everywhere, so all three always agree for the same drybook.
Note: These are recommendations, not limits. Albi will never stop you placing fewer or more units than recommended. The tile only reports what the standard calls for against what you have placed — the final call is yours, based on what you are seeing on site.
Where the Tiles Appear
| Where | Which tiles |
|---|---|
| A room's Moisture Points and Equipment page | That room's air movers, and its chamber's dehumidification |
| The DryBook Equipment list | Air movers per room, dehumidification per chamber |
| Select Equipment, the picker used when adding | The target room and chamber, updating as items are ticked |
| Move Equipment sheet | The chamber and room currently selected as the destination |
Reading a Tile
A collapsed tile shows four things: the equipment type, the room or chamber name followed by what is required, how many you have placed, and a status colour.
| Colour | Air movers | Dehumidification |
|---|---|---|
| Red | Nothing placed | Nothing placed |
| Amber | Some placed, but fewer than the low end of the range | Not used |
| Green | The low end of the range is reached or passed | At least one placed |
Air movers show a range, for example "7-10 reqd", unless the low and high ends happen to be the same, in which case you will see a single number.
Note: Green means you are inside the recommended range, not at the top of it. A room recommending 7-10 air movers turns green at 7. Anything from 7 upward meets the standard.
Tap any tile to expand it and see every figure behind the number, so you can justify the count to an adjuster without redoing the arithmetic by hand.
How Air Movers Are Calculated
| Component | Imperial | Metric |
|---|---|---|
| Room baseline | 1 per room | 1 per room |
| Floor air movers | low = affected floor ÷ 70 high = ÷ 50 |
low = ÷ 6.5 high = ÷ 4.5 |
| Wall and ceiling air movers | low = (affected wall + ceiling) ÷ 150 high = ÷ 100 |
low = ÷ 14 high = ÷ 9.3 |
| Offsets and insets | +1 each | +1 each |
Every division rounds up to the next whole air mover. Three details account for most of the "that number looks wrong" questions:
- The bottom of every wall is excluded. Air movers dry the upper wall, so Albi leaves out the bottom 2 ft in imperial, or the bottom 60 cm in metric. The tile labels this "Affected wall above 2 ft".
- Wall and ceiling are added together before dividing, not calculated separately and then added. Dividing them separately rounds up twice and gives a higher number than Albi shows.
- Each offset or inset adds one air mover. These are recesses deeper than 18 in (45 cm) — alcoves, bays and closet openings — because air will not turn the corner into a recess on its own. Recesses shallower than that should not be counted, since counting them inflates your recommendation.
Note: Floor area, ceiling area, wall area and wall length are always calculated from the room's dimensions or its sketch, and cannot be edited directly. To change them, change the dimensions or the sketch. Only the affected percentages and areas are typed in by hand.
Very Small Rooms
A room with a floor area under 25 ft² (2.3 m²) will only ever recommend the single baseline air mover, whatever the surfaces work out to — a closet does not need four air movers. The expanded tile shows a note explaining this, so the surface figures above it are shown but not counted.
How Dehumidification Is Calculated
This recommendation is per chamber, not per room, because a chamber is dried as one air space. Albi adds up the volume of every room in the chamber, then divides by a factor for the chamber's water class and rounds up. The result is shown in pints per day (imperial) or litres per day (metric).
That is the simple method, which is the default. Albi also supports the S500's detailed method, which sizes dehumidification from the building's conditions as well — see The Detailed Method below.
Note: Albi counts units, not capacity. One dehumidifier turns the tile green even when the chamber requires 38 pints per day, because Albi cannot tell whether the unit you placed actually delivers that. Matching capacity to the requirement is still up to you — a green tile confirms something is placed, not that it is big enough.
Automatic Water Class
A chamber's water class can be set manually or left on Auto. On Auto, Albi derives it from how much of the chamber's surface area is affected: for every room it adds up the affected floor, ceiling and wall areas, divides by the total surface area of the chamber, and reads the class off that percentage.
| Affected surface area | Class on Auto |
|---|---|
| Under 5% | Class 1 |
| 5% to 40% | Class 2 |
| Over 40% | Class 3 |
| Not applicable | Class 4 is a manual selection only, and is never chosen automatically |
Exactly 5% and exactly 40% both read as Class 2 — the boundaries belong to the middle band.
Two things about Auto are worth knowing:
- The percentage is chamber-wide, not per room. A large dry room dilutes a small soaked one. The same soaked room can land a chamber on Class 3 next to one dry room of equal size, or Class 2 next to nine times as much dry surface.
- Auto never picks Class 4. Even a chamber that is 100% affected everywhere derives Class 3, because Class 4 describes deeply held moisture in materials like hardwood, plaster and concrete, which cannot be read off areas and percentages. Choose it manually if the job calls for it.
If a chamber has no rooms, or its rooms have no dimensions yet, Auto has nothing to classify. The chamber then has no class, no dehumidification tile, and no dehumidification block in the report. It resolves as soon as a room gets dimensions, or you choose a class manually.
The class selection keeps reading Auto; what it resolved to shows wherever the class is used. Any edit to a room's dimensions or affected areas re-derives it immediately. Setting a manual class stops the movement.
The Detailed Method
The IICRC S500 sizes LGR dehumidification two ways. The simple method divides the chamber volume by a water class factor. The detailed method divides by a base AHAM figure instead, then scales the result with multipliers for the water class and the building's conditions, so the answer reflects the actual structure being dried.
It is one switch per drybook, off by default. When it is on, it applies to every chamber in that drybook.
Note: The detailed method only ever changes dehumidification. Air mover recommendations never move with it, whatever you select.
Where to Find It
In the mobile app there is a Detailed Method button in two places:
- At the bottom of the site information page
- At the top of the equipment page
The button reads "Simple method · Tap to configure" when the detailed method is off, and shows the active multiplier, for example "1.65× multiplier active", when it is on. Either button opens the configurator, which holds the toggle, the five condition sections and a live breakdown.
Note: Nothing persists until you tap Save.
The Five Building Conditions
Every option carries its multiplier, shown beside it in the dropdowns. An option you have not set counts as a neutral ×1.0.
| Build-out density | Multiplier | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Very open | ×0.6 | Factory, warehouse, box store or theatre |
| Fairly open | ×0.8 | School or open concept office |
| Average | ×1.0 | Most homes or hotels |
| Dense | ×1.2 | Medical office or closed office space |
| Building construction | Multiplier | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Standard finishes | ×1.0 | Builder-grade wood or vinyl finishes |
| High-end finishes | ×1.5 | Architectural-grade panelling, insulation, wood trim |
| HVAC support | Multiplier | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | ×1.0 | HVAC system is present and operating |
| No | ×1.3 | System not present, or not operable |
Weather and envelope only carry a factor as a pair. The prevailing weather is Favorable (aids drying, under 40 GPP or a 43°F dew point), Neutral (40 to 60 GPP) or Unfavorable (hinders drying, over 60 GPP). The building envelope is Tight (outdoor conditions cannot enter), Moderate (lets some in) or Loose (not protected from the outdoors).
| Envelope | Favorable | Neutral | Unfavorable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tight | ×1.0 | ×1.0 | ×1.2 |
| Moderate | ×0.9 | ×1.1 | ×1.4 |
| Loose | ×0.8 | ×1.2 | ×1.6 |
A favorable climate on a loose building can genuinely reduce the requirement, at ×0.8 or ×0.9, because the outside air is helping the dry.
When the site has no stored value for a section, the configurator preselects the neutral option: Average, Standard finishes, Yes, and the Neutral and Tight pair. All of those are ×1.0.
How the Calculation Works
The four condition factors multiply into the conditions multiplier, which is site-wide — every chamber shares it. Each chamber then multiplies in its own class factor: ×1.0 for Class 1, ×1.5 for Class 2, ×2.0 for Class 3 and ×2.3 for Class 4. A chamber on Auto uses the factor for whichever class it derived.
The combined multiplier is the conditions multiplier × the class factor. Required capacity is then the chamber volume ÷ 70 (the base AHAM divisor, or 4.2 in metric) × the combined multiplier, rounded up.
Note: Under the detailed method the class stops being a divisor and becomes a multiplier. This is why all-neutral selections do not reproduce the simple method's number — it is different arithmetic, not the same sum with different inputs.
Why You See Two Different Multipliers
The configurator, its button and the page header show the conditions multiplier, the part every chamber shares. The dehumidification tile and the report show the combined multiplier, which is the conditions multiplier × that chamber's class factor.
If you see ×1.65 on the button and ×2.48 on a tile, you are looking at the same settings — once without the chamber's class, and once with it.
Shared With the Site Information
Weather, envelope, density and construction are the same stored values as the building section of the site information, so editing either place edits both. HVAC support exists only in the configurator.
If you open the configurator while the site form is holding building picks you have not saved yet, the configurator previews those picks. They persist only when one of the two forms is saved.
Note: Turning the detailed method off keeps your selections. They simply stop being applied, and the numbers return to the simple method.
Some Options Were Renamed
The dropdowns changed when the multipliers arrived, and stored selections were remapped once rather than cleared. Under build-out density, "Fairly dense" is now Dense, and Very open is new. Under building construction, "Poor" and "Average" are now Standard finishes, and "Good" is now High-end finishes. If you notice an old selection appearing under a new name, this migration is why.
Recommendations in the DryBook Report
The drybook report prints the same recommendations as the tiles, worked out fresh at the moment the report is generated. Each chamber's pages carry a Dehumidification block with the full calculation breakdown and the equipment placed, and the rooms table gains AMs Req'd and AMs Placed columns with the same status dots as the tiles. Each room's pages carry an Air Mover Calculation block mirroring the expanded tile.
Note: The report is a snapshot. It prints what the drybook contains at the moment it is generated, so if rooms, classes, placed equipment or the detailed method change afterwards, an already-generated PDF keeps the old numbers. Generate a new report to refresh them.
Mobile and Web Show the Same Numbers
Albi calculates the recommendations once and shows the same result in both the mobile app and the web DryBook. If you are seeing different numbers on the two, one screen is showing older data — leave and re-enter the equipment page on mobile, or reopen the page on web.
For the full worked examples, the detailed method's worked example, and the complete list of what changes a recommendation, see the web version of this article.
Frequently Asked Questions
My room is asking for far too many air movers.
Tap the tile to expand it. Usually one of two things is happening: the affected percentages are still at 100% for all three surfaces when only part of the room is actually wet, or the offsets counter has been used for shallow recesses. Both will raise the count legitimately.
Why is there a range instead of one number?
The standard gives a range per square foot of affected surface, so Albi shows both ends. The low end is the minimum that meets the standard; the high end dries faster. Anything within the range is compliant.
When exactly does the air mover tile turn green?
When the placed count reaches the low end of the range. A 7-10 room is green at 7.
A closet is only recommending one air mover. Is that right?
Yes. Rooms under 25 ft² (2.3 m²) only recommend the single baseline unit, and the expanded tile shows a note saying so.
The wall figure looks smaller than I expected.
The bottom 2 ft (60 cm) of every wall is deliberately excluded, since air movers are drying the upper wall. The tile labels this "Affected wall above 2 ft".
What counts as an offset or inset?
A recess deeper than 18 in (45 cm) — an alcove, bay or closet opening. Each adds one air mover. Shallower recesses should not be counted.
The placed count went up before I saved anything.
That is expected. Ticked items in the picker, and the destination of a move in progress, are counted live so you can see the result before saving. Nothing is stored until you save.
Some equipment is missing from the picker.
Equipment already placed in the target room is hidden on purpose, since picking it again would not change anything. Equipment in use on another project still appears, but will ask you to confirm before it is reassigned.
I turned the detailed method on and every chamber's number jumped.
That is expected. The divisor changes from the class factor to the base AHAM figure of 70 (4.2 in metric), and the water class and building conditions come back in as multipliers. Even all-neutral selections give a different number, because it is different arithmetic.
The button says ×1.65 but the tile says ×2.48.
Both are right. The button shows the conditions multiplier, which every chamber shares. The tile multiplies in that chamber's class factor on top of it.
I enabled the detailed method on one chamber. Is it on for the others?
Yes. It is one drybook-wide setting. Only the class factor varies per chamber.
Air movers did not change after I turned the detailed method on.
They never do. The detailed method only refines dehumidification.
My saved density or construction option is gone.
It was renamed, not cleared. "Fairly dense" is now Dense, "Poor" and "Average" are now Standard finishes, and "Good" is now High-end finishes.
A chamber is soaked everywhere but Auto shows Class 3, not Class 4.
That is correct. Auto never selects Class 4, because Class 4 describes deeply held moisture in materials that cannot be read off areas and percentages. Choose Class 4 manually if the job calls for it.
I do not see a dehumidification tile at all.
The chamber has no water class resolved yet, so there is nothing to calculate from. Set a class, or give the chamber rooms with dimensions so Auto can derive one.
Related Articles
- How Do I Track Equipment and Use Equipment Recommendations in DryBook? (Web)
If you have questions or run into an issue, contact Albi Support and we will be happy to help.