During a particularly damp and dank winter, dehumidifiers have become a particularly important installation to help protect against damp and mould.

This has become increasingly the case since the first proposal for Awaab’s Law, which would require landlords to address damp within a set timeframe, with enforcement action possible if they do not comply.

The first dehumidifier to ever be installed was an air conditioner used for dehumidification purposes invented by Willis Carrier in 1902.

It was first used in a printing company in Brooklyn, New York, to help stop paper growing and shrinking over the summer months, ruining colour-printed images. The dehumidifier worked very well, birthed air conditioning as we know it and by 1914 the first air conditioner was installed in a house owned by a dead man.

However, the concept of dehumidification is not new in the slightest, and in fact, it could be argued that natural dehumidifiers allowed some of the greatest empires of the ancient world to function and flourish.

One of the greatest domestic achievements of the Roman Empire was the fact that almost anywhere in an empire that spanned most of Europe and vast swathes of West Asia people could have food from almost anywhere else in the Empire at any time of the year.

This is possible today thanks to refrigeration, air conditioning and complex supply chains powered by planes, trains and automobiles, but the Roman Empire had none of these technological advantages on its side.

This has led to the question of how the Roman Empire managed to store foods using shelf-stable methods without an active dehumidifier.

The solution was carefully designed for passive dehumidification. The granaries that were staples of the Roman Empire during the era of bread and circuses featured floors raised off the ground, thick walls and tiny windows to provide cool, ventilated buildings perfect for keeping wine, fish oil and grain stable.