Humidity contol methods

RoBoTeq

I'm interested in knowing how you guys deal with humidity issues. I would prefer you let us know in what area you are in and what the humidity and seasonal heat load is for equipment in your area.

There are a lot of theories for controlling humidity, some good, some not so good, some worthless and some harmful. What, if anything, do you do for customers who have humidity issues?

beenthere

Varies with the site application, source of humidity.

In most of the residential applications around here. A VS blower can handle the problem, if the system is reasonably sized to the actual cooling load.

If the home is near a steam, and or heavy shading. A dehumidifier is also needed sometimes.

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RoBoTeq

Exactly my situation, and I am in your area. This season has been unusually wet, so my constant operation of my undersized system has not been able to keep up with the humidity problems.

I didn't want to buy a dehumidifier and I had an extra window shaker, so I just stuck the window shaker in one of my laundry tubs and ran it full blast all summer. With virtually no cooling load, the darn thing runs for penny's a day and keeps my basement very dry.

hvaclover

Heck. I make de humidifiers for friends. Keeps a guy busy on a week end.

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JohnH1

Don't most window shakers have a pick up on the condenser fan blade to sling the water on the coil to help cool down. You may be adding a lot of the moisture back into the space running longer than needed if this is true with your system.

beenthere

Thats just on the condenser blade. Not on the evap fan.

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JohnH1

But it was not in the window exausting outside. It is sitting on the sink venting into the basement.

beenthere

Bet some of the condensate is still going down the drain.

So a fair amount of most of the moisture is still being removed from the house.

But, you are right. Not all of it if its slinging water off the blade.

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RoBoTeq

Not this cheap thing I have. Besides, it's sitting on quite an angle keeping it from building any condensate.

PTACs usually have condensate slingers on the condenser fans to keep from having water stains running down the walls.

KnightRider

Down here if you have a basement you can get your house humidified by making your basement a return air plenum and add some supply heat also. It will pick up the moisture and keep the house from getting to dry and the basement from getting to damp and stale. In the summer use return air to ac the basement providing you have most of your walls underground. Add a little air if necessary. That is cheap and simple if you got a basement that is.

RoBoTeq

This is what I do with my basement. It just got so much more damp then usual due to the amount of rain we got this year that I needed to do a little more then usual keeping the basement dry.

beenthere

Is today our 3rd or 4th straight day of rain.

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RoBoTeq

Third, I think. I cannot keep up with my grass growth. I swear I can hear it growing. If I wait to only mow my lawn on weekends, I wind up with a lot of rows of piled clippings. It got a little out of hand before my last mowing and my neighbor chided me that I needed a harvester.

beenthere

I got the same problem.

Gets too high for the mower to mulch right.

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How many times must one fix something before it is fixed?

RoBoTeq

Yep. As soon as I would get ahead of it by mowing three times in a week, it would rain for several days and grow past my mowers mulching capabilities.

beenthere

We have never had this much rain. As we have had for the last 4 years.

That I, or anybody else from this area can remember.

I'll be 53 this month. And I have asked people in their 60's and 70's. And they don't recall this kind of weather ever happening before either.

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RoBoTeq

At least we don't have to hear farmers crying about their crops not growing.

Even though it's been rather cool this summer, the global warming advocates will say this "weather change" is an effect of our chemical dumping.

Ya know what? If melting polar ice puts more water into the world and increases the amount of rainfall to produce more vegetation which in turn produces more oxygen and fixed nitrogen (from rotting vegetation)....where's the down side? Other then my having to mow my lawn more often, which is the only real exercize I get, isn't this a good thing?

beenthere

Actually. All this rain has a lot of farmers crying.
They lost a lot of their corn crop because of too much rain.
Lots of field had to be replanted/seeded.

A lot of hay was lost because it got wet, or couldn't dry before it molded.

Generally takes 3 days to dry cut hay. Too many weeks we didn't have 3 days in a row of no rain.

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RoBoTeq

Figures. Damned if it's good and damned if it's bad. You won't hear me crying if it's too hot or too cold for too long.

hvaclover

Screw the tree huggers!

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