Dale,
You make some excellent points and I think your summary of an
expensive bathroom fan is probably on target. There is no heat
exchanger/recovery system in this. I think I slightly offended the
woman when I said it was a high-priced fan ducted to the outdoors. grin
You make some interesting statements I'd like to elaborate on a bit
or maybe more ask questions. See this is one of those issues I've been
dealing with and until I moved my office to the lower basement, I
really didn't think much about the humidity etc. I knew it was there
because the place smelled musty which is apparently dead mold spores
in the carpet, yuck. In any event I have some expensive instruments
and protecting them and the other stuff down here is very important
and I can't move my operations back upstairs for a lot of reasons. So,
I guess the humidifier is the best choice although I wonder if 45
pints would be sufficient or if I should go up to a 65 pint unit. THe
basement is odd in that this is a split-level house so there is no
door at the top of the stairs. I think this unit is doing a reasonable
job. I have found that setting it's humidistat to 65% will keep the
humidity at around 50%, so that indicates to me the unit is not very
accurate and the hygrometer is probably not perfect itself and thus
the sum total is no more musty smell and that's a good thing. THe one
thing I did do right is I had the gent who installed my new heat pump,
put in a return and outlet in another area of the basement. THe
previous owners had a vent in a closet, which made no sense so I had
that sealed and a defuser put into the main family room area. Now you
say you run your furnace fan all year. I leave it running when the AC
is on, off when the windows are open, and off during the Winter. The
reason off in the WInter is because heat pumps suck so bad, the air at
65 degrees even on a real low speed makes the house feel cold.
However, perhaps I should be running it regardless of whether or not
the heat or AC is on and just turn it off when the windows are open.
There are days where we have neither AC or heat on, but windows
closed. Perhaps that would be the time to still run the fan. I think
my concern was the possible $20 to $30 additional cost per month to
run the dehumidifier and that is a lot considering the cost of
electricity here. I do need to get the specs and try to calculate the
cost of running this unit. I know it will certainly ad to the electric
bill, but folks I have talked to around here who have used
dehumidifiers made in the last couple of years say the increase was
not that bad. And I guess in the end the additional expense is going
to be worth it. I don't know how much of this piffle the sales lady
talked about the humidifier pulling mold spores in and tossing them
back out really matters. I mean there is likely mold in here in any
event and all but short of sealing my house and having a
decontamination chamber at each door, I'll likely have some mold. Now
sorry, I did get a little off track in my extensive prattle and I
suspect Dale that yes, they anticipate a leaky home, which in reality
would bring humidity into the home. I don't know if the system is a
completely bad idea, but for $1,500 on sale to $2,200 regular price,
it can't be worth it. If just installing a fan that vented outdoors
would solve my problem, that would be very easy, but I sure don't want
to extract heat or cool air from the home and dump it outside, that
would just make no sense at all.
Thanks for the great feedback and any ideas, I'm open to suggestions.
I keep my house at 65 degrees F in the WInter because it would cost me
to much to heat the damned thing to 70, which would please my wife to
no end. I often think that perhaps adding more insulation to the attic
would be a wise move and any recommendations on the best insulation
appreciated. And I have often toyed with the idea of blowing more
insulation in the walls, but that probably would be an expense and I'm
not sure if that would make sense. I had new siding put on and they
did put 3/4 thick foam (that stiff stuff) on before the siding and I
think that did help. I'm willing to consider any ideas to make the
home more efficient since I know that was not the builders idea. Of
course getting rid of the heat pump would be the best move, but then
I'm down to oil or propane, since natural gas is not available.
tnx,
