Comfort-Aire 65 Pint dehumidifier

[gsubrec]

Has anyone used the Comfort-Aire 65 pint dehumidifier ?
It claims Energy Star rating and with 65 pint should be able to handle a whole house excluding basement
It apparently also has a humidity control button

[drk]

65 pint should be able to handle the basement if their is no water intrusion problems.

[gsubrec]

Is 65 pint adequate if there are no water problems and I just want dehumidification for whole house mold control ?

[drk]

It should unless you have a big house, then Id look in to at a 90 or bigger!

[gsubrec]

I have a 2000 sq.ft home, with no basement
There is a crawlspace where I never go

[drk]

Then Id put a 90 pint in the crawl

[teddy bear]

You need a 90 pint high eff. dehu with a small 4" dry air supply to the crawlspace to maintain <50%RH throughout the crawl/house with adequate fresh air. Don't mess with a the simple res dehus unless you are really desperate. Great for a small space but less energy eff. and not durable like a Santa Fe or Ultra-Aire. TB

[gsubrec]

simple res dehus
----

What is this mean ?

BTW, Comfortaire 65 pint model is Energy star rated and costs 25% for 72% of the performance of the units you mention

[cem-bsee]

I put the biggest dehum carried by Sears in unventilated crawl 2y/a -- it has electronic control which I set to 3h cycles -- it drains thru hose to outside landscaping -- ~85p/d -- dirt floor -- seems to work fine -- set at 55% -- use box fans to circulate air

have another in kit, with bucket -- ~55p/d -- but, fight to keep RH% below 62%

[teddy bear]

Originally posted by gsubrec
simple res dehus
----

What is this mean ?

BTW, Comfortaire 65 pint model is Energy star rated and costs 25% for 72% of the performance of the units you mention
The energy factor of the comfortaire is 1.4-1.6 liters per Kw @ 80^F, 60%RH compared to 2.4-2.7liters/kw for Santa Fe/Ultra-Aires. At the cooler temperatures cheaper dehus do much less. Most mfg. instruct you to not operate below 65^F because of freeze-up. The simple res units have small coils without real air filters to keep the equipment clean. Although a very low cost first, most components are minimal quality compared to the high eff. equipment. All Santa Fe/Ultra-Aires have 60,000 hour fan motors that deliver ductable air flow. They also include a commercial refrigeration system and real merv 11 air filters. Coils are 10 times larger and deliver upto 2X more water per Kw. The simple resididential units are better than no dehumidifier and ok for small none critial loads but do not compare to this type of unit. TB

[gsubrec]

Santa Fe Advance
http://www.thermastor.com/pdf/santafeadvancespec.pdf
Electrical: 110-120 VAC, 6.35 Amps*, 60 Hz, grounded
Capacity: 90 pints/day*
Operating Temp: 55°F min., 95°F

http://www.heatcontroller.com/products/pdf/dehumidbroch.pdf
Control-Aire BHD651
115VAC, 7.8A
Low Temperature operation down to 45 Deg F

The comfortaire draws 25% more current, dries 25% less, and works down to 10 Deg below the Santa Fe, and costs 5x less

[teddy bear]

How much water does the comfort aire remove at 45^F? Cost of removing water at 75^F, 50%RH is two times higher. The noise level is two times higher. The service life of the comfortaire is half of the Santa Fe. Most of our customers have tried the residential dehumidifiers first. There is no comparison, but I understand SF is more expensive. Most of our customers are very satisfied. Thanks for considering equipment. Keep us posted on your results. TB

[pstu]

Consider this: Buy a cheaper dehumidifier and you can prove it does or does not work in your application. Then tell yourself you *might* buy a Thermastor or other high end dehu as a "version 2" kind of project, when and if you want it. There is good sense in not spending too much money on a first trial project, and you can win two ways. If it works well enough for you, then great. If it helps you make a more informed decision with more expensive equipment later on, also money well spent.

I myself have a Thermastor product and think they are great. What Teddy Bear says has always proven true in my experience too. But you may be sensible to go slowly until you are convinced.

Hope this helps -- Pstu

[gsubrec]

I purchased a 65 pint comfortaire 2 weeks ago and for testing purposes, I set the target humidity at 35% and ran it in my kitchen ( 65 F ambient temperature )

The initial humidity was 48% ( with a hygrometer )
Now it is down to 30% and the recent hot weather is more bearable without turning on the AC
Amazing amount of water removed

It is very convenient, not very noisy
Easy to remove the bucket
Easy controls

My only regret is I saw the identical unit sold under the LG brand at Home depot for $50 less

My guess is that in my climate, I dont have to run this often

[pstu]

I think it's great that you are trying out dehumidifiers. And am firmly convinced that the more people buy LG brand, the more will eventually buy Thermastor and Aprilaire. It just expands the industry, is what I think.

Kind of like the old motorcycle industry: Triumph and BSA spokesmen said they welcomed Honda's arrival in the 1960's. Except the old Brits were unable to compete on price or sophistication and Honda (and other Japanese brands) did pretty much deal the competitive death blow to them. I don't think Thermastor or Aprilaire are vulnerable in that way myself, they seem to compete just fine in a high end niche.

If I hear you right, you are saying that with the dehu in the kitchen, you are satisfied with its results in the rest of the house too. Are you contemplating a permanent spot there?

Best of luck -- Pstu



[Edited by pstu on 05-04-2006 at 01:53 PM]

[teddy bear]

Keep us posted on your results after the real humidity arrives in your area. A week of +70^F outdoor dew points and rainy weather are the test. 50-75 cfm of fresh air would be nice also. Keeping the inside %RH to <50%RH is adequate mold, dust mites, and comfort. Wish you the best. TB

[gsubrec]

In NJ ,we dont get more than 2 - 3 weeks of high humidity combined with high temperatures

I am satisfied with the kitchen location
It has pulled out so much water that I am certain some of the water is coming from other rooms

[dehummed]

gsubrec,
I am the owner of the comfort aire 65 pint. After reading your post i went to homedepot and purchased the 65 pint LG model thinking it would be the same unit as the comfort aire 65 pint. At first i noticed that unit was a little noisier than my comfort aire.

I put the LG and the Comfort aire right next to each other and the differnce was obvious. The LG was much louder! It appears that they must be using the same plastic shell but a different compresser.

So now i have to go back the depot and return the thing! Not a happy camper

[teddy bear]

Like to set a Santa Fe Advance alongside any of the resideintial brands. Less noise, heat and electricity from the Santa Fe, 50% more water removed. But of course more money invested. A residential dehu is better than no dehu. Most of our customers have tried a residential dehu before deciding to make the greater investment of the Therma-Stor dehus. TBs have had to learn to be are patient. TB

[pstu]

>>Like to set a Santa Fe Advance alongside any of the residential brands.
>>Less noise, heat and electricity from the Santa Fe, 50% more water removed.
>>But of course more money invested. A residential dehu is better than no dehu.
>>Most of our customers have tried a residential dehu before deciding to make the greater investment of the Therma-Stor dehus.

I wonder if it's valid to make an analogy to buying a Toyota Prius hybrid car, which has spectacular gas mileage but costs a pretty penny to buy. And the residential brand dehu may be analogous to an old style American car with rear drive and a V-8, cheap to buy and costly to fill up. Not too many people will buy a Thermastor expecting to recoup the purchase price thru lower electric costs, it would take too long. But they can indeed appreciate owning a fine piece of machinery which performs better than the alternatives, and don't regret the purchase.

One is cheap to buy and expensive to operate. In my particular situation it makes sense to have a Thermastor type for the bulk of the house loads, and expect it to have the long run hours if necessary. And it makes sense to me to add a fair quality resi brand such as LG, for spot applications like a master bathroom. I would expect to run it for short periods on a timer whenever the RH in the bathroom bugs me, usually when it is over 60% following a shower or bath. Remember that HVAC has a rule against a central air return in a bathroom, and most dehu ducting plans need to obey lest they violate the intent of that rule (as I see it, the sole exception would be a duct design which pulls air from the bath, then returns 100% of it back to the bath). The short runtimes of that cheap unit make it acceptable to have inferior pints/kwh efficiency.

It seems advantageous to attack a problem nearest its source, before it spreads through the house in general. Of course HVAC best-practice rules say you need good bath fans, that is the first line of defense against humidity, among other things. HVAC conventional wisdom says to give excessive supply CFM to bath areas, sometimes 200% of cooling requirement, which I am beginning to doubt. Don't ask me why they think that is good, it results in overcooling in my climate.

If the whole house RH needs lowering, I think it makes more sense to run the Thermastor longer. The same principle applies to electric utilities with their power plants: it is optimal to have some baseload plants which run all the time, and then some peaking units which are designed to run only a small number of hours each year. The latter category is most economic as the "cheap to build, costly to operate" type. The former needs all the operating efficiency it can get.

Best wishes -- Pstu

[Edited by pstu on 06-27-2006 at 12:07 PM]

[TerranceBoyle]

this was a great discussion. I'm actually comparing just these two units, the Comfort-Aire Dehumidifier (http://www.sylvane.com/comfort-aire-dehumidifier.html) vs the Santa Fe Dehumidifier (http://www.sylvane.com/santa-fe-dehumidifiers.html).

I googled around and this is the only discussion I found comparing the two. I have a crawlspace similar to the first post, about 1800 square feet, and I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on a unit. But - I've burned through 2 dehums (one from Sears the other from HD) that I put in the crawl space so I have not been too thrilled. I was told the comfort-aire unit is pretty good so I was looking seriously at that one but I was told by sylvane that it would have a hard time in my crawl space. They said that if I sealed it up really well that it might be okay for at least a stop gap measure - but that I should really be looking at something like the santa fe. I didn't want to be upsold so I did a ton of research and it echoes a lot of what TB said. So I think I'm going to bite the bullet - that is, unless the thinking is different now?

[teddy bear]

Well I am keeping my fingers crossed. With your large crawlspace, you need the Santa Fe 90. Thanks to PTSU. Regards TB

[gsubrec]

My comfortaire died after 2 years

I am now going to Santa Fe Compact
because it has a 5 year warranty

I have a question
In the month since my comfortaire died

my crawlspace, ( 40 ft x 25 ft )
is getting mold

If I get a Santa Fe Compact and set the humidistadt to 35&#37;, will the mold die
away or do I need to get a contractor to remove the mold

How good is the customer service for Santa Fe

Do they have a network of repairmen ?

[teddy bear]

My comfortaire died after 2 years

I am now going to Santa Fe Compact
because it has a 5 year warranty

I have a question
In the month since my comfortaire died

my crawlspace, ( 40 ft x 25 ft )
is getting mold

If I get a Santa Fe Compact and set the humidistadt to 35%, will the mold die
away or do I need to get a contractor to remove the mold

How good is the customer service for Santa Fe

Do they have a network of repairmen ?
Set the dehumidistat at 50%RH and give the dehu a fighting chances. 35%RH assures the dehu will never shut off. <50%RH will make the mold dormant. If you are super sensitive to mold, remove the mold. If you do not remove the mold but keep the space dry, the musty odor will stop. mold will not grow any more.
Regarding service, any local window a/c mechanic can repair. The other option is to return the unit to the factory for service. The unit is small and canbe UPSd. Regards TB

[gsubrec]

The santa fe compact comes with a merv 11 filter
How often must this be changed ?

What is wrong with trying to shoot for 35% RH and letting the unit run forever ?
Afterall refrigerators run forever

[gsubrec]

Sylvania vs IAQ source

Both stock santa fe

Who gives better service ?

[teddy bear]

Figure once a year on the filter changing. Both of the suppliers give good service. Thank you very much for the opportunity and posts. Regards TB

[gsubrec]

What exactly is different ( internally ) between the santa fe advance and santa fe compact ?