Tony Corazza
04-25-2011, 03:09 PM
I need advice on which high efficiency dehumidifier to go with in the basement. It is a relatively small house 11,000 sq. ft. one level with 3/4 basement and crawlspace. It was designed as a passive solar double envelope home here in SW Virginia but they included cool tubes to vent the basement which unfortunately brought in moisture and did not cool in the hot summertime. I shortened the cool tubes so I now have two ten foot long 6 inch tubes that go from the basement out and up to air at groundlevel. I am torn between the Munters which works with a dessicant wheel and would not introduce fresh air in to the basement but is designed so that the REACT ducts are only supposed to be reduced to 8inch round duct runs. The company says this may just make it run up to two degrees hotter due to loss of cfm's. I was going with the more expensive Munters because it is advertised to not add much heat to the space if any. The most humid time is also the hottest so the basement could go from 80 to 90 degrees with a regular system (I was told) and the heat would rise through the wooden floors into the house.
We do not have any forced air ducts or AC. We heat with wood in the winter (humidity is not a problem from November to March). The UltraAire xt 150 or 155 has slightly higher efficiency rating and is designed to allow you to add fresh air from outside by way of a 6inch duct (so I would only need to use one of them) and has a motorized damper so you can manually adjust the amount of fresh air. It would be cool if the damper could be controlled by a humidistat to only allow air in up to a certain humidity level and then close more so wet air isn't coming in reducing efficiency. Does anyone know if this can be done?
The Munters has optional 13 MERV and the Ultra Aire has 14 MERV standard. With the extras the Munters is coming close to $ and the Ultra Aire closer to $. I am interested in the highest efficiency since we are supplyiing electricity from a photovoltaic system, but I also am not keen on raising the temperature more than necessary in the basement. Before running two small dehumidifiers (high electr. cost) the humidity can top out near 90% in the summer even though I have put in a sealed vapor barrier over the earthen crawlspace and concrete floor with plastic vapor barrier beneath where there was not before. It is time to make the decision because the dehumidifying season is here and I just finished digging down to the cool tubes and putting in the short runs to the surface. Can anyone give me advice on which system to buy? I read an earlier thread on this forum but it was for an island location. I am in the mountains of SW Virginia. I appreciate anyone willing to write on this topic with knowledge of these systems and how they might work in my application.
We do not have any forced air ducts or AC. We heat with wood in the winter (humidity is not a problem from November to March). The UltraAire xt 150 or 155 has slightly higher efficiency rating and is designed to allow you to add fresh air from outside by way of a 6inch duct (so I would only need to use one of them) and has a motorized damper so you can manually adjust the amount of fresh air. It would be cool if the damper could be controlled by a humidistat to only allow air in up to a certain humidity level and then close more so wet air isn't coming in reducing efficiency. Does anyone know if this can be done?
The Munters has optional 13 MERV and the Ultra Aire has 14 MERV standard. With the extras the Munters is coming close to $ and the Ultra Aire closer to $. I am interested in the highest efficiency since we are supplyiing electricity from a photovoltaic system, but I also am not keen on raising the temperature more than necessary in the basement. Before running two small dehumidifiers (high electr. cost) the humidity can top out near 90% in the summer even though I have put in a sealed vapor barrier over the earthen crawlspace and concrete floor with plastic vapor barrier beneath where there was not before. It is time to make the decision because the dehumidifying season is here and I just finished digging down to the cool tubes and putting in the short runs to the surface. Can anyone give me advice on which system to buy? I read an earlier thread on this forum but it was for an island location. I am in the mountains of SW Virginia. I appreciate anyone willing to write on this topic with knowledge of these systems and how they might work in my application.