I bought an Aprilaire 1850 whole house dehumidifier. I had my HVAC company out here, whom does regular maintenance on my HVAC every 6 months to give me a quote on installation and I tried to pick their brain on this stuff, but they didn’t seem to have an opinion and told me they would do whatever option I wanted to do. But that wasn’t helpful.
I decided I wanted to do some testing before I made a final decision on which method of install I would choose. I have not been a big fan of the preferred method of install, and wanted to go with the alternative method. I took off the 6” duct work to my humidifier which isn’t in use, and I piped the 10” outflow from the dehumidifier to it, into the outward flow of the duct work. I turned off the A/C, since I didn’t know the static pressure and fired it up. I figured downsizing the tubing so quickly wouldn’t be an issue for a few days of testing.
It ran for most of the day and all night overnight. While I usually keep it around 72-74 in the house, depending upon outside conditions and humidity levels inside the house, overnight I woke up and it around 76-77 and I tossed off the blankets but it was quite comfortable, no moisture. By morning, upstairs was at 39% humidity and temp was 77. The entire house, main floor and basement all had nearly equal temp and RH. I’ve had two regular dehumidifiers, one upstairs and downstairs for years, but the upstairs one typically got turned off by the kids because it was too loud, or when the bucket was full, it could go 2-12 hours without being emptied. So humidity was always higher upstairs, typically in the 55% range. Downstairs one, had a pump to drain it out automatically.
I am VERY pleased with the new dehumidifier. Now, I need advice on how best to install it. I know that if my static pressure is above .6, I can’t have them on at the same time. Which is fine.
Here are the options I see….
1a) Use the alternative method, just pulling in air from the basement furnace room and distributing the warmer dry air throughout the house. (this is how it is setup now during my demo described above)
1b) Use the alternative method, but pull the air from the existing returns on the furnace pulling in air from all over the house.
1c) Use the preferred method of pull and pushing into the return air ducts, passing over the coils, using the furnace fan, etc.. which I don’t want to do. But open to any strong opinions about this.
Here are the SUB-OPTIONS I see (after choosing one of the above)
2a) Use the above setup for the entire house, mainfloor and basement. Basement only has one small return air in it, and two small outflow vents. Nether of which pull or push air in/out of the unfinished storage room, or furnace room directly. Sq Ft of mainfloor and basement are equal (Ranch style home).
2b) Setup zones for upstairs and basement. Have one zone that uses the the existing duct work throughout the house (2a), and another zone for the basement only. We don’t need it upstairs during the winter months, but not sure about the basement, guess it depends on the amount of ground moisture we get over the winter. This could either be setup automatically or manually, so when I would turn on the humidifier for the winter, I would just route the dehumidifier to only do the basement through separate ducts or just as an isolated unit, or setup automatic dampers to handle the switch over, so that if needed at other times of year, it could deal with basement dampness if it was higher than usual. Which most of the time its not an issue, except in rare cases that we get water into the basement from outside.
And the last SUB-SUB-OPTION…
3a) Bring in fresh air from outside? I haven’t read much into the pros and cons of doing this. There are days like we have had for the last month, that it has been in the lower 70’s outside and the A/C isn’t coming on and the air gets really stale. Opening windows is fine for a little bit, but a house full with people with allergies, it’s not our preference. We also live in Kansas City area, and rarely has the weather been as nice as it’s been for the last month or more. We usually have hot summers and cold winters.
I look forward to your feedback!
I decided I wanted to do some testing before I made a final decision on which method of install I would choose. I have not been a big fan of the preferred method of install, and wanted to go with the alternative method. I took off the 6” duct work to my humidifier which isn’t in use, and I piped the 10” outflow from the dehumidifier to it, into the outward flow of the duct work. I turned off the A/C, since I didn’t know the static pressure and fired it up. I figured downsizing the tubing so quickly wouldn’t be an issue for a few days of testing.
It ran for most of the day and all night overnight. While I usually keep it around 72-74 in the house, depending upon outside conditions and humidity levels inside the house, overnight I woke up and it around 76-77 and I tossed off the blankets but it was quite comfortable, no moisture. By morning, upstairs was at 39% humidity and temp was 77. The entire house, main floor and basement all had nearly equal temp and RH. I’ve had two regular dehumidifiers, one upstairs and downstairs for years, but the upstairs one typically got turned off by the kids because it was too loud, or when the bucket was full, it could go 2-12 hours without being emptied. So humidity was always higher upstairs, typically in the 55% range. Downstairs one, had a pump to drain it out automatically.
I am VERY pleased with the new dehumidifier. Now, I need advice on how best to install it. I know that if my static pressure is above .6, I can’t have them on at the same time. Which is fine.
Here are the options I see….
1a) Use the alternative method, just pulling in air from the basement furnace room and distributing the warmer dry air throughout the house. (this is how it is setup now during my demo described above)
1b) Use the alternative method, but pull the air from the existing returns on the furnace pulling in air from all over the house.
1c) Use the preferred method of pull and pushing into the return air ducts, passing over the coils, using the furnace fan, etc.. which I don’t want to do. But open to any strong opinions about this.
Here are the SUB-OPTIONS I see (after choosing one of the above)
2a) Use the above setup for the entire house, mainfloor and basement. Basement only has one small return air in it, and two small outflow vents. Nether of which pull or push air in/out of the unfinished storage room, or furnace room directly. Sq Ft of mainfloor and basement are equal (Ranch style home).
2b) Setup zones for upstairs and basement. Have one zone that uses the the existing duct work throughout the house (2a), and another zone for the basement only. We don’t need it upstairs during the winter months, but not sure about the basement, guess it depends on the amount of ground moisture we get over the winter. This could either be setup automatically or manually, so when I would turn on the humidifier for the winter, I would just route the dehumidifier to only do the basement through separate ducts or just as an isolated unit, or setup automatic dampers to handle the switch over, so that if needed at other times of year, it could deal with basement dampness if it was higher than usual. Which most of the time its not an issue, except in rare cases that we get water into the basement from outside.
And the last SUB-SUB-OPTION…
3a) Bring in fresh air from outside? I haven’t read much into the pros and cons of doing this. There are days like we have had for the last month, that it has been in the lower 70’s outside and the A/C isn’t coming on and the air gets really stale. Opening windows is fine for a little bit, but a house full with people with allergies, it’s not our preference. We also live in Kansas City area, and rarely has the weather been as nice as it’s been for the last month or more. We usually have hot summers and cold winters.
I look forward to your feedback!
source https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?2222893-Best-Install-Method-for-Whole-House-Dehumidifier&goto=newpost
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