Tag: Ductwork

Whole House Dehumidifiers

Whole house dehumidifiers work just like any other single room dehumidifier does except they help remove excess moisture from your whole house, not just one room. Excessive moisture, or humidity, is just plain uncomfortable. It also encourages the growth of mold and mildew.

Mold and mildew, along with other allergens like dust mites, can make an allergy sufferer downright miserable. No one should have to be miserable in their own home. Keeping your house a little drier could help those allergy symptoms and if the excess moisture is throughout your home then this is the time to look into whole house dehumidifiers.

The first thing you need to do before you start shopping for your dehumidifier is to measure each room and add up the total square footage of space you need to have dehumidified. Then either shop online or in a retail store to find a dehumidifier to handle that square footage.

The dehumidifier you buy will not look like any of the smaller portable units that you can easily set in one room or another. The dehumidifier you will buy is much larger and heavier and will sit in one place near your heating and/or cooling system so it can be connected directly into the ductwork of your house.

Do some comparison shopping and find one that is powerful enough to remove the most amount of moisture. Most have settings so that you can program them yourself and give you a nice range. Moisture levels in your home should be around 50% at all times. make sure to buy a unit that has been Energy Star rated so it is energy efficient and won’t cost an arm and a leg to operate.

One nice thing about installing a dehumidifier of this type is that the water it removes from your house gets drained into a floor drain so you do not have to worry about emptying a heavy bucket full of water everyday. No more spills to wipe up.

Ever wonder how they actually work? Well, I can tell you that a dehumidifier works just like your air conditioner. There are coils inside the unit that have a refrigerant inside and when the warm, moist air passes over them it creates condensation. The condensation drips down into a collection pan, or bucket and is then drained into the floor drain or emptied, by you, into a sink or even outside.

The difference between your air conditioner and your dehumidifier is that the air conditioner cools the air and does not remove any moisture from the air it sends into your home, the dehumidifier warms the air back up before releasing the drier air into your home.

Whole house dehumidifiers will give you a more comfortable home and reduce mold, mildew, and other allergens so you and your family can rest easier. And since excess moisture can affect the materials used to build your home, your home will not rot from the inside out as well.

Sani Dry Dehumidifier

The Sani Dry dehumidifier is made by Therma-Stor exclusively for a company called Basement Systems. Basement Systems is a company that supplies and installs dehumidifiers with their own licensed contractors. They also offer basement finishing and repair services.

The Sani Dry dehumidifier model called the XP Dehumidifier works well in a large area up to 2,500 square feet. It can remove 109 pints of water, per day, from the air of your home making your home much more comfortable to live in and reducing the amount of damage that can be caused by excess moisture.

This unit is also capable of functioning at low temperatures down to 40 degrees. What this means is, if your basement is cool the coils have an auto-defrost feature to keep the unit from freezing up and shutting itself off. It will continue to operate at these low temperature and keep your home moisture free.

The unit can either be used as a free standing unit or can be installed directly into the ductwork of your home. If you are the handy type you could probably manage the installation on your own but if not then they will install it for you.

The XP is Energy Star rated so it is energy efficient and will not increase you energy bill by any significant amount.

The convenience of the unit is also a plus. There is no bucket to empty every day, the XP drains directly to a floor drain. If there is no drain in the floor, you will need to drain the water up and out by purchasing what is called a “compensate pump” separately and installing it in the unit.

The XP has an adjustable “humidistat” as well, allowing you to set the desired relative humidity of your home anywhere from 20% to 90%. Those settings are most extreme and you most likely will set the XP unit in the range of 35% to 50% to be comfortable in your home.

If you suffer from allergies you will notice a big difference in the severity of your symptoms once the XP is installed and begins to remove the excess moisture in your home.

Once the XP is installed, it will run until it achieves the level of humidity in your home that you have set then it will maintain that level by cycling on and off. It might take 24 hours or more to reach the level you want for your home.

Once the XP is programmed by you with specific data for your home, it will always remember it. Even if there is a power outage the XP will restart automatically and remember the settings you programmed into it.

As I stated earlier, the unit can handle up to 2,500 square feet. So, if the entire square footage of your house does not exceed that number then you can install the unit directly into the ductwork of your home and dehumidify your entire house.

The Sani Dry dehumidifier is solely capable of maintaining the moisture in your home to reduce allergens and keep the excess moisture from causing structural damage.