Tag: Floor Drain

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.

Thermastor Dehumidifier

Using a ThermaStor dehumidifier will decrease the amount of humidity inside your home or workplace by taking the extra moisture out of the air. Too much humidity inside your home or workplace encourages mold and other allergens to grow and can cause the wood your home or work building was built with to decay and weaken.

Based in Madison, Wisconsin, ThermaStor has been in business for 34 years. They are a leader in the industry with the technology for advanced high-efficiency heat transfer products, like their heat recovery water heaters. They offer a wide range of home and/or office dehumidifiers to make living and working more comfortable and restoration equipment for larger jobs of dehumidifying, “air scrubbing”, extracting water and drying by evaporation.

If you have allergies or asthma, a ThermaStor dehumidifier can help reduce the symptoms you experience by lowering the moisture in your home. Molds and dust mites thrive in moist environments so it would stand to reason that if you decrease the level of humidity in your home the mold and number of dust mites would decrease as well. Your symptoms may not disappear altogether but you may find significant relief from them.

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology recommends maintaining the humidity level in your home at or below 50%. Not only will this help decrease allergens it will also help prevent damage to exposed wood surfaces like floors and beams.

A dehumidifier can also help you save money on air conditioning. You know the difference between dry air and moist air. Moist air is heavy and can make it hard to breathe, dry air is cooler and a lot more comfortable so you can save some money on your electric bill.

Just make sure you have a good system set up to dispose of the water when the container is full by emptying it yourself or hooking up a hose that leads from the unit to a floor drain.

One thing you need to take care with is to buy the right sized humidifier for the job. A too small dehumidifier will not remove enough moisture from the air and may end up costing you more money on that electric bill because it is having to work overtime.

The best way to choose your dehumidifier is to measure the length and width of the space you will have the dehumidifier in and figure out the square footage. Make sure that the unit you buy will handle the area needing dehumidification.

If the square footage is at the upper end of the capacity of the unit you are looking at, it is advisable to choose the next highest capacity dehumidifier to be sure you are getting the coverage you need and that the unit is operating at peak efficiency.

If too much moisture is a problem in your home or workplace there is a ThermaStor dehumidifier that will work for you. Whether the space is large like a warehouse or small like a crawlspace ThermaStor makes a dehumidifier for the job. They even offer products that will handle the dehumidification of indoor pool and spa areas.

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.

Garage Dehumidifier

One of the areas of your home that may have humidity problems is your garage. If this is the case you will need a garage dehumidifier to help handle the problem and reduce the chance that mold will grow and cause damage.

I think that you need a dehumidifier in your garage especially if the garage is a detached garage. When the garage is part of the house, basically, it can have some “climate control” due to the connection to the house.

Some examples of having excess humidity in your garage are on those hot and humid days in the summer, the humidity can get trapped inside the garage. Then in the winter you drive your car right into the garage with wetness like rain or snow and the snow is filled with salt and muck and grime from the road.

You may or may not have a floor drain in your garage. So where does this moisture all go? Into the air and onto everything stored in the garage. If this humidity is not reduced and kept to a manageable level it can cause mold and mildew to grow and cause metal parts or shelving to rust.

Getting a garage dehumidifier is not the only way to reduce the amount of humidity in your garage. Sometimes all it takes is proper ventilation. Set up a fan and if your garage has a window in it, open it. Let the fresh air come in and be moved around by the fan.

In the winter, You could buy a small space heater for your garage to help keep it warm and basically “burn off” excess moisture or you can splurge a little and have a garage heater installed up in one corner of the garage. The heat will help dry up any extra humidity right along with keeping the air warmer for your car, too.

Humidity can also be controlled a little better if there is adequate insulation inside of your garage. Insulation is needed to help maintain a constant temperature inside your house so why not use the same idea inside of your garage?

Maintain humidity levels in your garage by using proper ventilation, if possible, space heaters or garage heaters, and make sure your garage is well insulated.

If you are just building your garage or are in the process of remodeling your old one then you might consider placing a moisture barrier on the walls of your garage. These materials can drastically reduce the amount of moisture that gets in the garage.

They are called Vapor Barriers for a reason. The keep the moisture that can permeate the walls away, therefore, keeping the damage that can be caused by that moisture to a minimum.

Materials like plastic sheeting, stainless steel, aluminum sheeting, and reinforced hard plastics are all used for and are very effective moisture reducers. These are just some of the ways you can decrease the amount of the humidity in you garage without having to purchase a garage dehumidifier.