basement humidity suggestion.

tmz

tmz

ReefKeeping Mag staff
Premium Member
capncapo
Premium Member

Registered: Oct 2004
Location: Florissant, MO
Occupation: HVAC and Home Rehab
Posts: 3544




A simple suggestion for those of you with humidity issues in the basement:

Cut a hole in your cold air return that is the size of a register. Place the register in the hole and put two screws in to hold the register. Open the register and let it suck your warm humid air into the return.

The air will become part of your heating / cooling air and will therefore be dehumidified as it passes through your system.

I have done this on two systems with excellent results. They have gone from condensate dripping off of supply runs to having a small amount of sweat. The good thing is that it costs practically nothing, takes very little time to do, and, you can do it yourself.

Originally posted on the Large Reef Tanks Forum. I'd like to get a few comments from are local HVAC folks before trying this.
 
I'm not HVAC, but in no way would reroute humid dirty(ier) than normal air into my home. IMO, Chrisguy has the best setup i've seen/heard about (personally that is). Humidistat hooked to a fan sucking the air right out of the basement all together.
 
I'm planning on doing this in the winter when the air is dry and partially in the summer when the air conditioning is running. But I'm also incorporating the chrisguy method too.
 
I don't want to take credit for this. I got the idea from elvn here in URS.

I did quite a bit of reading on this and talked to a local HVAC guy that told me that routing the high humid air can cause rust within the furnace and can lead to mold problem within the duct work if it's too excessive. Doing this with a lower humidity air is not an issue as that is what a humidifier on a furnace does. That's why in the winter this isn't such an issue. He also stated that if you run the furnace fan 24x7 then it's not a bad thing at all, and could be beneficial, other than the increased elec usage.

Another issue is what do you do in transitional months, where the furnace is off and the AC is not on yet, assuming you have AC.

His recommendation was to use a high CFM fan on a and get the air out of the house, allowing air from other parts of the house or from the outside to circulate in.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11296248#post11296248 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by fat-tony
I'm not HVAC, but in no way would reroute humid dirty(ier) than normal air into my home. IMO, Chrisguy has the best setup i've seen/heard about (personally that is). Humidistat hooked to a fan sucking the air right out of the basement all together.
Click to expand...
If your furnace is in the basement, then you already are. Depending on how your air filter is placed, could mean even more. As far as mold, the humidity would almost be high enough to condensate on the duct work, easier to do when the a/c is on. As far as rusting out the furnace, you would have to have dirt floors to retain a high amount of moisture, and the furnace would have to be on the ground instead of on bricks for it to rust. As the air passes through the heat exchanger, It will dry out.

I just installed a new Trane 96.7% efficient with the Clean Air Affects air filter. I run my fan 24/7 in the winter. And will cycle my fan on and off in the summer. The dc motor makes it pennies a day to run.

The best thing is air exchanges, but that would mean letting cold air in.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11301317#post11301317 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by acdraindrps
Good ol' dehumidifiers.
Click to expand...
:D Hi Chris, That's what I do now and it works but I'm always looking to improve especially if there is a way to cut down on the electric.
 
Hey Tom,

The way I look at it, there is always going to be a problem with energy costs and dehumidifying our basements. If you use a dehumidifier you are paying a lot in electricity to run it, where if you use a humidistat controlling an exhaust fan you are paying to replace lost heat after the fans exhaust all humid air in your basement. This energy is coming from both your home furnace and heaters in your fishtank.

A plus I can think of by using a dehumidifier is that mine tend to heat the room when they run. This keeps ambient temperature somewhat higher thus eliminating the amount of time the heaters in my tank are running. Just my two cents :)
 
I couldn't stand the hot foul air that dehumidifiers put out, so like others were mentioning I put a spa-fan in which is a high cfm, relatively low watt and low db in-line 6" in/out duct fan. I used a large pvc "Y" to connect its ductwork to my existing basement exhaust fan's ductwork which blows outside through a louver.

The spa-fan uses much less electric than the vicious cycle of a dehumidifier's hot air overheating the sumproom causing more evap. Regarding blowing your climate out of the house and having to replace it - the spa fan never runs in the winter if I set the humidistat to 55 or 60, so I'm not blowing my heat 'out the window' at all. In fact the large amounts of warm tank water I have makes my basement quite cozy in the cold, dry winter.

Kind of the opposite of the warm air $ blowing out the window comment is true for my setup though since I use a portable AC unit in my sumproom as a chiller in the summer (set at 74-76deg keeps the tank at 80-82). I do end up blowing some of that cold air $ outside using the spa-fan vs any excess humidity. The ac unit also does act like a dehumidifier to an extent, but the important difference is that the ac's stale, warm, bad-tasting exhaust air is ported outside using flexible ductwork, and it is adding cool air to the room instead of the hot air a dehumidifier adds. The portable ac unit and the spa fan also seem to compliment each other so they aren't both running all the time.


I really needed this solution since half of my basement is a modeled rec-room/entertainment center with a carpet, a few computers, and a tv. I really couldn't stand hanging out in my basement with the air quality and temp before. I was also paranoid about mold and mildew. Since the spa fan install several years ago the air quality has been great, and the carpet never gets funky.
 
Starting my first winter with an intentional body of water in the cellar, so far the humidity is really not an issue in the winter, seems the house is dry enough it makes its way through the house without me opening any new returns in that area...of course my furnace is in the same room.

The fan I installed worked great in the summer however, only needed to be on about 1/2 an hour per day in comparison to the dehumidifier being on continuously and not removing the moisture.
 
I f you are allowing humid air from a fish room to enter your central system it will be great durning the winter as long as you don't mind the possible smell. During the summer it will cost you to put that humidity in your system. It will put an extra load on your system. This humidity is heat. Just not sensible heat. It is latent heat or hidden heat.
 
I got my fan at home depot but I don't think they carry it anymore, at least not at my local HD currently. Its a deflecto spa fan.

--------------------------------
http://www.deflecto.com/OMS/tier2_template_air.aspx?ProductID=1020

For use up to 1800 cubic feet
Duct diam 6"
CFM 275
Fan Hp 1/5
watts 75
RPMS 2400
Volts 115
---------------------

There are other brands of inline fans that are similar to that too if you look around.

I got my humidistat from Green Air Products. Its called "Total Humidity Control".

http://www.greenair.com/humidistat.htm
 
I had been watching eBay and recently got a new in box (NIB) Deflecto fan (the same model Elvn has) for under $61 plus $18 shipping. The box still had the Home Depot tag on it and was sold as a discount item for $151.00.

I installed this to replace the smaller bathroom exhaust fan that I originally had.
 
Tom,
My fan is more of a turbine engine...pretty big, bigger than really needed...but picked it up at "bluemoon" the hydroponics store. They had several models some smaller and some larger than the one I picked up, think the 4" version that would fit most dryer ducts (which is what they are meant to fit) was around $125/150 but blows quite a bit of air.

before installing it, the cellar was dripping wet with moisture...it solved the issue in hours and then only put it on about 1/2 an hour per day after that.
 
Ok DIYers is there any way I can use my dehumidifer to control a fan instead?

(Cheaper than buying a Relative Humidity Controller)
 
FWIW, i just had an hvac guy at my house repairing my furnace and i brought this question up to him. according to him it is a code violation to put a register in your return from the basement. something about being able to suck in fumes and distribute it through the house. my return is right next to my hot water tank and he said if i were to do this i run a very real risk of sucking the fumes from the hot water tanks exhaust and sending them into the house. just passing it on.
 
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