Large Tank IN a Basement-Ventilation Suggestoin Please oh brethern of the mamoth tank

Capncapo,

I will get the correct tools as you suggest. The cool thing is my basement is dry as a bone right now! LOL SO there is no moisture in it from anything.

I went around the house and checked all the gutters, assessed the grade for drainage, tested the sump pump, and I am going to wrap the pipes to prevent condensation on them as well.

I am placing the vent in the cold air return that will be in the viewing room. the furnace room is adjacent to it so the make up air will come from vents between the room as you suggested earlier in the thread. I am sealing off the utility room from the viewing room and the viewing room from teh rest of teh basement. I am feeling much better about this entire process now and think that with a dehumidifier in the viweing room, the fan, and your resolution all will be good!!
 
As Capncapo mentioned, we did this modification to my AC this weekend. Within a couple hours the humidity had dropped quite a bit 5-10% in the basement. However, as evening set in and the AC wasn't running as much, the humidity creeped back up. But (as Capncape mentioned) this was expected and over time, the wood and other items that absorb moisture will dry out. So far, I give a big :thumbsup: to this modification.
 
Griss,

how many opening did you make? and were the openings very near teh tank itself? Mine will be in the viewing room with the tank. the utility room behind it will have that one way air flow fan and draw in air from the viewing room which is supplied by the make up air in the furnace room via vents between the rooms themselves.
 
Right now my basement isn't finished. So, we just put one vent in about 4 feet from the tank.
 
and that one vent is to intake the air through the cold air return into the the condensor / furnace to dry it out correct?
 
capncapo:
just to make sure will this effect the heating/cooling of the rest of the house in any way? Mainly in the efficiency dept. I've thought about doing this for a while now, but Know zero about HVAC so this has been very helpful.

thanks
 
So far there have been only possitive results. The rest of the homes have had no noticeable changes.

Be advised that I have not had any of the homes with the mod go through the winter yet. My guess on this is that the upstairs parts of the home will be more humid than they used to be BUT most homes can stand more humidity in winter. Most of them are far too dry in winter AND added humidity should allow for a reduced thermostat setting due to the fact that humid air "feels" warmer that dry air. Some, but not all, of the humidity will be exhausted up the flue.

If the house is too humid in winter there are a number of cost effective ways to reduce it but during the summer, the choices are very limited. This works as good or better than any of the choices that I have seen people try.

Dehumifiers help but produce a ton of heat and are somewhat costly to operate as they are nothing but a small air conditioner without the benefit of removing heat. If you live in a dry area, vent fans work good but where I live, a vent fan would make matters worse. You can always run a window air conditioning unit downstairs if you have windows but the expense is cost prohhibitive. This is a good way of alleviating humidity without having to go through a great deal of work or expense.
 
you've got me sold off the Lowe's tomorrow. I'll post the results in a week or so. thanks for the help and advice. I guess worse case in the winter I could close the vent if needed.
 
Yep, you can close it or just "dampen" it down a bit to regulate it.

I have a feeling that your area gets fairly cold and that your furnace runs pretty much in winter. If that's the case you may not have to do either as much of the humidity will eventually make it up the flue.

One other benefit to the added humidity in winter is that if you do reduce your thermostat setting, that act in itself will also reduce your evaporation because cooler air can not hold as much moisture as warmer air.

Good luck and definitely keep me informed. I have been wanting to come up with a cure for Ich, a way to eliminate shipping stress and many other things so that I could "give back" something to the hobby. Whoda thunk it would have been this easy.:D
 
Seems that this idea is a good one. I am also interested in the results others are seeing. Again my house is pretty dry but I do live near Ann Arbor, MI and we get some cold snaps in the winter thats a fact. In the summer its the humidity that kills us! I am doing the Mod as well.

What size vent would you recommend before I go off and get teh wrong thing..
 
Skippy,

When we did Georges (griss) place this weekend, he had me go to the hardware store with him to choose what we would use. I had him buy the largest register they had that would fit in his return duct. If it's too big you can always close it down but if it's too small you have to buy and install another. I believe that the cost of that register was like $11.00 including tax. Not bad at all.

I would suggest that you have your friend who does the HVAC work give you a couple of 1/4" hex head sheet metal screws and use them to mount the register. The screws that come with them will work but are awfully long for just going into the duct work.

You guys need to remember that this is more-or-less experimental in your particular application. I can tell you what I've done elsewhere but that wasn't done to YOUR house and every house and heating/cooling system is different. By buying a large register you have much more flexibility as to how much air you care to bring into your systems.
 
Last edited:
OK,

thanks for the pointers on this! I will keep you posted as I go through the basement remodel and gettign this thing going. We start framing Next Wednesday.
 
skippyreef said:
Thanks Gris,

Looking forward to a pic or two to give me some prespectives on this little house saver!
Click to expand...
Sorry, busy night last night. I'll try to take some pics tonight. But we have another busy night with kid's summer activities.
 
capncapo, thanks for the idea.

I added this mod. to my system, now my exhaust system will only run when the AC isn't on, when the weather cools a bit.

One question, I usually run the furnace fan all the time, even when the AC and furnace are off because we have a big whole house hepa filter.

Should I not do this any longer because of this mod.?
 
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