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Options for dehumidifiers in basements

15 years ago

X-posted in Plumbing as well...

We will have a partially finished basement. I've always just used the regular humidifiers that you plug in and empty every day during the humid summer months (live in the midwest). I dislike having to empty the thing every day.

What are some other options? I know I could put it in the unfinished part next to a drain and just have it leak in there all day, but then I need to leave the door open all the time to the unfinished part. I don't really like the noise either.

Is there anything that could be built in? We will have around 2100 sq finished and 900 unfinished space that needs to be dehumidified. It is a walkout.

Any recommendations or advice?

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Comments (3)

jasper60103
15 years ago
Yea, I have the same situation.
I bought a dehumidifier a couple summers ago after finishing my basement. I placed it furthest from my TV and entainment area because I didn't want to hear the noise.
Unfortunately, the drain is only accessible from the entertainment area, which meant I had to empty the bucket once a day.

However, this summer I noticed the humidity level hasn't gone much over 55%, so it really hasn't ran much. I guess the house is still drying out. If things reamin the same I may be able to retire my dehumidifier.

Anyway, not sure if this will help you.... If you can place the dehumidifier against the wall near the unfinished/drain area. You could drill a hole through the drywall and run a garden hose from the dehumidifier to the drain. Also, I'm assuming your dehumidifier allows you to connect a garden hose to it.

Hope this helps.

jasper
countryboymo
15 years ago
Replace your water heater with a heat pump water heater and it will dehumidify and condition the space for you and provide hot water at 2-3 units of heat per unit of electricity. All that and taking care of the humidity!
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I am going to agree with previous posters on several accounts: 1. Depending on where you live and how much annual precipitation your area receives, you may not need a humidifier. 2. Live in the house a little before you purchase a humidifier. This is a good idea for a couple of reasons, one of which is you will want to establish some kind of baseline by buying one of those little digital indoor climate readers that gives you humidity and temperature readings so you know what you're dealing with, and only then will you know the size of dehumidifier (or number of dehumidifiers) you'll need. 3. If you NEED a dehumidifier, do not go too cheap or too small. Read lots of online reviews and make sure you get the right size with the right drainage options. If you're not using the basement frequently (i.e., not planning to check on the unit several times a day during spring rainy season or the humid days of summer) and live in an area with a long summer + high humidity, you may need a larger unit with built-in pump options and a hose attachment that drains to a sink/sump pump. Too big and powerful with infrequently used pump and outlet hose options is better than too small with no pump and no hose options that you have to remember to dump every 3 hours to keep the humidity down to 70% (which is, BTW, waaay too high for most basements). You will end up spending a lot more in the end if you have to deal with mold/moisture remediation.
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Get a dehumidifier. Here's the problem with what was said: Air that can hold more moisture is a good, not a bad, thing because you are talking about relative humidity -- the amount of moisture in the air relative to what it can hold at its temperature: So, by doing nothing other than warming air, you can lower its relative humidity. If you were to put a heater in your basement and warm it from, say, 65 degrees to 75 degrees, you would drop the relative humidity of the basement because, even though the air has the same absolute quantity of moisture in it, the 75 degree air could hold more than the 65 degree air, so the relative humidity is less. But a dehumidifier is even better than a heater because it removes moisture in two ways -- it drops the air to a temperature below its dewpoint, removing actual moisture, and then warms the air, lower the relative humidity further. An air conditioner is a problem for at least two reasons. First, because it cools as it dehumidifies, its ability to dehumidify is limited to situations where cooling is needed. If it's below 70 degrees or so outside, the a/c evaporator is liable to freeze, and at that point it'll keep running but do nothing as far as cooling or dehumidifying until it's shut off and the evaporator is allowed to thaw out. Second, because the a/c lowers the temperature of the air, it makes condensation on those walls and other surfaces more, not less, likely. Why? Because if the surface of a wall is, say 64 degrees, and the air is 65 degrees at a high humidity level, it doesn't take much heat transfer for the wall to pull the air near it down just one degree (and if the humidity approaches 100 percent, that might be enough to create condensation). On the other hand, if the air is 75 degrees with the same absolute quantity of moisture it had at 65 degrees, the wall has to drop the air 11 degrees to create the same condensation. Obviously that's much less likely. And that's the benefit you'd get from a heater alone. With the dehumidifier, the air won't have the same absolute quantity of moisture at 75 as it had at 65 -- it'll have less. Finally, the walls won't stay 64 degrees once you warm the room up. They'll gradually warm up too, further reducing the risk of condensation.
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I attached hose to mine (there is usually connection for hose on a dehumidifier) and ran it through wall (drilled hole) from finished to unfinished side and then to drain. Do you have option to do same?
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Received this: Hello Ranjan and thank you for your inquiry. I would get a digital hygrometer to test your Relative Humidity in your space. If you go above 60% RH then you could use a dehumidifier down there because you want to be about 55% to 50%. That would be the RH seeping past your vapor barrier. The dehumidifer would only be able to dry the cinder block if it can get past the vapor barrier - which is unlikely if it is not very porous. Thank you. Sincerely, Doug Sylvane - Sales
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sniffdog
15 years ago
shelly

look at the whole house dehumidiers on iaqsource.com. I recently purchased the Sante Fe whole house unit that handles up to 3300 square feet, Honeywell makes a good dehumidier too. Each vendor makes also make a smaller size unit. If you download the installation manual, it will show you the various ways to hook it up. After posting on the GW, I decided to use the standalone configuration which is quite easy to install.

The unit can be installed in the unfisished portion of the basement (presumably in the utlilty room) with the intake and output flex ducts runing to/from the dehumidifier running to the finished portions of the basement. Put the intake on one side of the basement and the output on the other side to get good air circulation. Put a vented door for entry into the unfinished portion to allow air to flow through that room. The closed vented door will buffer the noise and allow air to pass through. You must have a vented door to that utility room if you have gas heat.

As far as drainage for the dehumidifier, it is best if you have a drain nearby that runs into your sump pump since these units do pull a lot of water out of the air. But if that is a problem, they make small pumps designed for HVAC applications that allow you to take the output of an AC or dehumidifier unit and pump the water to a drain location.

Good luck.

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