My basement is at 50% relative humidity with the aid of two dehumidifiers. My suggestion is to not do any finishing of the basement unless the humidity can be kept consistently at 60% or less. Condensate pumps can be used to provide automatic drainage. Your situation may require more than two dehumidifiers.

Here is a link that might be useful: pump

Get dehumidifiers that have a garden hose connection on the back so you can just have a hose that goes to a drain. My dehumidifier has this and I dont have to empty it.

so not sure if this was made totally clear...we have no where to drain water to. Even with a pump or hose. There is no drain at all in basement. A garden hose won't help when we have no where to drain to. Basement is below grade and we have 2 tiny windows and a bulk head leading to outside.

Does any of your plumbing go below the basement floor? Could you have a drain installed?

An 'interesting' way to use a dehumidifier with a garden hose would be to put the dehumidifer on a countertop with the hose going to a bucket on the floor, then you put a pump with float activation in the bucket that pumps it outside.

A few other things, paint the whole basement in watertite paint and make sure all downspouts empty away from your foundation. Check that grade goes away from the house also. Keeping water away from the house helps keep your basement dry and the watertite will help in stopping moisture from coming in.

The simple fact that the basement is typically cooler causes the relative humidity to be higher than the parts of the house that are at warmer temperatures. Other things being equal, temperature and relative humidity are inversely related. Intrusion of surface and subsurface moisture makes it worse. My basement has no water intrusion but still needs the dehumidifiers. They run only occasionally.

A new home without a basement floor drain. I'm surprised it even passed inspection. You could drill a hole in the foundation for a drain hose. You'll need a diamond bit, or hire a pro.

In any case, until you figure a way to keep your dehumidifiers running sufficient to keep humidity under 50%, there's no sense finishing anything. Waterproof coatings are not even designed to reduce humidity.

This post was edited by worthy on Thu, Feb 5, 15 at 17:17

Basements are tough to condition because they typically impose very little heat load and almost no cooling load. Relying on an air conditioner to provide dehumidification won't work since the basement will likely be cooler than you want it to be and the air conditioner will never operate. What we've found to work best is to install a dehumidifier with re-heat capability integrated with the basement HVAC system. You will need to pump the condensate from the humidifier to the home's exterior.

I did my basement and put in a whole house dehumidifier and it works great. I thought they were all hype but it lives up to the hype. Highly recommend it

Do you have a washing machine drain in the basement? You could buy a dehumidifier with a condensate pump and pump the water up to that. Otherwise, you could have a plumber tap into your drain line to create someplace to pump the water. Another option might be a potable ac unit which vents the moisture out with the hot air. You could vent this out one of your windows and cut out a piece of plywood to keep the remaining window space sealed off. The only thing is that the ac won't work well in cool and humid conditions.