Dehumidifiers

[praire_guy]

So my central konked out this weekend, right after I finished steam cleaning my carpets, lol.

My friend got the ac up and running and suggested a dehumidifier. He said it would take some of the strain off the ac, and I would feel as comfortable at a higher, less humid temp.

I checked the CHMC website, and I need to spend about 300 for a unit properly sized to my home.

Has any of you used a dehumidifier?

If so, was it worth the expense? (offset by lower ac use)

Right now my house is at 50-62 humidity

[Daniel A.]

As one living on the west coast we get very few humid day's and temps of 24-27 are very comfortable most don't need air conditioning.

I know from living in the east it would be very difficult not having air conditioning and most of that has to do with the humidity.
What your friend say's does make sense, its the humidity that really is the problem.

[praire_guy]

I picked one up last night. I was surprised at the amount of water I had to drain today.

[andrewf]

Can't you hook it up to a drain? Most have hose attachments.

[brad]

Yeah, we have ours hooked to a hose that goes down the cellar drain. Otherwise the bucket fills up every day.

We use one in our basement, as we have trouble with dry rot in the beams; if I don't run it the humidity gets up to 75-80 percent pretty quickly. Note that dehumidifiers also add heat to the air along with removing moisture, so our basement is actually warmer than it would be if we didn't run one. Not sure how that would work with air conditioning.

[crazyjackcsa]

My house sits at around 70% humidity in the summer. I use a dehumidifier in the basement. An AC unit has two jobs, dehumidifying and cooling air. If you run the ac it should pull the needed moisture out of the air already. I'm not sure that you'll see any savings.

[praire_guy]

I,have the hose attachment. Was waiting to see how often I need to empty the bin, which is every day.

I don't have a plug near the drain, and the manual says not to use a hose longer than 5 feet. Not sure it matters. As long as gravity does its thing.

I could use an extension cord, but the manual says not to use one. What do you guys do?

[LondonHomes]

I have one for the basement but do not use it all the time. It is amazing at just how much water it can pull out of the air when it does run.

[praire_guy]

I have dropped my humidity 20% and set my ac higher.

I'm thinking of not draining direct. I like to see how much water this thing pulls out of the air. Probably because I paid 300 bucks and want to see it work, lol.