I am fighting a high humidity problem in a new construction house and need some help.
The house closed in Dec 2015, Midwest, it's two story with basement, 4500 sq ft finished space. It's a dual HVAC system house, meaning one furnace/AC for basement and main level, and one furnace/AC for upstairs.
Furnaces are Goodman GMVM97 modulating. AC units are Goodman DSXC16 two-stage scroll compressor AC. Two thermostats, both Goodman CTK04 communicating thermostats based on the Honeywell Prestige stat.
These thermostats have built-in dehumidify control using AC overcool with low fan speed. I have tried using it, but makes the house too cold for our comfort and still humidity is over 60% on both levels. If I use a portable dehumidifier, I can get the humidity a little lower on one of the levels but it's not enough, and frequently upstairs I'm running into 70-75% humidity which is way too high.
I contacted the company who did the original install of the equipment, and they kept pushing for a whole house dehumidifier, which isn't surprising.. but they gave us a demo unit, an Aprilaire 1850F freestanding unit in the mechanical room in our basement. They swear up and down that this unit will control the humidity but it doesn't. I asked and this is the unit they would want to sell us. Guy said he's been doing this for 20+ years.. but that unit has been running nonstop for 2 days and humidity is 76% upstairs right now. In the mechanical room the Aprilaire unit thinks the RH is 44% but everywhere else in the house I'm getting 60-70%+ readings. Predictable, since I am very skeptical that this freestanding unit could possibly circulate enough air, even though I left the mechanical room door open like they told me to, which I don't like as I have a toddler running around.
They also wanted to charge us $3000 for a unit that sells for $1200 to unbox it, come plug it in and run 4' of clear drain line to the floor drain, which seems egregious. I don't begrudge markups and fair profit, but that just seems a little high considering anybody could install this freestanding unit in 10 minutes or less with little to no knowledge.
Anyway, they don't seem to want to use a dehumidifier that hooks into the ductwork which is kind of what I was expecting. I'm calling around and at least so far I can't find anyone that knows how to contend with dual system homes. As it is this is a huge expense I wasn't planning on, I would hate to have to double it for two dehumidifiers into ductwork of two systems. I've heard conflicting stories from a couple other HVAC places I've gotten quotes from, one wants to sell me two ducted dehumidifiers ($$$$!!), the other wants to sell me one ducted dehumidifier on basement unit and says that this will take care of it for the house because more humid air will seek out less humid areas of the home in an attempt to balance it.
Can anyone please let me know a good WORKING strategy for combating high humidity with the type of house and HVAC setup I have?? Appreciate it!
[link] [comments]
No comments:
Post a Comment