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School me on this mysterious Dehumidifier technology
Cantido
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
In 2020 I used, and enjoyed, a Honeywell Zeta, with the objective of cooling myself in the only room I need cooling when teleworking, creating comfort while conserving electricity.
In 2021 someone here gave me feedback, "yo, that's a swamp cooler."...Huh. Swamp cooler. And looking at my electricity consumption numbers between 2020 and 2021, the Zeta appeared to do jack-shit.
My southern, swamp dwelling ass never really considered attempting to manipulate humidity in order to maintain comfort while conserve electricity. So I went to Lowes and purchased a 50 pint dehumidifer. It was garbage. It gushed buckets of hot air, but I was intrigued by the fact that I did feel more comfortable. My apartment even looked different with drier air.
I returned it and purchased a h0melabs 50 pint model, recommended to me by a medically sensitive friend with multiple small units. I achieved far greater results. I was able to increase my daytime temperature from 75 to 78 while staying comfortable, with a bedtime temperature increased from 71 to 73. This also makes getting out of bed easier.
I'm still trying to understand how to use it most effectively. It still gushes a lot of hot air (not as much as the first model.) But it seems like my apartment HVAC struggles to get to the temperature I want in the evenings while the dehumidier is running. Sometimes the resivoir will completely fill over night, but last night it barely gathered any water.
How do dehumidifer users get the most of out them?
In 2021 someone here gave me feedback, "yo, that's a swamp cooler."...Huh. Swamp cooler. And looking at my electricity consumption numbers between 2020 and 2021, the Zeta appeared to do jack-shit.
My southern, swamp dwelling ass never really considered attempting to manipulate humidity in order to maintain comfort while conserve electricity. So I went to Lowes and purchased a 50 pint dehumidifer. It was garbage. It gushed buckets of hot air, but I was intrigued by the fact that I did feel more comfortable. My apartment even looked different with drier air.
I returned it and purchased a h0melabs 50 pint model, recommended to me by a medically sensitive friend with multiple small units. I achieved far greater results. I was able to increase my daytime temperature from 75 to 78 while staying comfortable, with a bedtime temperature increased from 71 to 73. This also makes getting out of bed easier.
I'm still trying to understand how to use it most effectively. It still gushes a lot of hot air (not as much as the first model.) But it seems like my apartment HVAC struggles to get to the temperature I want in the evenings while the dehumidier is running. Sometimes the resivoir will completely fill over night, but last night it barely gathered any water.
How do dehumidifer users get the most of out them?
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Sort of. So the idea is to drop the humidity of the house moist air goes in dry air goes out, but it also exhausts a lot of heat. The volume of air in your apartment does not fluctuate a great deal so a dehumidifier will decrease the humidity even if it isn’t near you. And the HVAC will cycle the air enough to keep things going. Essentially you want the hot air going somewhere else while dropping the humidity. Normally dehumidifiers are out in the basement because of their higher humidity, but also because they won’t heat up the area most of the residents are in and they effect the whole home. So the kitchen a bathroom a fireplace. It’ll still ring the moisture out of the air, but try it in a different area tonight and see if you are more comfortable.
Yeah, you’ll end up sucking in an equivalent amount moist air because pressure is going to want to equalize with the outside environment.
Cantido, you should have the landlord check and make sure the AC drain tube isn’t blocked, because it should dehumidify the apartment as it cools. I know mine pulls several pints out of the air each day right now. Another thing that might help would be have the condenser coils cleaned, as if they are dirty that will decrease the efficiency of you AC unit. AC filters aren’t perfect after all.
Then try the drain tube as the appropriately-named Soggybiscuit said. Our A/C in Chicago would drip all summer long. Ideally you try to route it so it's not dripping on anyone.
I also put in the request to get the AC looked at.
For a frame of reference, the south is always humid. I turned off the AC and dehumidifier and my humidity rose to 57%. Setting the AC to 77F without my dehumidifier reduced the humidity by 1%. What they do to my AC, and what my electricity consumption numbers look like, will determine whether or not I keep the dehumidifer, but I'm confident that I'm getting value at it.
Swamp coolers work well in areas with low humidity, because they evoporate ice/cold water and add it to the air, increasing the humidity in the room, but cooling the temperature, because the water/ice is cold when it enters the air stream. Dehumidifiers work by removing water from the air, which can make you more comfortable despite the room being the same temperature.
I don't know about the benefits of running an evaporative air cooler and a dehumidifier in the same area?
It's apparently a thing that is suggested for humid environments. Swamp coolers work best in dry environments. So if it's too humid, run a dehumidifier to dry the air so the swamp cooler can work better -- that's the theory at least. Though similar to several of the comments here https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/37252/why-do-a-swamp-cooler-and-dehumidifier-effectively-cool-a-room-when-paired-toget I can't imagine how it would manage to actually cool anything due to the warm exhaust from the dehumidifier, though it's certainly possible it might help to make it feel more cool to someone in the room, I don't know. And if you could vent the dehumidifier warm air out a window, then maybe.
Though a properly working AC unit is definitely going to work better.
It takes A LOT more energy to heat or cool water. The more water in the air the more time/energy it will take to change the temperature. Sucking the water out of the air with a dehumidifier helps the cooling and heating equipment. Ideally you want your humidity between 45-55% but some people may prefer differently. Venting it outside is ideal but not necessary, the key is getting the water out of the air.
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After beginning to use the dehumidifier mid June, and subsequently increasing my daytime AC to 78F, I reduced electricity consumption in by 70 kilowatts. A full month should reveal the real savings. I can't talk about monetary savings because I'm in Texas and everyone's rates have skyrocketed because the GOP tries to spin winter's blackout as our responsibility.
I now exclusively use it during the day and evening, and don't use it at night due to the warm air it creates (and as explained above, all standard air conditioners are dehumidifiers in a sense.)