daestrom wrote:

wrote in message

...With months of heating season ahead, you have damp air in your house.

From human activities (2 gal/day), and a possible damp basement floor, which
can be arranged with a humidistat and a solenoid valve and a soaker hose :-)

What can happen to that air? It can be ventilated, exhausted from
the house (and, in most climates, replaced by drier air) and the vapour
energy is simply lost (to the homeowner). The only way to keep the energy
is to condense the vapour inside the house, and the best place for the
condensed vapour is down the drain...

Agreed. If it leaves the house at 40 F, there's another slight gain.

The only problem with that here in NY is, we don't have a lot of 'damp air'
in the house in the winter time. Quite the opposite, because of low outside
temperatures, the house can be quite dry and we have to run a *humidifier*,
not a *dehumidifier*. Not for any sort of energy, but just for comfort/health.

A need for winter humidification is a sign of an air-leaky house.

Nick