Nate Nagel wrote:
Dave Martindale wrote:

Nate Nagel writes:


As an aside, the old dehumidifier just had the little rotating knob
humidistat on it and I'd set it for slightly higher than "normal"
humidity. It cycled on and off, more off than on. The new one has a
digital humidistat so I set it for 55% RH because I've heard that to
minimize all of the bad things that can happen to your basement due
to incorrect humidity you should be in the 45-55% range. Apparently
the old dehumidifier was actually set for about 60 to 65% RH. New
unit showed 65% when I turned it on, quickly dropped to 60, now is
showing 55% but have not heard it shut off yet (granted, I haven't
been in my basement for the whole time period.)



Leave it alone for a day or two, then see if it's still running
constantly. If your old dehumidifier was set to 65%, then *everything*
in your basement that can absorb water vapour has about that level of
absorbed water. If you try to bring the humidity down to 55%,
everything is going to be "bleeding" moisture into the air for a while -
your drywall and studs, your bookshelfs, all the books, etc. Once the
humidity has been 55% for a while, everything else will stabilize at
that level, and the dehumidifier will have to run less.


Follow up - I think you were correct. It's taken a couple of days, but
it finally started cycling at 55%. I kicked it down to 50% last night,
now it's running more or less constantly again, but definitely
stabilized. I wish I had a good hygrometer to measure the humidity
upstairs so I'd know if I was trying to fight the whole house or not.
Might have to pick one of those up.

As an aside, I was mistaken about the new LG dehumidifiers - the fan
runs when you first plug them in, but after three minutes or so it
either kicks in the compressor and/or shuts off, depending on humidity.
If the compressor then cycles off, the fan shuts off too, as one would
expect. This is in contrast to the Frigidaire model I tried first - the
fan on that would run constantly no matter what, and it would not
recover correctly from a power failure.

I still am not 100% satisfied with the LG's - when recovering from a
power failure, if the power has been out for more than a few seconds,
the dehumidifier will revert to "on" mode rather than whatever humidity
selection you'd set on it. So it should probably be unplugged in the
wintertime, when dehumidification is not required or desirable. Also I
suspect that the one in the garage might have an issue with the
humidistat - twice now I've found it running but the ambient humidity
displayed is lower than the setpoint. (the garage seems to have
stabilized far quicker than the basement for some reason, even though
it's nearly as large, and was far more humid - this was the initial
impetus to go out and buy a new humidifier in the first place.)

I'm just posting this more for the benefit of anyone shopping for a
dehumidifier, so they don't have to go through the process of making an
expensive purchase, getting it home, and finding that it doesn't suit
their needs at all, like I did...

Followup: the handful of humidor hygrometers that I ordered through
amazon showed up yesterday. I calibrated them with the salt solution in
a Tupperware container and two of them were spot on. I tweaked the
remainder and they're in a container restabilizing for a final check. I
stuck one of the ones that was well calibrated out of the box on the
outside of the return air duct in the basement (return not supply so it
wouldn't be thrown off by cooled/heated air) next to the control for the
humidifier. The *de*humidifier is sitting on the floor about 4' away.
Currently the hygrometer is reading about 46-47 %RH despite the fact
that my dehumidifier was set for 55 %RH. I am certain that this is a
valid reading because I was calibrating them at 75%RH so even if it
hadn't fully stabilized it wasn't reading high. I kicked the
dehumidifier control up to 60 last night and it was still cycling this
afternoon. Now it's up to 70, as high as I can set it. I'm glad I went
through this exercise, if I'd left it set at 55 I would have been
wasting a lot of electricity over-dehumidifying my basement! I
apparently already did, drying out my house more than I had to... live
and learn. So so far the dehumidifiers are working well but the
humidistats seem to be inaccurate. I'll put another hygrometer in teh
garage once they're done calibrating, to see if the unit in the garage
is similarly pessimistic. The garage was much damper than the basement
before installing a dehumidifier, being completely unconditioned.

As to my original question about the condensate pump, I found one at a
HD slightly farther away, but they want $71 for it which is
significantly higher than the $55 on HD's web site. What a f'ing rip
off and of course it's not available to order online. I guess i'll keep
emptying buckets for a while longer, I just can't justify the extra cost
(esp. when I just blew a whole wad of cash on lumber to make new closet
shelves, and a fairly expensive roll of RG-6 quad shield... the home
improvement fun never stops.) if I get really tired of it and feel like
blowing some cash I guess I'll have to order some from drillspot or
something.

I guess the lesson from all this is that a $5 humidor hygrometer is more
accurate than whatever LG is using for their dehumidifier controls, so
wherever you're attempting to modify humidity, it's worth it to invest
in a couple to double check yourself.

nate

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