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Electronics Repair (sci.electronics.repair) Discussion of repairing electronic equipment. Topics include requests for assistance, where to obtain servicing information and parts, techniques for diagnosis and repair, and annecdotes about success, failures and problems. |
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#1
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Sears dehumidifer problems
[I've cross posted this to what seemed to be the most appropriate places; no flames please] I have a 4-year old Kenmore 65-pint dehumidifer which sits in a basement room containing electronics, etc. and I keep the relative humidity below 50%. It has functioned well until I turned it on for this summer season (in the winter, hot air from the furnace keeps the room dry as a bone). Nothing has changed in the room, or the basement, which would affect the ease with which humidity could leak back into the room. I keep a digital thermometer/hygrometer in the room (double-checked for accuracy with another unit elsewhere in the house). The problem seems to be the (digital) humidistat (which has a range of 40 - 60%) which now seems to be about 10 - 15% too high. As a result, even with the dehumidifer set at 40%, the steady-state humidity in the room barely goes below 50%. I checked the warranty and it only applies to the sealed components (condenser, compressor, etc) so I opened the unit and found no evidence of a humidistat adjustment or trimmer. The humidity sensor is mounted on the inner frame of the unit, within the stream of air flow between back to front, next to the sides of the coils. When it has stopped running at an ambient humidity of 50% (even though set to 40%) it restarts again when I blow moist air from my mouth at the sensor. It looks to be sourced from LG, and browsing in stores I see newer units which allow set points down to 30% relative humidity, as well as low temperature operation. I'm toying with the idea of simply replacing the unit, but wonder if it's worth the expense of having a non-warranty failure repaired - or the hassle of ordering a replacement sensor and trying it myself. Any thoughts? |
#2
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Sears dehumidifer problems
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#3
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Sears dehumidifer problems
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#4
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Sears dehumidifer problems
The fault can be the humidity sensor, control board, or that the
cooling is a little weak due to some of the gas leaking out (bad seals), or the lack of proper pressure from the condensor. The service rep for your machine can test for the faults, and service them. If you have an extended warrenty, this should all be covered. Jerry G. ====== Mike S. wrote: [I've cross posted this to what seemed to be the most appropriate places; no flames please] I have a 4-year old Kenmore 65-pint dehumidifer which sits in a basement room containing electronics, etc. and I keep the relative humidity below 50%. It has functioned well until I turned it on for this summer season (in the winter, hot air from the furnace keeps the room dry as a bone). Nothing has changed in the room, or the basement, which would affect the ease with which humidity could leak back into the room. I keep a digital thermometer/hygrometer in the room (double-checked for accuracy with another unit elsewhere in the house). The problem seems to be the (digital) humidistat (which has a range of 40 - 60%) which now seems to be about 10 - 15% too high. As a result, even with the dehumidifer set at 40%, the steady-state humidity in the room barely goes below 50%. I checked the warranty and it only applies to the sealed components (condenser, compressor, etc) so I opened the unit and found no evidence of a humidistat adjustment or trimmer. The humidity sensor is mounted on the inner frame of the unit, within the stream of air flow between back to front, next to the sides of the coils. When it has stopped running at an ambient humidity of 50% (even though set to 40%) it restarts again when I blow moist air from my mouth at the sensor. It looks to be sourced from LG, and browsing in stores I see newer units which allow set points down to 30% relative humidity, as well as low temperature operation. I'm toying with the idea of simply replacing the unit, but wonder if it's worth the expense of having a non-warranty failure repaired - or the hassle of ordering a replacement sensor and trying it myself. Any thoughts? |
#5
Posted to sci.electronics.repair,alt.home.repair
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Sears dehumidifer problems
"Jerry G." writes:
The fault can be the humidity sensor, control board, or that the cooling is a little weak due to some of the gas leaking out (bad seals), or the lack of proper pressure from the condensor. The service rep for your machine can test for the faults, and service them. If you have an extended warrenty, this should all be covered. A couple tests to determine if it is a sensor problem or a loss of coolant (which may be under your warranty) would be 1. After it's been running for a 15 minutes or so, are the evaporator coils (the cold ones) more or less uniformly cold without ice? If they are, then the sealed system is working fine. If only part of the coil is cold and/or there is ice, then it's low on coolant. 2. If you set the humidistat at 50 percent, does it maintain 50 percent, or would it then be around 60 percent? In the latter case, it's a sensor problem. --- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/ Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/ +Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm | Mirror Sites: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_mirror.html Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs. Mike S. wrote: [I've cross posted this to what seemed to be the most appropriate places; no flames please] I have a 4-year old Kenmore 65-pint dehumidifer which sits in a basement room containing electronics, etc. and I keep the relative humidity below 50%. It has functioned well until I turned it on for this summer season (in the winter, hot air from the furnace keeps the room dry as a bone). Nothing has changed in the room, or the basement, which would affect the ease with which humidity could leak back into the room. I keep a digital thermometer/hygrometer in the room (double-checked for accuracy with another unit elsewhere in the house). The problem seems to be the (digital) humidistat (which has a range of 40 - 60%) which now seems to be about 10 - 15% too high. As a result, even with the dehumidifer set at 40%, the steady-state humidity in the room barely goes below 50%. I checked the warranty and it only applies to the sealed components (condenser, compressor, etc) so I opened the unit and found no evidence of a humidistat adjustment or trimmer. The humidity sensor is mounted on the inner frame of the unit, within the stream of air flow between back to front, next to the sides of the coils. When it has stopped running at an ambient humidity of 50% (even though set to 40%) it restarts again when I blow moist air from my mouth at the sensor. It looks to be sourced from LG, and browsing in stores I see newer units which allow set points down to 30% relative humidity, as well as low temperature operation. I'm toying with the idea of simply replacing the unit, but wonder if it's worth the expense of having a non-warranty failure repaired - or the hassle of ordering a replacement sensor and trying it myself. Any thoughts? |
#6
Posted to sci.electronics.repair,alt.home.repair
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Sears dehumidifer problems
Given their cost of a new unit and the rip off sears service price your
much better off replacing the unit |
#7
Posted to sci.electronics.repair,alt.home.repair
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Sears dehumidifer problems
" writes:
Given their cost of a new unit and the rip off sears service price your much better off replacing the unit Heck, and I always thought this was a repair newsgroup. Seras isn't the only option for repair. --- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/ Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/ +Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm | Mirror Sites: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_mirror.html Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs. |
#8
Posted to sci.electronics.repair,alt.home.repair
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Sears dehumidifer problems
In article , Sam Goldwasser wrote: " writes: Given their cost of a new unit and the rip off sears service price your much better off replacing the unit Heck, and I always thought this was a repair newsgroup. Seras isn't the only option for repair. I looked up the unit in the parts database and found that I can order a replacement sensor assembly for $21. I will replace that first, and if there is still a coolant issue once the humidistat issue is resolved, will bring it in for warranty service (since the warranty only covers the sealed coolant assembly). |
#9
Posted to sci.electronics.repair,alt.home.repair
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Sears dehumidifer problems
In article , Sam Goldwasser wrote: "Jerry G." writes: The fault can be the humidity sensor, control board, or that the cooling is a little weak due to some of the gas leaking out (bad seals), or the lack of proper pressure from the condensor. The service rep for your machine can test for the faults, and service them. If you have an extended warrenty, this should all be covered. A couple tests to determine if it is a sensor problem or a loss of coolant (which may be under your warranty) would be 1. After it's been running for a 15 minutes or so, are the evaporator coils (the cold ones) more or less uniformly cold without ice? If they are, then the sealed system is working fine. If only part of the coil is cold and/or there is ice, then it's low on coolant. OK. After running a few minutes, the center coils are definitely cooler than the ones towards the top and bottom of the evaporator. 2. If you set the humidistat at 50 percent, does it maintain 50 percent, or would it then be around 60 percent? In the latter case, it's a sensor problem. The unit consistently maintains a steady-state humidity 10 - 15% higher than the set point. |
#12
Posted to sci.electronics.repair,alt.home.repair
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Sears dehumidifer problems
(Mike S.) writes:
In article , Sam Goldwasser wrote: "Jerry G." writes: The fault can be the humidity sensor, control board, or that the cooling is a little weak due to some of the gas leaking out (bad seals), or the lack of proper pressure from the condensor. The service rep for your machine can test for the faults, and service them. If you have an extended warrenty, this should all be covered. A couple tests to determine if it is a sensor problem or a loss of coolant (which may be under your warranty) would be 1. After it's been running for a 15 minutes or so, are the evaporator coils (the cold ones) more or less uniformly cold without ice? If they are, then the sealed system is working fine. If only part of the coil is cold and/or there is ice, then it's low on coolant. OK. After running a few minutes, the center coils are definitely cooler than the ones towards the top and bottom of the evaporator. Probably not significant as long as no not cold-at-all or frozen coils. 2. If you set the humidistat at 50 percent, does it maintain 50 percent, or would it then be around 60 percent? In the latter case, it's a sensor problem. The unit consistently maintains a steady-state humidity 10 - 15% higher than the set point. OK, that does sound like a sensor problem. There really should be some way of adjusting the humidistat. You can also probably just buy an aftermarket humisistat and mount it in there somehow. It should just be a switch that turns the thing on when the humidity goes above the set-point. --- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/ Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/ +Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm | Mirror Sites: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_mirror.html Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs. |
#13
Posted to sci.electronics.repair,alt.home.repair
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Sears dehumidifer problems
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#14
Posted to sci.electronics.repair,alt.home.repair
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Sears dehumidifer problems
Follow-up to this thread: Basement getting awfully damp while I wait for the replacement sensor. In the end I took it to Sears for an estimate. They acknowledged that it had 1 year remaining warranty on the sealed components (but not the rest). Today (2 weeks after drop-off) I received two messages from Sears on my answering machine. The first message was an apology for the delay, and they would be contacting me soon. The second was a statement that Sears had decided to replace the dehumidifier rather than attempt repair; and I would be notified shortly when to pick up the new unit. When I pick it up, I'll turn in the sensor for credit. All's well that ends well ... though I suppose I won't know for sure now whether the problem was the coolant or the electronics/sensor. |
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