To give you an idea of the power of our Dri-CrawlSpace®, listen to the results one of our customers had when he unknowingly created a worst case scenario for his dehumidifier.
A customer in Colorado called to complain that his unit was running too much and rarely shutting off. He also felt it was going into defrost mode too often. Our representative named Rod spoke with him. The customer said he was trying to achieve 35% RH and was only able to maintain 45%… plus, he installed a fan to blow outside air into the crawlspace!
This should throw an immediate red flag for anyone who has read through our website or spoken with one of our engineers.
Here’s why… Not only do you need to keep your vents closed, you definitely do NOT want a fan sucking outdoor air into the crawlspace. Furthermore, you should only need to maintain 50-55% Relative Humidity to eliminate mold growth, wood rot and other moisture issues.
This is like setting your refrigerator at the lowest setting and running it with the door open! When we told this story to one of our engineers at the factory, his response was, "Our units are not designed to dehumidify the entire state of Colorado." What’s really amazing about this phone call, is that even with a fan pulling unconditioned outside air into the crawlspace, our unit was still able to maintain an incredible 45% RH!
Does Your Home Have a Humidity Problem Like Amy’s Home? Today, I spoke to a woman named Amy with a house near a swampy, wet area. Moisture in her home was out of control. She and her husband had just put on new siding and other expensive renovations to their home. They were researching a solution to their home’s humidity problem and had it narrowed down to a Dri-CrawlSpace® COMPACT Crawl Space Dehumidifier and a Humidex System.
I asked Amy to describe the conditions of the crawlspace and the surrounding area. She told me the yard borders a swampy area where the water frequently floods. She said the crawlspace was very moist, though there was no standing water. Windows throughout the house would often turn foggy.
From what Amy told me, I knew the entire house, not just the crawlspace, had a humidity problem. Foggy windows are a strong sign of a severe moisture problem throughout the home. Often the moisture problem occurs in the crawlspace, while air is comfortably dry on the first floor. In her situation, moisture on the first floor was condensing on the windows. This means there is a severe moisture problem in the crawlspace as well as the living space above.
Outdoor Environment Directly Affects Indoor Air Quality In looking at the environment, we know the area is extremely damp. Air inside a home comes from the air outside. Water vapor in the air does not disappear when it enters the home. Dew point of the outside air is the same as dew point of the inside air. The only thing that changes is temperature. Colder temperatures of surfaces in the crawlspace will collect condensation. Warmer temperatures in the living space above will feel dryer (this is called relative humidity), simply because they are warmer.
Will Humidex Work for Amy’s Home? Now, lets get back to Amy’s situation. She was trying to decide on using a Dri-CrawlSpace® Dehumidifier and a Humidex. The Humidex is a passive dehumidification solution that works by pulling air from the living space above and blowing it into the crawlspace below. For a Humidex to work, the air in the living space must be dry. In Amy’s home, with its severe moisture problem, air is humid everywhere (proof is the fog on the windows). Since there is a moisture problem throughout her home, the Humidex will simply stir around moist air. Humid air from the living space would be pumped into the crawlspace.
Dew point of the air is the temperature at which water will condense. Dew point of the air in your cold crawlspace is the same as the dew point of the air in your warm living space. In the warm part of your home, air feels dry. This air has the same absolute humidity, but because it is warmer, has a lower relative humidity. This air at a high temperature can hold its moisture, feels dryer, yet contains the same amount of absolute humidity (moisture). If a Humidex fan pulls that air down to your basement, the dew point does not change - because the Humidex has no dehumidifying capabilities, the actual amount of moisture in the air remains constant. As soon as that air from a Humidex hits your cold pipes, cold windows, cold walls and cold floor in your crawlspace, it will condense and water will accumulate. As this warm air from above cools, the relative humidity that you feel will change as the temperature changes.
So the answer is NO, a Humidex will not solve Amy’s humidity problem. Amy has severe humidity problems throughout her home and requires a crawlspace dehumidifier. A dehumidifier actively changes the dew point by removing water from the air.
Severe Humidity & Moisture Solution When you have a severe moisture problem, you need to remove moisture from your home’s crawlspace. Using a commercial strength dehumidifier will pull moisture out of the home’s problem area and deposit it outside. The Dri-CrawlSpace® units we have engineered are powerful workhorses that you install, set the humidistat and automatically regulate your home’s humidity all year long.
Using the same calculations that can be found in our "How to Size a Crawlspace Dehumidifier" blog, I was able to determine Amy’s home with a 1200 square foot crawlspace, 3-4 feet high (3,600 cubic feet) and severe levels of dampness could maintain 40-50% relative humidity 98% of the time using a Dri-CrawlSpace® PLUS dehumidifier. An additional Dri-CrawlSpace® COMPACT could be helpful during extremely wet days, though not absolutely necessary. Having an additional unit can help lower electric costs by dividing the load between the two and never running either one at maximum capacity.
Concerned About Cost? It seemed like a big part of Amy’s decision relied on price. After further investigation into the Humidex warranty, I found that the unit must be installed by a certified professional installer. Installation requires cutting holes through your floor in several places. Based on the work involved and current cost of contractors, you can bet you will pay more for a Humidex installation than your cost of a Dri-CrawlSpace® Dehumidifier. Installing a dehumidifier is easy enough for most people to do by themselves.
The other cost involved is electricity. If you are reading this, Amy, I now have the numbers for energy consumption.
Dri-CrawlSpace® COMPACT
Dri-CrawlSpace® PLUS
Efficiency Based on Electrical Consumption
Amps
3.5 amps
4.2 amps
Watts
403 watts
483 watts
Kilowatts
.403 kW
.483 kW
Efficiency Based on Water Removal
Kilowatts / Pint
0.0115 kW/ppd
0.0090 kW/ppd
Liters/kWhour
1.72 L/kWh
2.04 L/kWh
Energy consumption for both of our Dri-CrawlSpace® dehumidifiers are well within the range of acceptable for Energy Star Compliance.
Furthermore, at the 2006 national average of 10.94 cents per kilowatt-hour, assuming the unit must run about 30% of the time (depends on your level of dampness) you would pay $10 to $15 per month to run the Dri-CrawlSpace® PLUS. The Dri-CrawlSpace® COMPACT would cost about $8 to $10 per month. The Humidex would cost less to run, but it’s just a fan - it would be a total waste of money. As most experienced consumers have come to know, "you get what you pay for". But in this case, installation cost for a Humidex, along with cutting holes for vents in your floors will easily outweigh the cost to purchase and run our energy efficient dehumidifier.
There are plenty of crawlspace exhaust fans on the market that do exactly the same thing as the Humidex. They use a humidistat to kick the fan on and off depending on humidity. Vents from the crawlspace to the first floor allow a free exchange of air. Air is exhausted from your crawlspace and replaced by air sucked down through your vents. The problem is they just don’t do anything at all to remove humidity from your home. The Humidex is just an overpriced fan. I would hate to see it happen, but if those of you with humidity problems in your home were to use a Humidex Crawlspace Fan, your going to end up wasting money on a contractor to put holes in your floors, install a vented fan and end up with a useless system installed in your home. And none of that money is refundable. Our Dri-CrawlSpace® Dehumidifier offers a 100% money back performance guarantee - if you don’t like it, get all your money back.
Air Exchange Between Crawlspace and Home Living Space If you have a nasty crawlspace with a moisture problem, you don’t want to cut free flowing vents between your crawlspace and living space. You want to shut off your crawlspace. You want to prevent air exchange between your crawlspace and the rest of your house. Seal off the crawlspace and put a dehumidifier down there to maintain proper humidity. No matter how well you seal the crawlspace, air will always find a way up from your crawlspace, but limiting the passage will help keep moist air from entering the crawlspace and passing into your home living space.
Plus, fewer vents and openings between the living space and crawlspace, and from the crawlspace to the outside will help limit the creepy crawly critters like spiders, cockroaches and silverfish from entering your crawlspace and traveling up into your living space.
Because the crawlspace is always colder than the house above, relative humidity is always higher down there. The crawlspace is notorious for trapping moisture and growing mold. By using a crawl space dehumidifier to actively maintain humidity levels in your crawlspace, you will also regulate humidity throughout the home.
Humidex Vs Dehumidifier I found on the Humidex website, a whole page devoted to comparing their product to what appears to be appliance grade dehumidifiers. It makes me laugh to see their product compared to something that is not even designed for a crawlspace. They talk about daily maintenance, emptying the bucket. If your dehumidifier has a bucket to empty, it has no business being in a crawlspace. Don’t be fooled by someone hyping up a crawlspace exhaust fan as a solution for major humidity problems. The bottom line is that the Humidex can only dry your home to the level of the air that is already there. If you have a moisture problem in your entire home, or live in a humid area, moving the air from one part of your home to another will do you no good.
Call 1-800-564-0667 and talk to someone who knows more about humidity and air than just about anyone you know. Our equipment specifying engineers will use the same techniques for your problems that they use everyday on commercial and industrial humidity control issues. We can talk you through a solution for your problem that we guarantee will work.
Choosing the correct dehumidifier for your crawlspace can be so confusing because there are many different brands, types and sizes of dehumidifiers. When dealing with crawlspace moisture, it is important to choose a unit that is made specifically for use in crawlspaces.
The unique thing about your crawlspace that makes it completely different from any room in you home, is that humidity levels are always greater down there and temperature is always colder than any other room above in the main part of your house. That’s why you find mold growing down there before you see it anywhere else in your home. The colony starts below your house and sends its spores airborne, to float up, into and throughout your home until they find a moist place to grow. Drying out crawlspace moisture with the correct dehumidification equipment is the most direct way to solving many air quality issues in your home. And because of the unique conditions in your crawlspace, only a unit specially equipped will function properly down there.
We performed a study to determine the BEST VALUE in the product class of crawlspace dehumidifiers. We compared products side-by-side in simulated crawlspace conditions.
At the conclusion of our testing and product reviews, we chose to produce an unmatched line of crawlspace dehumidifiers, custom made to our specifications that will provide ideal performance in your crawlspace environment. We call these the Dri-CrawlSpace® COMPACT and Dri-CrawlSpace® PLUS available only on this website from OscarAir. The primary difference between the two models is the amount of moisture they can remove from the air. The Dri-CrawlSpace® COMPACT can pull 31 pints of water per day from the air, while the Dri-CrawlSpace® PLUS can remove 51 pints per day. Refer to the chart on our blog "How to Size a Crawlspace Dehumidifier" to determine the right size unit for your crawl space. For further help choosing the proper equipment, sign up to receive a FREE REPORT that "reveals 7 things you should know before buying any crawlspace dehumidifier". As you may have learned from our series of informative blogs, the American Lung Association and the American Medical Association recommend that your home maintains a relative humidity level of 30% - 50%. Using a properly sized dehumidifier with a vapor barrier will protect your health from mold and dust mites and will protect your home from the devastation of wood rot and termites. The Dri-CrawlSpace® COMPACT and Dri-CrawlSpace® PLUS are heavy-duty, all-weather dehumidifiers built to withstand harsh environments. These innovative units offer durability, reliability and simplicity of operation beyond any other crawlspace dehumidifiers on the market.
Features of the Dri-CrawlSpace® COMPACT and Dri-CrawlSpace® PLUS include:
Tested in our North Carolina engineering facility before shipment
Small size & weight allow for easy installation in tight spaces
Hot gas defrosting allows operation to 33 degrees Fahrenheit
Coils are enclosed in an epoxy-coated heavy-gauge metal case
Extra long 20 foot power cord
Integral dehumidistat provides control
Simple set-up and operation, plugs into standard household 115 volt outlet
Washable filter
Provides strong airflow, 200 CFM and 350 CFM respectively
All units use R-22 refrigerant
3 year warranty on compressor
The following chart provides specifications for each unit:
Insulated Duct Adapter - supply and return allow use of 8" round ducting
Line Voltage Humidistat - choose between remote wall mount or remote duct mount
High quality commercial grade crawlspace dehumidifiers like the Dri-CrawlSpace® COMPACT and PLUS when used in crawlspace conditions, will outperform any Energy Star rated appliance grade dehumidifiers found in local retail stores. Those cheap units are not made for harsh crawlspace demands and environments. Their compressors will become over-worked and will cause your electric meter to spin fast enough to slice ham. To make sure you are getting a unit that will work in your crawlspace, check the operating temperature. Don’t be fooled by dehumidifiers that advertise Energy Star efficiency at 80°F. Go with a dehumidifier built for low temperatures found in crawlspaces. And here’s the kicker - our Dri-CrawlSpace® units come with a performance guarantee. If it does not solve your humidity problem, you get 100% of your money back. Just call 1-800-564-0667 to activate your Performance Guarantee. A technician will revue your situation to ensure you are getting the right equipment and give you your activation code. Then order your unit online by clicking BUY-NOW in the menu above.
From what Amy told me, I knew the entire house, not just the crawlspace, had a humidity problem. Foggy windows are a strong sign of a severe moisture problem throughout the home. Often the moisture problem occurs in the crawlspace, while air is comfortably dry on the first floor. In her situation, moisture on the first floor was condensing on the windows. This means there is a severe moisture problem in the crawlspace as well as the living space above.
If a Humidex fan pulls that air down to your basement, the dew point does not change - because the Humidex has no dehumidifying capabilities, the actual amount of moisture in the air remains constant. As soon as that air from a Humidex hits your cold pipes, cold windows, cold walls and cold floor in your crawlspace, it will condense and water will accumulate. As this warm air from above cools, the relative humidity that you feel will change as the temperature changes.
Energy consumption for both of our Dri-CrawlSpace® dehumidifiers are well within the range of acceptable for Energy Star Compliance.
The unique thing about your crawlspace that makes it completely different from any room in you home, is that humidity levels are always greater down there and temperature is always colder than any other room above in the main part of your house. That’s why you find mold growing down there before you see it anywhere else in your home. The colony starts below your house and sends its spores airborne, to float up, into and throughout your home until they find a moist place to grow. Drying out crawlspace moisture with the correct dehumidification equipment is the most direct way to solving many air quality issues in your home. And because of the unique conditions in your crawlspace, only a unit specially equipped will function properly down there.
