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the house feels really comfortable but
that's not what you said in the email
though right we actually have a humidity
problem and it's not when you would
expect it to be normally you would think
you would have high humidity in the
Summers but when the air conditioner is
on it's fine it's in the spring and the
fall that we have high humidity all
right well you realize of course you
live in New Orleans where there's plenty
of humidity right yes all right how bad
does it get pretty severe the windows
get condensation on the inside couple
times a year and I really would like to
keep the house healthy and our musical
instruments nice and dry that's right
they can't take a wide range of humidity
I know no all right so why don't you
show me where you hide your mechanical
system follow me all
right all right Sarah so here's your air
conditioning unit in the attic I love
seeing this insulation completely on the
entire roof right here so often I see it
right on the second floor ceiling and
then the poor air conditioner is sitting
in a really hot hot place this is great
yeah we added it about 3 years ago good
job so now here's your system here's the
return air any of the warm air that's in
the building gets pulled up through this
big flexible return duct right here
pulled into the back right here now
inside your air conditioner you've got a
coil and a blower pushing the air this
way the air that's hot comes across that
refrigeration coil and any of the heat
that is in it gets absorbed into a
really cold refrigerant the heat gets
dumped to outside leaving cold air going
out through these Supply registers right
there so you're saying this unit doesn't
actually create cold air it removes heat
cold is actually the absence of heat
once I dump the heat to outside all
that's left is cold air now at the very
same time that we're making the air cold
another thing's happening that air
that's coming back from the building is
filled with humidity and that comes
across that really cold refrigeration
coil now imagine that ice cold glass of
water down on your kitchen counter on a
hot day what happens it sweats
absolutely so the same thing happens
right here it sweats and that water now
called condensate gets collected and
goes out through that white pipe right
there to outside so now the air that's
going back into your building is both
cooler and drier but the issue you have
is spring and fall it might say 70 on
the thermostat and then it shuts off but
you still have all this humidity all
around you here in New Orleans so now it
wants to keep coming in if you turn the
thermostat colder you might get some
less humidity but what happens freezing
it we've tried that and it just didn't
work so I got an idea let me show you
so what we need to do is to find a way
to dehumidify the air when we're not
running the air conditioner so this is
the way most people do it this is a
portable dehumidifier that has a bucket
down the bottom to collect water at the
top you can see right here there's a
coil now the humid air comes across that
coil and it's colder so now what happens
that water settles off the coil down
into the bucket and it dumps drier air
right here this is sort of a baby cousin
to an air conditioner it's enough to dry
the air but not to make it cooler we
have a couple of those those in our
basement and they work great until the
bucket FS up and then they stop until I
empty it and you have no time for
practice takes away from the practicing
all right so what I want to do is I
actually want to put in a standalone
whole house dehumidifier this will sit
and work in conjunction with your air
conditioning unit so it'll go into the
same duct work the way it works is humid
air comes right here is drawn across
this filter and now it comes inside here
and there's a cold coil in here that
pulls that moisture out it gets drawn to
a drain that goes out through the back
and now the air comes back here and
comes back through the front it comes
back drier but not colder so you can run
it in the spring and the fall sounds
like the perfect solution I think so
rales Brown is from the local HVAC
company giving us a hand today the
installation starts by hanging the unit
above the air conditioner allowing
access for service for both the air
conditioner and the dehumidifier I
Square it up right Square it
up
Beauty so rales is installing the grill
to this return air duct that's going to
go back to the new dehumidifier right
next to the old return air for the air
conditioner does that mean that only the
hallway will be dehumidified no actually
the humid air from the house will go
back through that Grill to the DEH
humidifier then it goes into the duct
system and the nice thing is about
humidity is once we get part of the
house Dry it'll equalize every room will
be the same humidity level with the
grill in place now we're ready to run
the duct from the back of the
dehumidifier to this Grill
using flexible strap we support our
flexible duct so it won't
Kink we cut the flex duct to length and
make the proper connection at the grill
side
and now we work on the
supply you
yeah all right Sarah your new
dehumidifier is installed do you
remember the grill down in the hallway
here that humid air comes up through the
return right here comes across a filter
now you're going to have to change this
every once in a while two to three
months do you have pets yes so even more
okay and pushes in like this and there's
a nice panel that just snaps in okay so
now it comes across the filter now it
comes across that coil it pulls that
humidity out there's a fan inside to
drive the air through all that water
goes into the drain right here right to
outside nice dry air comes here
into the supply and then it goes right
down into the common duct work so it
uses all the existing distribution duct
work to put that dry air in and the nice
thing is we don't have to run the air
conditioner to get nice dry air in your
house that's great how do I control it
well that's downstairs thanks so much
rales great
job all right so right here in the
hallway is your original thermostat and
next to it is the new control it's
called a humidistat it's going to sense
the humidity level in the house and
bring on that dehumidifier now what
level should we set it at you know it's
personal preference I like to start at
about 35% but you can see how easy it is
to change you just sort of turn this
button right here but you know your
instruments are going to know the right
setting Richard thank you so much we
really appreciate it my pleasure great
fun too
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