The best way to be energy efficient. Is to fix whatever is constantly causing the humidity. Have you properly encapsulated the space? I've heard great things about Aprileaire. What unit's are you currently using?
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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So, good question, the previous owner did install a vapor barrier covering the basement and crawlspace, so there is some other mitigation in place.
The current unit came with the house - HOMELABS HME020031. It keeps humidity down fine, but the pump is broken, so I'd like to replace it with something that should last for a while and hopefully run a little lighter on electric cost.
It seems it has a rating of 1.9L/kwh, whereas the aprilaire is 2.3L/kwH, so I suppose about ~20% more efficient. My other thought was they seem to have a better warranty so if something fails then I don't need to replace the whole unit.
Sizing up is one way to get efficiency. Another is switching to 240volt from 120volt if your unit supports it.
I don’t have experience with the aprilaire, but I also have a basement that requires a dehumidifier to run all the time. I’d love to try a whole home dehumidifier but wonder if you’d have to get the upper levels of the house too dry to keep the basement at the desired humidity (since it will always be more humid down there than the rest of the house).
One alternate solution I’d like to look into long term is a heat pump water heater, which has the benefit of being more efficient than more other water heaters, plus the benefit of dehumidifying the space around it due to the refrigeration cycle it uses. This only sounds reasonable b/c my water heater is on the older side so I might have to replace it eventually anyways. Wanted to throw that out there in case it was a possibility for yourself too! Not sure how it would work for the crawl space tho.
Full-disclosure: I’ve done VERY littler research on this. Just dabbling into some google searches in my free time and work in a related field and feel mildly knowledgeable on the subject.
So, I was interested in the same thing to save energy not running the unit, but as I understand it they don't dehumidify quite as much as a dedicated dehumidifier. I believe it only runs when I need hot water, so I'm not sure how often it would run on average for our water usage and if that would be sufficient to dehumidify the basement
So we installed a heat pump water heater a few months ago. We don’t need dehumidification in the basement but it does provide that as well as essentially free AC down there (letting us close all the vents and it’s still cooler than the rest of the house). It does produce condensate of course, Rheem says to fit it to a drain or a pump that can handle at least two gallons per day. Its essentially a window AC unit on top of a tank as a comparison. I wouldn’t consider it a great choice just for dehumidification though, ours really doesn’t produce that much condensate and it really only circulates air in the area it’s installed (the fan isn’t really designed to move a ton of air through the room).
That said, as a water heater it’s great. It does kick on and off a bit throughout the day, but it isn’t constant, maybe 30 mins every two or three hours. It then runs for a bit after a shower or the dishwasher runs to heat up the cold water coming in.
Hey thanks for chiming in with your experience! Sounds like I won’t be able to rely on it as an end-all solution. Like the other post above, I also have a heat pump upstairs and a boiler in the basement, so there are a couple other devices I’d like to play with to play with balancing the humidity to save the dedicated dehumidifier for only times it’s really needed