Let's talk whole home dehumidifiers

I’ve been looking into getting one for my house, can’t seem to pull the trigger tho.

Anybody else have one installed notice a difference in AC run time, electric bill etc?

I feel like it’s really increases my electric bill. Had 1 in basement and 1 in main floor last year and had record high bills. Going to try just basement this year and see if I notice anything in usage.

I have had one for about 5 years now but to be fair I had it installed at the same time I upgraded my 5 ton unit to a higher efficiency multi stage system so my bill decreased significantly.

I put an ultra air 98h in my attic. It drained to my AC drain. I cut in a new return and ran it to the unit. It pushed the conditioned air into the plenum on the other side of my evaporator coil. Those units pull less than 15 amps. It did bring my humidity in my house down to 50%. You have to install a humidistat with these units to control the humidity level to your comfort level. Since I put new units in when I remodeled it is just sitting in my attic. The new units keep my house at 50 to 55% relative humidity.

Mine sits on top of my air handler. It’s plugged into a 110 outlet, and the drain is tied Into the ac drain. Easy install no matter your skill level.

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Does it have to be run at the same time as the AC or can I run it independently?

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Though it can be configured in different ways, it is usually installed to run independent of the AC. It has its own return plenum and uses the HVAC supply ducts, and has a separate humidistat.

This is one of the better short videos of installing a whole house dehumidifier in this way - install in New Orleans Ask this Old House : How to Install a Whole House Dehumidifer. The condensate drain on this one is plumbed outside but it can the plumbed to drain to a vent stack.

The one I bought runs independently with its own humidistat. You can also tie it in to a fresh air intake if you have a tight enough house to use as a makeup air whenever you turn on your vent hood. Ours was very quiet. I hung it from the rafters in the attic off of unistrut. Set it on a pan and plumbed it in.

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Perfect, thanks! Really am thinking of doing this but I'm sweating already just thinking of doing that work in my attic. May just wait it out until the fall.

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Why is it in your attic? Most of them are somewhere like an AC closet pulling the air directly from your house. I guess it would be installed in your ducting?

As said its just a 110 outlet and a drain line into your condensate line, so fairly simple really.