Moisture in House

[howdy20012002]

Well, my hobby is becoming more of an expense..which for salt water stuff is hard to believe
however, i now have mold growing in both my bedroom and the guest bedroom...meaning i am going to have to rip down both ceilings..YAAAAYYY
i am assuming this is from the tanks and moisture
however, any suggestions on how to stop this?
i am buying a dehumidifer this weekend..but yeah..any thing else?
thanks
Neal

[fishmanty]

I use a dehumidifier, plus I have glass covering half of the top of my tank...


The dehumidifer seems to do the trick, except you'll naturally notice more water evaporating off your tank as the dehumidifer leaves the air rather dry.

[Delphinus]

Welcome to my world. I should show you a picture of the mold spot I've got on my ceiling in the front entry from the excessive humidity and the cold weather of the last few months. Yay hobby! The effect is probably worse with new houses such as mine because the R factors are much better and they're way more airtight.

Three suggestions for ya -
1- dehumidifier. I use one, and it helps a little. But it's noisy and having it run all the time when it's cold outside (when it's needed most) will put a little dent in your utility bill.
2- if you have a high efficiency furnace (or at least a low-cost DC drive fan), run the fan all the time. You can consider this without the high efficiency furnaces, but let me just say I tried this myself and was shocked at my utility bill the next month. With all the halides and stuff I run, that should tell ya something.
3- Consider an HRV (heat-recovery ventilator) installation. I'm having one put in myself. The people I've talked to who have HRV's swear by them. The idea is basically this, it's a heat exchanger. You ventilate your house (or a localized area) by venting out the air and using this air to preheat the air coming in. They have about 80% efficiency, which is pretty neat (i.e., 80% of the heat is recovered).

You can also look into a device called a humidex, which is sort of half of an HRV, from what I understand. It vents air to the outside, but relies on the non-airtightness of a house (or an open window) to replace the air coming in.

Incidentally if it's just a mildew buildup on your walls, I think you should be able to clean that up with bleach (rather than replace the drywall). It's just on the surface, right? If you have mildew on the INSIDE of your walls, that's another matter entirely (and quite serious), but it seems to me that shouldn't happen unless you've had an issue with flooding and so on (where the walls get actually wet through-and-through).

HTH..

[BMW Rider]

HRV is the best most energy efficient option, but not the cheapest initially.

This same issue was discussed earlier in this thread:

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...light=humidity

I installed mine last fall and the difference in the house is remarkable.

[TheReefGeek]

I dont have the $$$ right now for a humidex or HRV, so I am in the process of hooking up a bathroom fan conected to a dehumidistat. My house is leaky so I dont have to worry about bringing in fresh air.

This is cheap ($75 or so) but not as efficient as an HRV.

[Invigor]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

2- if you have a high efficiency furnace (or at least a low-cost DC drive fan), run the fan all the time. You can consider this without the high efficiency furnaces, but let me just say I tried this myself and was shocked at my utility bill the next month. With all the halides and stuff I run, that should tell ya something.

I tell ya it was a kick in the pants to find out our new furnace has a 110v fan instead of the variable 3 speed DC fan I -thought- was coming with it...grr. I think the AC fan motor uses 6amps...so that's the same as running 2 250w MH ALL DAY LONG!! huge bill

But, we also bought an HRV unit, just has to be installed. I'm really looking forward to it.

[TheReefGeek]

Oh and about the dehumidifier, if you can't plumb it to a drain line, it is going to fill up mighty quick.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by Invigor

I tell ya it was a kick in the pants to find out our new furnace has a 110v fan instead of the variable 3 speed DC fan I -thought- was coming with it...grr. I think the AC fan motor uses 6amps...so that's the same as running 2 250w MH ALL DAY LONG!! huge bill
..

I kind of wonder if it's possible to retrofit a DC drive in a furnace. My house is 2 years old now and had I known about the difference in DC vs AC drive fans when the house was being built I might have tried a little harder to come up with the extra few grand the housebuilder wanted to upgrade to a high-eff furnace. At the time it just seemed like too much investment for only marginal improvements.

I asked the guys doing my HRV install about that (retrofitting a DC drive fan) and they told me that by the time you added up all the factors, that you "might as well just go to the whole new furnace." Of course, asking someone who's livelihood depends on people buying furnaces might not give you the most unbiased answer, so I haven't really given up on that notion for now, might look into it again down the road.

..
But, we also bought an HRV unit, just has to be installed. I'm really looking forward to it.

Same situation for me. I've had the unit half-installed for nearly a week. The guy came back yesterday and although he's STILL not finished with all the ducting work, it's enough done that it can be turned on and I have to say, what an amazing difference. After about 6 hours, my house had dry windows (every single window) for the first time since the warm weather (it's only a problem when it's cold).

Of course as luck would have it, now that it's operational, it looks like we're heading into another warm spell for a few days, so I won't really know for sure until it gets cold again. But I have to say, I'm pretty excited about the potential here.

[Bob I]

Originally Posted by Invigor

I tell ya it was a kick in the pants to find out our new furnace has a 110v fan instead of the variable 3 speed DC fan I -thought- was coming with it...grr. I think the AC fan motor uses 6amps...so that's the same as running 2 250w MH ALL DAY LONG!! huge bill

But, we also bought an HRV unit, just has to be installed. I'm really looking forward to it.

A bit of a error in thinking here. It is unlikely that you furnace has a 6 Amp motor. That would be about a five horsepower motor. There are 745 watts to a horsepower. The motor in a 120v furnace is usually a fractional horse motor. I know mine is 1/12 Horse.

[Bob I]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I kind of wonder if it's possible to retrofit a DC drive in a furnace. My house is 2 years old now and had I known about the difference in DC vs AC drive fans when the house was being built I might have tried a little harder to come up with the extra few grand the housebuilder wanted to upgrade to a high-eff furnace. At the time it just seemed like too much investment for only marginal improvements.

I asked the guys doing my HRV install about that (retrofitting a DC drive fan) and they told me that by the time you added up all the factors, that you "might as well just go to the whole new furnace." Of course, asking someone who's livelihood depends on people buying furnaces might not give you the most unbiased answer, so I haven't really given up on that notion for now, might look into it again down the road.




Same situation for me. I've had the unit half-installed for nearly a week. The guy came back yesterday and although he's STILL not finished with all the ducting work, it's enough done that it can be turned on and I have to say, what an amazing difference. After about 6 hours, my house had dry windows (every single window) for the first time since the warm weather (it's only a problem when it's cold).

Of course as luck would have it, now that it's operational, it looks like we're heading into another warm spell for a few days, so I won't really know for sure until it gets cold again. But I have to say, I'm pretty excited about the potential here.

I don't know if some facts would be of assistance to you. I don't know if you realised that warm air can hold much more moisture than cold. That should lead to the explanation of condensation on windows during cold weather. The moisture in the air condenses out when the warmer air runs into the cold window. It is very helpful to have a small fan blow air past a cold window. That is a relatively inexpensive cure. (always depending on the number of affected windows).