Humidity Control?

BMW Rider · #1 02-03-2006, 08:29 PM

I bought my HRV, A Venmar Hepa 3000, from Home Depot along with the installation kit which contains the ducting and vent hood among other parts. It cost about $1000, plus I had to move a few other things in my furnace roiom to clear space for the unit. I did the installation myself, tying it into the existing HVAC ducting rather than installing all new stand alone vent ducts for it. That was not feasable to do given that the house is a two story with a fully finished basement (well almost). I put the vent hood out through the rim joist as Tony suggested. The venmar unit has a combined hood for both exhaust and intake, some units just use two seperate vents which will require you to cut two openings. The entire job took me less than a day to do, but I am fairly proficient at DIY stuff.

If you do decide that you'd rather take the vent out through the concrete wall, you can get a contractor to core the hole for you. I did that for my basement fireplace. It cost me $100 and took the guy less than an hour to do. Just look in the yellow pages under "concrete cutting and coring".

TheReefGeek · #2 02-03-2006, 08:35 PM

Wow $1000 and that is doing the labor yourself, pretty $$$ for me right now.

I think I am going to try and install a bathroom fan, and if need be then add some de-humidifying bags in my fish room and furnace room.

TheReefGeek · #3 02-03-2006, 08:38 PM

I think I will need one of these dryer vent hoods as well then, and a 4" hole saw, I dont have one that big in my set.

Mark, did you drill from the inside out, or outside in?

mark · #4 02-03-2006, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheReefGeek

I think I will need one of these dryer vent hoods as well then, and a 4" hole saw, I dont have one that big in my set.

Mark, did you drill from the inside out, or outside in?

Pilot hole from the inside, holesaw from the outside.

TheReefGeek · #5 02-03-2006, 10:03 PM

Mark, think I can make a pilot hole through one of my access panels in the roof.

The dryer vent hood goes into the 4" hole from the outside then?

monza · #6 02-03-2006, 10:09 PM

$1000.00 bucks might seem like a lot and it is but not compared to your house. Thats one of your biggest investments and you don't want it rotting and getting mold. I did the HRV like Tony is going to do from Air Pro, it's the way to go.

When you get 200-300+ gallons of open water in your house you have to do some thing or it will be a problem.

Dave

TheReefGeek · #7 02-03-2006, 10:12 PM

Will a bathroom fan in my fish room vented outside not work well enough?

My house is old, and crappy windows, so there are lots of air leaks in.

Psyire · #8 02-03-2006, 11:18 PM

You could also look into these products:

www.humidex.ca

Doug · #9 02-03-2006, 11:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psyire

You could also look into these products:

www.humidex.ca

Do those units have an exchanger core? How do they warm the incoming air?

untamed · #10 02-04-2006, 12:31 AM

I'll chime in a bit here since I've been looking into this closely as I plan my 360 installation.

The humidex basically a combination of a vent fan and a humidistat that turns the fan on/off based on humidity. It vents out of the house only, and depends on "leaks" in the house to bring new air in. That would be a concern in a very new, tight house due to negative pressure.

A good vent fan to the exterior attached to a humidistat would do about the same thing. I would guess it would cost less, but require a bit of DIY.

Finally, the last thing I'll mention is that it would be good to control the space where the humidity accumulates. If you can get good containment of the tank and fish room, you have a smaller air volume to deal with.