Russdl
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Everything posted by Russdl
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Theoretically, but if it's more humid outside than inside, and I have an enthalpy unit does the opposite happen? B*ggered if I know so we'll see what tomorrow brings.
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Not quite convinced yet, but certainly leaning in that direction. It may just be that we've been running it too fast or it may be a bit more complicated than that. Experiments continue, but not turning it off just yet.
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I agree, especially if the 6 litres I take out is being replaced by the MVHR unit as fast as I remove it from the room. That's what I'm wondering. ~~~~~~ The last wet trade in the house was over a year ago and whilst last summer was a bit rubbish, it still got plenty hot enough for us to have windows open frequently and MVHR on 'party mode' to keep things cool. The more I think about it, the more I think that it can't be that the house is still drying out and the problem must lie with the MVHR or... ...a water leak somewhere in here. No evidence of that though. Further info: The main bedroom was the first room in the house to be skimmed, and that was close to 2 years ago. The main bedroom always has the highest RH in the house. There are two doors between the main bedroom and the en-suite, both normally pulled to, if not closed. The supply duct to the main bedroom is the shortest of all supply ducts at 4.4m. All other supply ducts are two or more times longer. Does any of that make any difference?
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Now that's interesting. It is a puny little thing and I do wonder if I'm trying to dry out the planet litre by litre. I got the main bedroom down to 55%RH this afternoon running the dehumidifier for about 3-4 hours, taking out about 1 litre of water. 90 mins later it was back up to 63%. The MVHR is bringing in just under 100m3 an hour of air that apparently has an RH of 97%. The room is around 45m3. So what's happening? Are these figures indicative of me trying to dry the planet one roomful at a time or do they indicate the house is still wet? Or is it not possible to discern anything?
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Shows what I know then. And I got homework! Too busy messing about with a patio at the moment so I’ll have to look into that later. It is to passiv standard, and the heating hasn’t been on much. In fact when it has been on it doesn’t seem to do much - but that’s for another thread. Hopefully it is just that the house is ‘wet’ and the little dehumidifier can rectify that over time. My big concern is if I’ve porked it all up by getting an enthalpy unit and it’s that which is causing me the issue.
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Of course it is. If I’d stopped to think about it a bit longer I would have got there. The dehumidifier is rated at 300W but that won’t produce 300W of heat energy into a room will it? However the temperature of any room it’s in that has high humidity starts to tick up quite rapidly, more rapidly than a heater would (that’s a guess, I’ve not done any experiments) so it must be converting the water vapour to liquid water that is releasing all that lovely latent heat. It is quite noticeable. We dry clothes in the utility room, it’s never been as successful as I was expecting it to be, we put one of those 300W plug in heaters in there, made the room warm but didn’t speed up the drying process much. With the dehumidifier in there it is quite startling how quickly the clothes dry and also how warm the room gets. And, for what’s it worth it’s a good looking dehumidifier!
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Just a quick update. We turned the MVHR up 24/7 for several weeks, RH still remained high and on cold mornings condensation was on the inside of some windows, most noticeably the large frameless window in the main bedroom that faces east. I splashed out on a dehumidifier because there is clearly a lot of water in this house. So far I’ve taken about 6 litres out in about 15-20 hrs of dehumidifier action. (so we have no shortage of window cleaning water). One morning the RH in the main bedroom was over 70%. I put the dehumidifier in there and bought it down to the mid 50’s% relatively quickly and then the moved the dehumidifier to the next room that needed attention. The following morning the RH was back up above 70% (and we’ve re-run that little sketch twice now). Is that an indication of something fundamentally wrong somewhere or just an indication that the house is wet and needs to be dried out. One other thing that really surprised me, that I’m sure our resident scientists will be able to explain with lots of confusing equations: Running the dehumidifier in a room aside from drying it, also warms the room. There is little to no heat from the dehumidifier, is this temperature rise ‘latent heat’ or something to do with ‘dry/saturated adiabatic lapse rates’? Or none of the above?
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@Visti Initially we used a 24 Hour Supply Master Fused Spur Time Switch to dictate to the Sunamp when it could/could not charge. It was set to come on at 11:30 and stayed on for 4 hours. During the summer months it would be charged up within 3 or so hours, using the sun if it happened to be shining and grid if it wasn't. I then swapped that out for a Shelly 1PM, as recommended by @PeterW. I was going to use its 'IFTTT' ability as I was on Octopus Agile but that didn't really work as the Agile price has been through the roof, 24/7, for the last month or more. I am now on Octopus Go which has a 5p/kWh price from 00:30 - 04:30 so the Shelly turns the Sunamp on between those hours (again, it's normally finished in about 3 hrs). Shelly's also give our Willis heaters (for the ground floor UFH) the same 4hr window of opportunity if the need is the there, same goes for the towel rails and electric UFH in the bathroom/en-suite. If the sun is shining I'll use the Shelly 'app' to turn stuff on as and when.
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Oo-er. Looks like I’ve got some learning to do. I’ve got one, used it a couple of times. I was under the impression that they were perfectly safe for indoor use - that’s what they’re sold for. What am I missing?
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Get a bio-ethanol fire. Real flames, real pain if you put your/someone else’s hand in it. No flue required. No dedicated airflow required and when the going gets tough you can probably drink the fuel with a splash of tonic (and an ambulance on speed dial.)
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@SteamyTea I'm going to have to take your word for that ? Turning it up as we speak sir!
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And there was me thinking I was the odd one out! It seems that everyone who's anyone has an enthalpy unit ?
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- triple glazing
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I'll give that a go. Interesting. Thanks.
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Nope, none. They're on the gable end, 6+ meters away from the nearest kitchen window, closer to others. Closest being the en-suite at about 2m away from the intake.
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It's down to 19° Thanks for the link.
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It's not as cold this morning, and there is no condensation. 5° outside and if my IR thermometer is to be believed the inner panes of glass are around 16° so in theory well above the point that condensation would form according to @IanR. The humidity is up to 67%! One difference to our set up from most, I suspect, is that we went for an enthalpy MVHR working on the theory that when the kids are finally gone and it's just the two of us the house would get too dry in the winter. I'm guessing that if it isn't just a simple case that the house hasn't dried out yet then it could be that the enthalpy heat exchanger that is causing problem?
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No offence intended ? Wiltshire/Hampshire border for a bit of it.
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@IanR ok, that’s well below ours and may be what’s causing the problem.
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@tonyshouse we have the pleasure of condensation on the outside of the windows at times as we expected but we also, very definitely, have condensation on the inside. Not a huge amount but enough to pee me off. Ventilation through the summer months, and until quite recently, was MVHR and windows/doors open. Now it’s just MVHR.
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@ragg987 I would have thought ours would have dried out by now, but maybe not? It’s been many months since the last ‘wet’ trade was in.
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@Roundtuit & @Makeitstop I’m inclined to agree, the humidity is higher than I expected it to be (based on nothing other than a SWAG) and it is seldom below 60% and normally closer to 70%. I’ve no idea what I should expect it to be and I’d be interested to hear what the humidity is in other Buildhubber’s houses for comparison, especially if they’re down here in the southwest.
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Clearly I have a problem
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@IanR Ah! With you now. Yes, ours are the same. I was on about the thermal breaks that the spacers between the panes provide, poor terminology on my part.
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Sorry, I don't understand that bit?
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Also, there are three different types (standard windows, frameless and sliders) all of which have had condensation on them.
