Results were good when I ran the clothes dryer last Sunday with the indoor dryer vent. Mind, I could have waited another couple of weeks as the basement isn't really dry yet, but since I only run 2 loads per week, I judged the humidity had gone down enough that it would be fine.
I took pictures of the temp/RH unit downstairs just before starting the dryer. That thermometer sits about 15' away from the wall that the exhaust box is on. Note that the highs and lows are "all time". In this case, I changed the batteries in October, so the high of 77% humidity is from back then. And obviously, it doesn't show the lows from last winter when the basement is regularly down in the teens and 20s for humidity. The P61a hadn't run for a little bit and I turned it off to ensure that it didn't join the party.
The dryer ran for about 55 minutes and I made sure I listened for the musical tune so I could catch everything just seconds after it stopped. By looking at the thermometer, it doesn't seem as if the temperature was raised in the basement by much. However,the entire basement is wide open so 600 sq/ft rose by that much. I could also feel the warm, moist air coming up the stairs every time I walked between the kitchen and living room. The mini split also took most of that time off as it didn't need to run to keep the temp on the main floor. The humidity rose 15% and was well below what it it stays at during the summer.
45 minutes later , I checked the humidity again, and the basement had already lost 1/2 of what it had gained.
I didn't think to take a picture of the main floor temp/RH unit before starting the dryer. I do know that it normally projects that it is 69* in that area of the living room and I believe it was in the low 40 percentile RH. At the 40 minute mark I looked and the main floor was at 45% humidity and 71*. Right as the musical tune was playing for dryer end, I took this pic.
You can see I haven't had to change the batteries on this unit yet as it shows last year's low humidity level - and that was running two humidifiers. Also, that low temp of 55* was during the 3 day power outage when my battery station ran out of juice overnight (my fault) so I went without heat for several hours until I could get it juiced back up.
An interesting lot of data you present, Bogie. (One assumes that you are working on a thesis of some sort, for which the data will be useful!)
I don't know what level of humidity you aim for, but our HVAC system is set to 40% - and that is the reading, just now.
Posted by: Cop Car | November 26, 2023 at 11:40 AM
I really don't aim at any particular percentage. I do try to keep it out of nosebleed territory, but without a whole house (or even whole floor) humidifier, It gets down there during winter. I use 2 humidifiers on the main floor, but none in the basement.
Posted by: bogie | November 27, 2023 at 04:13 AM
We had similar problems when I was a young kid: my great-grandparents in Nevada had the only house (in our family) with central heating - a system that had been converted from coal to natural gas - and they moved into that house when I was about 2 years old. When we moved to Tulsa (my age 5), we had a little floor furnace in the hallway of the little 2-bedroom (no basement) house with just the one outlet. I'm happy to have central heater/cooler/humidifier in this house - lol. I've become quite spoiled over the succeeding 80 years.
Posted by: Cop Car | November 27, 2023 at 09:09 AM