During the summer it costs me more than a dollar a day (250 KWHr/month) to run the dehumidifier in the basement. Being a green kind of guy, I wonder if there's a way to dry out the air using the solar power that's abundant during hot humid weather. I don't have a problem with coolness; it's 60 degrees down there. My thoughts are: use an air-to-air heat exchanger to just heat the air (thus reducing the %RH); using a dessicant wheel that's recharged using solar heat (I've seen some commercial units, but they're too big); or using an absorption cycle cooler that uses a solar collector (has to be high temp); or a thermoelectric cooler run by a PV panel (not good efficiency). So, any more ideas??
I am a science nerd, but not to this level LOL, but hey thats cool. It way not be the greenest idea in the world but the sell this stuff called damp rid and it works great. Buy a bucket and stick it in your basement, I think it only costs a few dollars for a bucket of it and its not a humungous bucket so you can just set it on a table or wherever.
It way not be the greenest idea in the world but the sell this stuff called damp rid and it works great. CaCl is the dessicant you refer to, and it's sort of cheap but you need a lot of it, and are left with a large amount of brine to get rid of. Solid (non-dissolving) dessicants can be regenerated (e.g., solar). So that's what I'm looking at. Put it on a timer is the first step. Well, I have a humidistat, same thing. It works fine, just sucks a lot of juice! make sure both sides of each coil are clean... Duh. BTW, some of the newer units are made with a heater that cycles on every hour to melt any potential ice buildup.... That would suck even MORE juice. I control ice buildup just fine with the humidistat. swap out the AC compressor for a 12 volt compressor and power that from solar panels. Why reinvent the wheel? Lot easier to feed the solar panels into the grid, then use an AC dehumidifier. An absorption system will work, but are you sure want ammonia circulating into the house? I'd put it outside (in the sun) in a single sealed unit and pump air in and out into the cellar. Getting the water out of the air before it enters, is going to be the only way to truly keep it dry. The water is IN the air from outside, it gets downstairs where it's 25 degrees cooler, thus the RH goes up. It's not coming from the ground. Air exchangers are fine, only they need attentive maintanence to keep the filters clean. I was thinking of an air-to-air heat exchanger that would NOT exchange the air (that would bring in cool, very humid air), but would be closed-loop to simply heat the air downstairs from the air outside; that would lower the RH just by raising the temp. But that would heat the house upstairs; not good. Well, thanks anyways, but I need a chemist or mechanical engineer....
