Santa Fe dehumidifier quit working

[RalphVa]

Cannot see it. A dehumidifier and an AC are basically the same thing. Would never make sense to add a "whole house dehumidifier" to an already existing AC or heat pump. I am a retired chemical engineer and dealt with refrigeration systems for most of my 31 years. That's all a dehumidifier is.

 

[Sigarms]

Cannot see it. A dehumidifier and an AC are basically the same thing. Would never make sense to add a "whole house dehumidifier" to an already existing AC or heat pump. I am a retired chemical engineer and dealt with refrigeration systems for most of my 31 years. That's all a dehumidifier is.

I'm not an engineer.

What I can tell you is the first one I installed was about 15 years ago, and out of curiousity and working with the manufacturer took extensive data with it running and without it running during the summer (not a crawl space application, but for my 3 level house with 3 sperate HVAC systems). No one could answer how the RH level would affect my other floors as the dehumidifier was tied into my first floor system so I thought it would be a great experiment.

Been involved in more jobs that I can count with dehumidifiers since then. They work as advertised, particularly with some troubled homes where new systems and ductwork still didn't solve the issue.

The issue is every structural envelope can have various RH levels for a host of reasons.

Put in a 90 pint a day dehumidifier, and it will bring your RH down by at least 5% (and much higher if you're using a single stage unit with a constant torque blower motor).

What is the RH level now in your own house?

During the summer, I run my first floor tstat at 77f and it feels like it's 70 becuase the RH level is at 40%. Before that, it would run 50-55% RH during the summer.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Cannot see it. A dehumidifier and an AC are basically the same thing. Would never make sense to add a "whole house dehumidifier" to an already existing AC or heat pump. I am a retired chemical engineer and dealt with refrigeration systems for most of my 31 years. That's all a dehumidifier is.

The difference is that the AC removes the heat and the dehumidifier returns it to the space. Also the AC is controlled by temperature and the dehumidifier is controlled by humidity with a humidistat.

The reason they call it "air conditioning" and not "cooling" is that the AC does two things, cool and dehumidify. However, the run time is determined by a thermostat. If you have an area that doesn't need much cooling, but needs a lot of dehumidification -- like a crawl space -- an air conditioner isn't going to run enough to dehumidify as much as you need. A dehumidifier is controlled by a humidistat and will run until the moisture hits the desired level. If it dumps too much heat into the space the AC will kick on and remove it.

Dehumidifiers are particularly useful in cool, damp climates where you might need drying and warmth at the same time.

 

[Sigarms]

The reason they call it "air conditioning" and not "cooling"

For as long as I've been doing HVAC, still don't understand why some companies call themselves "heating and air conditioning". When you condition the air, it's for both heating and cooling purposes. For some reason, we all associate air conditioning with cooling.

What determines home comfort isn't temperature, but humidity. You know you have a SHARP service tech when he lays a psychrometer in your home and checks it to determine the actual humidity level in your home.

On a sidenote, the nice thing about a whole home dehumidifier is the fact that you can configure the unit as a stand alone for a speciffic space or you can tie it into the existing homes ductwork. You can also configure it to bring in fresh air.

You hit the nail on the head why they work so well for damp, moist crawl spaces as a stand alone unit.

 

[RalphVa]

Think this 2nd Santa Fe is short some refrigerant. Here's all the water it made in 24 hours of operation at 75 F and 58% humidity in the crawl space. This is 3 to 3.5 gallons. Supposed to make 8.75 gallons/day. The first Santa Fe did well for 9 months and then ran out of refrigerant sometime in May.

Waiting to see what the company is going to do now. Told them that I did not want to go to a 3rd unit. Hoping for money back. Will go with an Aprilaire unit.

For those of you who posted about humidity in the rest of the house: the 2 heat pumps have temperature and humidity set points. Upstairs is set at 76 F for when we're asleep and about 50% humidity. Think main heat pump has similar set points.

 

[RalphVa]

The 3rd Santa Fe is being shipped. By the time it gets here this 2nd unit MIGHT have the humidity down to the 45% set point. It's 51-52 now. Probably not, wavering there.

We have the install down pat. We can get it in and out without the 2x4s, etc.

 

[RalphVa]

Santa Fe sent a 3rd unit. It does not produce any water at all. Sent them the checks I did from what they'd sent for the 1st unit. Got their standard thing that "due to short age of the unit, etc., we're sending another..."

We've made an appointment with a local encapsulation/dehumidification outfit. May go with them and just eat the $1300 paid for the Santa Fe.

The outfit doing the service is contracted out by Santa Fe. Santa Fe only have a 30 day guarantee with them. Six years with the service outfit. Do we just keep receiving and swapping out units until the 6 years is up?

DO NOT BUY SANTA FE dehumidifiers!