Aprilaire E080 whole house dehumidifier update. It has fixed our high humidity problems.
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- Опубліковано 30 чер 2024
- I installed an Aprilaire whole house dehumidifier 2 months ago. I explain how it's working and some future changes that I need to make to it.
DIY installation of our Aprilaire whole house dehumidifier.
• DIY installation of an...
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Thanks for the update! Both videos as well as the comments are pretty helpful. I’ve been looking at the E080 to DIY, after seeing this update I may get the E100. But it looks like something I can definitely manage. I’m also in Georgia so yeah I understand the need for the control panel to have it run more often!
Thanks for the update. I just ordered one of these for my crawlspace. Gonna try it down there first and hope that works. If that’s not enough I guess I’ll tie it to Hvac. Hoping I don’t need to do that.
The manual says ya GOTTA hook up the HVAC to the E080 when you duct return to return as you did! Just as a test, flip on your HVAC FAN ONLY and see how the dry air is pushed throughout your floor in the ducts! Should eliminate that rapid dehumidification you showed us as the whole floor’s volume is being exchanged! Let us know! If you notice improved performance then wire it to the HVAC (furnace)!
Glad to hear you're overall happy with the unit. I definitely think installing a controller inside the house will improve the humidity levels. Without the controller, the unit measures humidity levels inside it, so when it doesn't run, it's not being exposed to the air in the home 24/7. I installed a Santa Fe Ultra 120 in my 2800 sq/ft home and have had to also work on tweaking set points to balance my humidity desires while also keeping power consumption in mind. I would definitely reserve making a final opinion on the product and its ability to satisfy your humidity needs until the controller is installed.
You can’t oversize a dehumidifier heat energy removal is different from humidity removal. If you want it to run longer you need to lower the set point. You are correct these unit does have a program that turns the unit off if the run 3 day straight, but after a resting state they will return to a run state. These units does need to have its own supply for max efficiency. Humidity is attacked to dry air, so yes with enough airflow your home’s humidity levels will balance out.
So
Awesome. So
Foam
Is a good
Idea!!!
I’m glad yours is quiet. I’m on my *third* within a month, and each one has buzzed like crazy!
Is it an Aprilaire?
We Call it GoodJunk in Detroit lol it use ti be a Janitrol but they changed their name after a massive heat exchanger recall lol
We moved to East NC 3 years ago and I noticed even if it doesn't rain during the day the humidity at night time jumps to nearly 95%, so we can't just open the windows to allow 70 degree breeze to come in like I'm used to in California and Arizona. It certainly makes it hard to get rid of the humidity at night time when I the temperature may be 79 in the house which is perfect to me in the Summer time from what i'm used but I have to leave the A/C window units running in order to get rid of the humidity.
We don't have a legit HVAC system. We have an old oil burning radiant heat system and about 5 Window units. And two dehumifiders. Crawl space is only about 1.5 ft tall and the addic was turned into a 2nd floor a long time ago. I was looking at doing 2 x 6 head mini Split systems to work around the lack of ducting to work with for a central HVAC system. There is a small amount of space on the outer edges of the 2nd floor for some ducting and I think I might use that for a whole house dehumidifier in combination with the mini splits
Thanks for the update, I think the reason for short cycling is the short distance between return and the Y in return duct, I saw another video and they hooked up the exhaust duct to hvac supply plenum
I agree with you. I don’t think that is the only reason the dehumidifier is not running long enough, but I do think it adds to the problem. I might end up hooking the dehumidifier to the HVAC, so the HVAC fan turns on while the dehumidifier is running. The manual says to do that when connecting the dehumidifier to the HVAC return. I did not do that because I don’t want to run up my power bill.
@@BrantleyBlended the reason the unit is short cycling is because your return is only coming from the hole you cut and not the return from the entire home. Because of this, once your living room reaches the correct humidity it will kick off the unit until it samples the air again. One neat thing about the units is that they actually won't kick off until the humidity reaches three percentage points below the set point. This feature was specifically built to cut down on short cycling. Ducting the return to the HVAC shouldn't run up your power bill. When the dehumidifier kicks on it will simply turn on the HVAC fan to circulate the dry air. I would always recommend getting some guidance from an HVAC professional before trying this.
I installed the E100 unit, this is my second summer with it in the Detroit area. I can now leave the thermostat set at 72 and the house feels like it is set at 65. Very easy to install, I plumbed mine into the supply side as there was no way to hook into the return. The unit is in my basement, where it is the most humid in the house, not from foundation or high water issues, just the way the house is. The unit draws from the basement air and vents dry air into the supply. It is working extremely well. I have mine set at 50%, and it runs quite a bit, 30 mins seems odd, I'm guessing it is the attic location in your situation and the way you have it plumbed in. You need that thermostat installed, I have one that I have yet to install, as the unit is doing a very good job without it.
As far as the Goodman HVAC, no issues with mine, and having researched them, parts are readily available and inexpensive. I'm able to do my own repairs if need be, unlike the old Carrier unit it replaced. Could be the way the unit was installed. I did have to do some repairs to our initial installation. I expect that now a days, most of these techs aren't qualified to change a lightbulb, and the ones that are, don't seem to give a crap about doing a quality job.
Hey Michael. I just purchased an E080 and I’d like to integrate it with my HVAC. However, I’m not an HVAC guy. How difficult is it to integrate?
@@dhuston521 Not difficult at all really. I read up on how to install these units, seems there are a few ways. Much will depend on access, what can you physically tie into without having to reduct the HVAC system. The information is pretty easy to find on how to plumb these units in, I simply googled "Whole House dehumidifier install", plenty came up. Tool wise, a drill, some aviation snips, a 10" duct collar, etc. I pretty much sourced everything I needed at Home Depot. The install itself was about an hour, dropping a new outlet for the unit took another say two hours. Really not very difficult at all. Good luck with your install!
@@michaelwright1602 Thanks for the advice. I think I’m going to just plug it into a socket in the basement to see the results. I’m going to take your advice as well.
Thanks for sharing your journey. My concerns with WHD’s is all of that water vapor collecting, creating condensation to the interior lining of the flex/return filters.
I live in Georgia. It’s very hot and humid here. So far, the dehumidifier has sent all the condensation out the drain line. I don’t have a problem with it being in the duct work.
I’ve planned to install the 080 in my basement using an ecobee’s dehumidifier control contacts as well as wiring the HVAC to the dehumidifier such to turn the blower on when the ecobee calls for dehumidification. If the sense is in side the dehumidifier and the air is circulating down the return duct to your newly installed intake you could be recycling and dehumidifying locally. Turning on the HVAC blower will circulate dry air throughout the house at 800 a 1000 CFM not the small CFM generated by the AprilAire itself. As well the ecobee online data will tell you the runtime of the dehumidifier in their online data, no guessing!
were you able to hook the aprilaire unit so the ecobee can control the dehumidifier? If so which ecobee do you have? Thanks
@@joshschultz5743 given the E080 is selling now around $1349 (up from $1149 in Jan and $1200 on 3/27/22) I’m waiting on a better price. I bought my ecobee SmartThermostat - Wi-Fi Thermostat Model: EB-STATE5-01 from eComfort it’s $199. Stay away from the ecobee lite as it does NOT have the auxiliary contacts necessary to control a dehumidifier.
Yeah I wish I would have bought the E130 back in the fall when it was under $2k
Not sure if this is part of the issue but I see you don’t have a p trap in your condensate line. That p trap helps keep the negative pressure created inside the unit by the fan from sucking water back in. When that happens, the float switch may trip (assuming you have one) and that may cause your system to stop working until the water drains (a few minutes after the fan goes off). Hope this helps.
Would have been great to run the ERV right into the dehumidifier and then into the HVAC for distribution.
Hi, very informative series on the dehumidifier. I just had an April Air E100 installed and I was curious on the settings you used on startup? Did you go over those in any of the videos? My installer seemed a bit clueless when installing the unit.
I control my dehumidifier with the control panel on the unit. I don’t use an external controller or thermostat to turn it off and on. Set the unit for the desired humidity level and let it go to work. I try to keep my house around 50%. I think the unit is set for 53 or 54. It’s been a while since I looked at it. I have a couple of hygrometers in my house that I look at. They usually show around 50%. If I set the dehumidifier below the 53 or 54 it will remove too much humidity and give us problems like dry skin and dry sinuses. It may take a few days or a week or so to get your unit dialed in to where you are comfortable and the humidity is at the right level.
Seems crazy that it would be lowing your humidity by like 1% per minute the way you showed... My guess is that it's sampling the air incorrectly. 1% of humidity removal would be something like 3 cups of water. You should probably set that sucker down to like 38% so that your house would actually get to 45%.
Not sure where you are with your problem solving since this video is a 1yr old. I doubt the e80 is oversized. Ideally, you want to read humidity from the living space, so getting the remote mounted controller/humidistat will definitely help. Also, you want to size the humidifier large enough to cycle the air 2-3x/hr. The e80 is something like 135cfm. I actually went with the e100 purely because it moves around 240cfm.
You should be able to tie multiple systems into the dehumidifier using TY connections. Controller and sensors hopefully are available for that unit. Good man is not greatest. Trane, American standard, Mitsubishi all good with lower end models mine last between 15-20 years generally. The way that happens is that Ducting is sized correctly. On no great units this is very important finding a cfm list is easy online just count Ducting size at plenum or more likely “coil plenums which are horrible” and see what size your system is. I had a customer who I helped recently hvac company put 2800 cfm or 7 tons of hvac and the Ducting could only handle 1600 cfm or about 4 tons. 400 cfm per ton. Also sqft has shit to do with sizing generally, I mean it’s a factor-ish but if someone comes in and says you need 1 ton per 4-600 sqft they are still doing crap system builds from the 80’s or 90’s. Build a home right you could need 1 ton per 1200 sqft. A smart hvac guy will make a guess and at least give you the right Ducting for the system size they install. But honestly it’s gotten so bad if your not having an hvac engineering company design your system chances are it’s not just wrong it’s even wrong for what they installed. Anyhow I started deep diving 6 months ago because of my customer, every single home I’ve gone to sense is wrong, the best ones at least have the Ducting for the system but that’s 1 in 30 so far. Anyhow good luck. I’m sorry your having issues if you deal with the humidifier and get it right, make sure you have the right amount of Ducting your hvac system overall will last longer and cycle less.
I have similar dehumidifier and your problem is indeed you do not have the control on the wall with the 1 hours air sample. With the controller it will monitor the humidity at all times and go off on and on based on what you set it. You my may want to hook up the Y Terminal so if your HVAC is running it won't turn on the compressor while your HVAC is cooling.
These videos are great. Thanks so much. My new house has the spray foam rafters like yours and I think that exacerbates the problem. Have you/did you ever checked the humidity in your attic? Is it similar to your living space? One thing that got brought up to me was cutting in a supply and return into the attic. Wondering if you have any opinions on that. Thanks again for the video.
I have not checked the humidity in my attic. I only check it in our living spaces and basement. I’m not going to duct the hvac into my attic, but I don’t see anything wrong with it if that’s what you like. My attic is usually just a little hotter of colder than the living spaces of our house.
@@BrantleyBlended It seems to make sense that the attic air would be roughly the same humidity. I actually called Aprilaire yesterday and spoke with a technician. They have really, really great customer service. My house is 1820 sqft ranch on a slab foundation near Des Moines, IA and they actually recommended that I install a 100 pint or a 130 pint. I have high ceilings but I was still very surprised but that's what they recommended. The sqft rating is an "up to" rating. I think the E080 is good for "up to" 4400sqft. Dehumidifing a 4400sqft crawlspace with a 2' or 3' ceiling height is different than a 4400sqft house with 8' ceilings or, in my case 9' ceilings in the bedrooms and a vaulted ceiling up to 12.5' in the great room. I actually think your unit my be undersized. The Aprilaire E70 isn't made be installed into the HVAC duct work. Aprilaire told me that it's strictly a crawlspace dehumidifier despite the description on Amazon. They removed all the insulation and such to make it as small as possible to fit into small crawlspaces. They also told me that their recommendation was to set the dehumidifier at 50%. It has a 3% overrun so it will run until it reaches 47% and will kick on at 51%. Just some information. Thank you for making these videos. You've convinced me that I can do it myself and save some money and learn something in the process. I really like and appreciate your channel. Best regards.
@@wowiwi I was thinking the same, undersized unit and installation. I have the E100 unit and our house is roughly 1250 sqft, not including the basement, where all of the humidity lives. The E100 seems to be a good fit in my situation. We leave the basement entry door open, so the air from upstairs is drawn down the stairwell and the dehumidified air is plumbed into my supply line, I did the install, so we get very good air circulation in the house. Installing this unit in my attic, in my mind, is not an ideal location.
ASHRAE suggests 50% RH in the summer and 30% in the winter is ideal for many reasons.
Just saw this video. Wish I had saw it sooner… was your attic humid also or just the rest of the house? My attic is pretty warm and humid. The second story humidity is lower than the first story. I thought it would have been the other way around. Is there a reason you didn’t put a trap on the humidifier?
My whole house, attic, and basement were very humid before I installed the dehumidifier. You are the second person to mention a trap on the dehumidifier. Do I need one?
Why did you not install the supply duct to the supply plenum in your air handler? That way you are supplying dehumidified conditioned air to the whole house. That is the preferred install method in my opinion. And then upgrade your thermostat with dehumidification. Wire it seamlessly with your furnace and air handler.
The installation instructions say that the preferred method of installation is to hook the supply duct of the dehumidifier into the return duct of the hvac. I was going to hook it up like you suggested, but I don’t have a lot of room to work. The supply plenum is crammed against the roof of my attic. I wish the hvac contractor would’ve installed a horizontal unit instead of a vertical unit so I would have more room to work. I will eventually wire the dehumidifier to the hvac fan so that it runs every time the dehumidifier is on. The instructions say to do that. I haven’t done it yet, but the dehumidifier is still working great as it is right now.
Did you track how much humidity was in your home before installation? Curious as to how much it dropped.
I made a video about our high humidity last December. It's more rambling than details about the humidity. Before I installed the dehumidifier, we were usually around 60% - 70% humidity on the main floor and upstairs. This was on warmer days when it was raining. During the colder weather we would be around 50% - 60%.
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I have 3000sq ft and they said e130 is what I need. Even the 130 was a bit undersized. I don’t believe your 80 is to big.
It is not that your house equalizes. it is how moisture works. It tends to flow to a drier area
I just installed an e100. Do you see a constant discharge of water or intervals while the unit is running? Mine dumps periodically and was wondering if that's correct.
Its usually a steady flow of water while it’s running. I live in Georgia and it’s very humid here.
oh yeah I'm sure you'll find out why it just didn't work randomly about 1month after warranty expires.
That would suck. That's definitely what's gonna happen to me. One of the reasons I just bought this unit though was because of their 5 year warranty.
@@szargos My understanding is that if it is homeowner installed there is no warranty. Thank you for the video.
You can’t really over dehumidify a house like you can over cool or with an over sized Ac unit. The reason you shouldn’t over size an AC unit is because it will cool the sensible load to fast without dehumidifying. But dehumidifiers measure humidity not temperature so you can’t over cool with them. Your problem is most likely the location of the humidity sensors telling the dehumidifier when you run, and also a lack of tightness in your house. Your probably putting your house into a vaccuum and pulling in hot air when all that equipment is running. Moving the sensor and tightening up on some oversized gaps in the construction should solve your problem
Honestly it looks like a mess to me. There’s got to be a better way to install it.