High humidity levels in your home might be linked to the nature of the place you are living or the daily activities that you perform in your home. Dehumidifiers offer people a great solution for dealing with high humidity levels in their homes.
Generally, dehumidifiers work by absorbing the humid air in your home and passing it through its evaporator coils and condenser to remove the moisture from the air. The process generates heat, meaning that the air coming out from the dehumidifier will be slightly warmer than the air circulating in the room.
During the winter, the warm air from the dehumidifier can be advantageous because of the cold temperatures. On the other hand, the warm air can further increase the temperature in your home during summer.
You can vent heat from a dehumidifier by directing the heat to another room or outside. However, you should note that, if you plan to vent heat from a dehumidifier by redirecting the air from the dehumidifier outside, then you will not solve the humid air problem in your home.
The warm air released from the dehumidifier is also dry air with a lower level of humidity. The dry air from the dehumidifier is meant to replace the humid air absorbed in the dehumidifier. Alternative solutions would be running the dehumidifier when you are not home or for shorter durations.
The release of dry air is the process that the dehumidifier uses to lower the relative humidity levels in your home. If you direct the air outside your home, then the circulating air in your home will still have high humidity levels.
While investing in a dehumidifier helps you deal with the humidity in your home, the warm air expelled by the dehumidifier can be annoying, especially during summer.
This article will offer you some great insights on how to vent heat from your dehumidifier through the following sub-topics:
- Do all dehumidifiers give off heat?
- Does a dehumidifier raise room temperature?
- Should a dehumidifier run constantly?
- How to vent heat from a dehumidifier
Do all Dehumidifiers Give Off Heat?
Most, if not all, of the dehumidifiers in the market, give off heat. The heat produced by dehumidifiers is based on the dehumidification process. There are two sources of heat produced by dehumidifiers.
Latent Heat
Latent heat is the energy released or absorbed by something during its transition from one physical state to another. For instance, latent heat is produced when water is changed from a frozen state to a liquid form or from a vaporized form to a liquid state.
In the dehumidification process, latent heat is released when humidity from the air is condensed into liquid water. The process cannot be eliminated because the condensation process ensures that excess humidity is removed from the surrounding air.
If you live in a humid area and run your dehumidifier continuously for prolonged periods, you might notice a spike in your room temperature because of the latent heat produced.
Heat from the Compressor
In refrigerant dehumidifiers, which are also referred to as compressor dehumidifiers, the dehumidifier uses a fan to draw in air from the surrounding. The air is then passed across very cold coils to promote condensation. The water condenses and drips into a water tank.
After that, the air is reheated before being pumped back into the circulating air in the room. The air removed from the dehumidifier is usually warmer and drier compared to the air drawn inside the dehumidifier. The compressor propels the fan and supports the flow of the refrigerant. These processes use electrical power and produce heat.
Does A Dehumidifier Raise Room Temperature?
Dehumidifiers can raise the temperature in your home, especially if you are using the dehumidifier for long hours. This can be a great thing during winter because of the cold temperatures.
Naturally, dehumidifiers release a small amount of heat, which can slightly raise the temperature of your home.
The amount of temperature increase that you will notice when using a dehumidifier depends on the type of the dehumidifier, its size, the design of the model, and how long you will use it in a day.
Should a Dehumidifier Run Constantly?
The question of how long a dehumidifier should run heavily depends on factors such as the relative humidity in your home. Ideally, a dehumidifier should be run for about 12 hours a day. This time ensures that the dehumidifier restores the room to the recommended relative humidity.
Some of the factors that determine whether you should run your dehumidifier constantly or for a few hours a day include:
Moisture Removal Rate
The moisture removal rate differs from one dehumidifier to the other. Some dehumidifiers have a higher moisture removal rate than others.
In most cases, larger dehumidifiers remove moisture from the air faster when compared to small dehumidifiers. For instance, if you have a 30-pint dehumidifier and a 70-pint dehumidifier, the 70-pint dehumidifier will remove approximately 70 pints of water per day, which is higher than 30 pints.
Ventilation
If you have good ventilation in your home you might not need to rely on your dehumidifier as much as someone whose house has poor ventilation.
To reduce the number of hours you run your dehumidifier, you should ensure that you have proper ventilation in your home. While windows and doors can be an entry for humid air, they are also useful in getting rid of excess humidity in the room.
Area Coverage and Capacity
Dehumidifier manufacturers offer clients information regarding the area in square feet or cubic meters that they have been designed to cover comfortably. The capacity of your dehumidifier will determine the area that it can cover comfortably and how long you might need to run the dehumidifier.
If the instruction manual or the feature of the dehumidifier indicates that you should use the dehumidifier in a 450 square feet room, using it in a 1500 square feet room will reduce its ability to remove the humidity from the room effectively.
Similarly, if you are using a dehumidifier meant for a 450 square feet room in a 1500 square feet room, you will need to run the dehumidifier for a longer time to attain the recommended relative humidity levels.
As such, the area coverage or capacity of the dehumidifier is a key factor in determining whether you should run the dehumidifier continuously.
Relative Humidity in Your Home
If the relative humidity in your home is high then you should run your dehumidifier for longer durations to reduce the humidity levels in your home. If the relative humidity in your home is closer to the recommended humidity levels, you can run the dehumidifier for less than 12 hours.
If your dehumidifier does not have a humidistat, you can invest in a hygrometer that will help you assess the level of humidity in your home. A humidistat helps regulate the level of humidity in your home and usually comes as a built-in feature in a dehumidifier.
Having a hygrometer or a dehumidifier that has a humidistat will make it easy for you to determine how long you should run your dehumidifier. If you live in areas that have high very levels of humidity, you can consider running the dehumidifier for about 14 to 16 hours a day.
Size of the Dehumidifier
The size of the dehumidifier also determines whether or not you should run your dehumidifier continuously. If you have a small or mini dehumidifier and you live in a humid area, you can run your dehumidifier continuously to ensure that you attain the recommended humidity levels.
A small dehumidifier will remove moisture at a lower rate when compared to a big dehumidifier. A big dehumidifier will remove humidity from the air faster, which means that it may not require more than 12 hours to attain the recommended humidity levels.
If you are using a large dehumidifier, you might have to run your dehumidifier for about 5 hours to attain the recommended humidity levels. Understanding the size of your dehumidifier and its capacity is important in determining its moisture removal capabilities.
Type of Dehumidifier Used
The type of dehumidifier can also help you to determine whether you should run the dehumidifier continuously or for shorter durations. For instance, if your dehumidifier has a continuous feature, you can direct the hosepipe to drainage and run it continuously.
If the water tank in your dehumidifier has a limited capacity, running it continuously increases the risks of spills, especially if you are not near the dehumidifier when the tank gets full. As such, if your dehumidifier does not have a hosepipe for continuous drainage, it is better to run it for short periods.
Nature of Place
The type of place you plan to use the dehumidifier will also determine whether you will run the dehumidifier continuously or for shorter durations. It is not practical to run a dehumidifier in a laundry room or a humid basement for an hour.
Similarly, you cannot run a dehumidifier in a closet for very long hours if the closet does not have high humidity levels. Different areas have varying dehumidification needs.
You can run your dehumidifier continuously in a basement, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room or other rooms within your home that have high humidity levels.
Related: Effective Use of Dehumidifier
How to Vent Heat from A Dehumidifier
Run the Dehumidifier for Shorter Periods
You could consider running the dehumidifier for shorter periods to reduce the heat produced by the dehumidifier. This can be easy if you have a large-capacity dehumidifier because it removes moisture from the air at a faster rate.
You could also run the dehumidifier with shorter intervals. Instead of running the dehumidifier for twelve hours consistently, you could opt to run the dehumidifier for five hours then allow it to rest for an hour and then run it for five more hours.
Run the Dehumidifier When You are Not at Home
You could also opt to run the dehumidifier when you are not at home. This is a great option for running your dehumidifier during summer when it can get excessively hot and humid.
If you plan to run your dehumidifier in your absence, ensure that you either use the dehumidifier’s timer to limit the time that the dehumidifier will run. You could also opt to run the dehumidifier using a continuous option to reduce the risks of water spills.
Consider Using a Desiccant Dehumidifier
If you are worried about the heat from your dehumidifier, you could consider using a desiccant dehumidifier. Desiccant dehumidifiers use silica gel beads or other alternatives to absorb the excess humidity from the air.
Desiccant dehumidifiers do not produce heat when absorbing humidity from the air. However, some desiccant dehumidifiers need to be dried after they are saturated to ensure that they can absorb more moisture.
Drying the desiccants can release some heat, but the level of heat released depends on the quantity of the desiccants in the dehumidifier and the method used to dry the desiccant.
Some desiccants can be dried in the oven while others are dried using electricity while they are within the dehumidifier.
If you are worried about the heat from your dehumidifier, you could consider using a desiccant dehumidifier. Desiccant dehumidifiers use silica gel beads or other alternatives to absorb the excess humidity from the air.
Desiccant dehumidifiers do not produce heat when absorbing humidity from the air. However, some desiccant dehumidifiers need to be dried after they are saturated to ensure that they can absorb more moisture.
Drying the desiccants can release some heat, but the level of heat released depends on the quantity of the desiccants in the dehumidifier.
Conclusion
Ideally, all dehumidifiers give off heat. The dehumidification process is based on the absorption of humid air from the air, condensing the humid air, and converting the vapor back into liquid form. The process produces low levels of heat that can raise the temperature in your home.
The temperature increment associated with using a dehumidifier is more pronounced during summer or excessively cold temperatures like winter.
If you find the heat from the dehumidifier uncomfortable, you could consider running the dehumidifier for shorter durations or intervals or running it when you are not at home.
You do not necessarily need to run your dehumidifier continuously. Simply check the humidity levels in your home to assess the relative humidity levels in your home. This can help you determine how many hours you should run your dehumidifier.
Note that, if you live in a very humid area, you might need to run your dehumidifier continuously. The most important thing is ensuring that the relative humidity levels in your home are within the recommended levels.
