Tom in New Hampshire has an air conditioning question. What can we do for you?
TOM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: Yes. I have a high-velocity air conditioning system in my house and not all …
TOM: Not to be confused with a high-velocity rifle.
TOM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: Exactly. (Tom, Tom in New Hampshire and Leslie chuckle) It shoots air conditioning at you; not bullets.
TOM: (overlapping voices) Yeah. Yeah.
TOM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: It does a wonderful job but I think in only some of the ports, there’s some condensation that forms on the ceiling where it comes out.
TOM: (overlapping voices) Right. OK.
TOM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: And those ports seem to be located in areas where the roof is either in a gable end valley area or a shallow area on the house.
TOM: (overlapping voices) Mm-hmm. Gable end valley. So, kind of near the roof vent?
TOM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: Yeah. And …
TOM: And so, this is starting to make sense because that’s where you’re going to have more moisture. But I will say this: air conditioning systems are not really good at dehumidifying; they’re not really designed to dehumidify. They dehumidify by virtue of the fact that they lower the air temperature and take moisture out but they’re not designed as a dehumidifier. So what is a better alternative in this situation, Tom, is something called a whole-home dehumidifier; a whole-house dehumidifier. It fits into the HVAC system but it’s specifically designed to suck the moisture out. It can run consistent with the air conditioning system but a whole-home dehumidifier can take out somewhere around 80, 90, 100 pints of water a day.
A good manufacturer for those is Ultra-Aire and you can look them up online. They also make the Santa Fe dehumidifiers – Santa Fe line of dehumidifiers that are useful in the basement. But the whole-home ones are called Ultra-Aire and they work really well.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm. And the whole-home ones will sort of target areas that need more dehumidification as they pop up and truly monitor all of the humidity levels in the house and address where it’s needed.
TOM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: OK. Alright. Thank you for your assistance.
TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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