Back in the late 1950's my father was the plant engineer in a printing plant. Humidity control was more important than temperature for comfort. They had a huge AC system and if the humidity got too high they fired up the boilers and added heat. That kept the AC running and removing moisture.
Does it make sense for you? Depends on your price of comfort. There are still people that hate the heat yet won't pay to run the AC.
Have you looked for a condensate drain line coming out of the air handler and for water coming out of it when the AC is running? It's a virtual certainty that it's removing water from the air, it's a direct result of the physics. The humidity is likely still high because with it set at 78F, unless it's real hot outside, it doesn't run enough to take the humidity out. A significantly oversized system could result in it cooling off too quickly, but my bet is 78F is the main issue, especially in Oregon. The system most likely just isn't running enough.
Once the air gets mixing, it makes little difference. Down usually lets you feel the breeze more for some evaporative cooling that you don't want in the winter. Up is a little more gentle.
The fan eliminates stratification, but in your vase it was detrimental because the cooler air is where you were but in mixed in the hot air above. You probably wanted to exhaust the air from the ceiling, bur just mixed it.
Any heat pump or other air conditioner WILL remove humidity from the air - warm humid air passes over cool surface, humidity condenses out. Cannot be done any other way.
In industry it is the "cost of doing business".
You might see a difference when the fan is first turned on, but once the air is mixed up it shouldn't change. The fan itself doesn't warm or cool the air in the room.
I have watched my thermometer (digital thermostat directly beneath the ceiling fan), and there is no change in temperature whether the fan is turned on or not. But the gentle breeze still "feels" cooler on a hot day.
I tried having my fan blow upwards, and could feel a nice breeze along the walls where the air is being pushed down. But I don't spend a lot of time up against the walls, and it's still a lot more disperse than directly under a down blowing fan.
Anthony Watson
Water does not dribble out of it, and even when it is going the dehumidifier will remove gallons from this place in a day.
But a down-pointing fan does blow the dust off.
But that is exactly what you *are* doing, running that dehumidifier is the same as running the big AC unit. I guess it might be more expensive to run the heat outside rather than keep it in.... but no, the heat is always run outside by the big unit because of the thermostat.
Clearly the small unit is less efficient, small things usually are. So why not run the big unit that does a great job of removing the moisture? It is larger so will need to run much less to lower the humidity. It is also equipped to remove the water while most room dehumidifiers have a bucket you need to empty unless you have it tied into a drain.
You are smoking dope on this one. A heat pump *is* an air conditioner. Run it one way in the summer and use a reversing valve to swap the coils in the winter to cool the outside and warm the inside.
When running as an AC it condenses water on the inside coils and pumps that water outside... or it *should*. It is possible (although I've never heard of doing this) that they are evaporating the water back into the house like they do in a fridge. But that would be crazy.
BTW, in the winter the outside coils condense moisture too, but as ice. They need to run in AC mode to melt the ice and must run backup heat to keep the air warm while doing so.
How do you know water doesn't come out of it? Is this a window unit? They normally drip the water on the outside. If it is a fixed unit they either run a tube outside or to a drain inside.
Running the fan likely has very little (if any) effect on room temperature. It does help carry heat away from your body, lowering it's temperature (unless, of course, you're in a room hotter than your body and need more than a fan).
Forget the rules and try both ways. If there's a difference, run it that way. If no difference don't worry about it.
Well, I can tell you from experience (very recent) it makes a difference. Big air conditioned room. 33C at the ceiling, 16C at the floor. Turned on 2 big-assed (no-not the brand name) fans and dropped the ceiling temp to 24, and raised the floor temperature to 22C within a few minutes. Did it change the amount of heat in the room? Not at all. At less than 30 watts each they did not contribute very many BTUs, but it sure changed the temperature in MOST of the room. The thermostat was set to 24C. We reset it to 26C after installing the fans. Will likely get more adjustment over the coming days.
Then it must have an "evaporator" like refrigerators have to "boil" the water back into the house - which sure doesn't make a lot of sense.
Having the air blowing across you allows the body's normal cooling system to function -- more air means more cooling. To me that means down in the summer and up in the winter. Of course if you have too small a fan or run it too slowly or the air stream isn't actually getting to you (e.g.: air is coming down in the middle of the room and you are sitting in a far corner) it isn't going to do much.
You are not getting my point. The AC, if oversized, moves a lot of air over the cold colil for a short amount of time while drawing large amount of current and removing a small amount of humidity.
A smaller A/C moves less air over the cold coil for a longer period of time, and moves more air to reduce the temperature by the same amount, using less power to do so. so it removes more moisture for the same amount of current drawn. The BTU/watt efficiency may very well be the same - or the big one may even be more efficient - but the efficiency as a dehumidifier is significantly better on the smaller A/C unit.
If it is not cool enough to require air conditioning, but is too humid for comfort, running a small de-humidifier is a LOT more efficient than running the big-assed air conditioner AND the furnace!!!!
Only a total idiot would run the AC and heat at the same time to reduce the humidity in the house.
As for the de-humidifier producing heat - it only produced a fraction of it's total power consumption as heat output. The heat coming off the back of the unit is just heat removed from the air (and moisture) entering the front of the unit. The latent heat of vaporization/condensation of the water removed is the only appreciable "heat" produced. (971 BTU/lb) So for every US gallon of water removed, aproxemately 8000 BTU.
If it takes 12 hours to remove a gallon, that is 672 btu/hr or less than 200 watts.
Trust, but verify is how I operate. That usually means figuring out how things work before making a judgment. I'm not sure I'm ready to accept your observations quite yet. Color me undecided.
Ok, that makes sense for AZ. However, they still specify a presumably reflective light color, not a dark black asphalt surface that would absorb heat.
The US Dept of Energy version:
It's not the radiation into the night sky. It's the lack of clouds to trap the hot air between the ground and the cloud layer that makes a clear night sky rather cold.
Not quite. White is worn outside in the summer, with gray or black in the winter. While dark clothes do get hotter on the surface, they are somewhat cooler on the inside. The clothes are worn loosely where the vertical temperature differential sets up a convective vertical air flow. The inner layer traps much of the sweat against the skin, which is cooled by the convective air flow. Much of the sweat remains trapped against the skin, thus reducing overall water loss. The outer layers provide air pockets, which offer some insulation value. If the clothes are worn tightly, it doesn't work. Dark clothes also loose heat faster than light clothes and are therefore worn indoors.
I do much the same thing. At night, I leave the house partly open so that it cools down. In the morning, I close all the doors and windows to trap in the cold air. At about noon, the house warms up to the same as outside temperature, so I open with windows.
Water doesn't dribble out of it because there is a drain line from the air handler to the outside. It doesn't remove ALL the water vapor...how much depends upon air temperature and humidity.
I didn't say they didn't have them, I said they weren't popular or commonly available. That is true. Hell, I had to buy my first ones - Hunters - from a company called "Fly Fan"...their customers were butchers and vendors in open markets that bought them to shoo away flies.
Heat pumps defy the laws of physics? If the air is cooled it changes how much moisture it has in it. Take some time to learn how it works.
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