Sizing a Dehumidifier for Your Orlando Home

When humidity takes over your Orlando home, it threatens the comfortableness and health of your indoor air quality. Too much moisture in your home increases the chance of fungal growth, aggravates allergy symptoms, stains walls and ceilings, causes musty odors to develop and if not corrected, leads to long-term damage to your home and furnishings. A dehumidifier can remove the excessive moisture and protect your home from humidity.

Sizing Dehumidifiers

Choosing the correct size is vital to ensuring your home retains maximum comfort level. A unit that is too small for the room won’t be able to properly remove the moisture. For example, a unit with a small capacity may have to run continuously and still not properly dehumidify the room.

Moderately damp areas with musty odors should have a dehumidifier with a 10-pint capacity for a 500 square foot area or 18-pint for 1,500 square foot. Very damp areas with damp walls, floors and spots require a 12-pint capacity unit for 500 square feet or 22-pints for 1,500 square feet. Very wet areas with seepage and/or sweating walls will benefit from a 14-pint capacity unit for a 500 square foot area or 26 pints for 1,500 square foot location. Extremely wet areas with high-load conditions and wet floors need a unit with a larger capacity such as 16-pint for 500 square feet or 30-pints for 1,500 square feet.

Dehumidifier Benefits

Running a dehumidifier provides many benefits, especially when the weather warms. These benefits include:

• Improving energy efficiency. Excessive humidity causes the air to feel warmer than it really is which causes you to turn your cooling system up.
• Protects the structural integrity of your house. Excessive humidity leads to fungal growth, which can eat away at your home.
• Prevent condensation on windows and pipes. High levels of humidity cause windows and pipes to sweat, which then leads to fungal growth and damage.

For more information about dehumidifier and how it will benefit your home, contact the experts at Rinaldi’s Energy Solutions Team. We have provided dependable services to the homes and businesses located in the Orlando area since 1969.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Orlando, Florida and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about dehumidifiers and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

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