Dehumidifiers are the best solution to solve any sort of relative humidity issues in any room of your home. Dehumidifiers remove excess moisture from the air and create a comfortable humidity level that helps improve your quality of life at home. One of the most critical factors in choosing the right size dehumidifier for your home is understanding what operating capacity you need for the room you intend to use it in, in relation to the capacity – or size, of the dehumidifier unit. You can view our range of dehumidifiers here.
Every application is unique, for example, you may benefit from the mobility that a portable unit has to offer if you have humidity problems in the lounge and your bedroom. You may like a small unit for your bathroom or crawl-space, or you may need an entire, full-home system, complete with ducting, to rid your entire home of humidity and take back control of the climate in your living space. Check out some great dehumidifier features here.
Whatever your needs, here are a few tips for gauging the right size dehumidifier for your home’s needs.
- Use a hygrometer
Using a hygrometer is the best way to measure your rooms specific percentage of relative humidity to find out if you could benefit from a dehumidifier and they can be purchased from your local hardware store or online.
- Determining humidity levels with room characteristics
Humidity levels above 55% are a problem. If you do not have access to a hygrometer, then there are four states that we could experience in a room, that will allow us to determine the relative humidity levels.
If you find that your room just has a slight musty or stale smell to the air and it feels a little warmer or heavier than other rooms, then chances are that the room is what we would consider ‘moderately damp’ -meaning that the relative humidity in the rooms air is in the 60 to 70% humidity range.
If you can clearly smell bad odours and the air in the room feels a bit moist, then your room is probably between the 70-80% range and would be classified as ‘very damp’ , in this state, the room may also have water staining from condensation appearing on the walls, or mold spores that are present in the air from mildew or mold that is beginning to take hold.
If your room has a visible presence of mold and the air feels wet on your skin, or if surfaces in the room are wet to the touch, then the relative humidity in the room would be classed as ‘wet’ meaning a humidity level of between 80 to 90%.
‘Extremely wet’ rooms are rooms where water leaks are present and water is pooled on the floor or has sodden carpets, there will be mold and mildew everywhere and large staining patterns on the walls and the ceiling.
- Measuring up the room
To start this exercise, calculate the square mete-rage of the room that you want to run your dehumidifier in. Using a measuring tape, take the measurements of the width and length of the room and then multiply them to get the square meterage you will need to cover.
For example, if your room is four meters by five meters, then the square meterage of the room would be 20 square meters.
Next, to calculate the right size dehumidifier for your room, calculate the cubic meters in the room by taking the height of the room and multiplying it by the amount of height to the ceiling. So to continue our example, if you had a height of three meters, then the calculation would be 20 x 3 = 60 cubic meters.
The air changes per hour, or ACH, is the measurement of the air-flow that is needed to dehumidify your room correctly. You need to estimate your room humidity if you do not have access to a hygrometer and then determine a value to the rooms condition.
Extremely conditions are a 6 value
Wet conditions are a 5 value
Very damp rooms have a value of 4
Moderately damp rooms have a value of 3
Take the value that is best attributed to your room and then multiply it by the ACH, for our example, this would be 60 x 6 = 360.Multiply the cubic feet value by the ACH and divide the result by the number 6. 360 / 6 = 6 cubic metres per minute.
Once this figure is known, then it’s time to look at how much moisture you need to remove from the air. Dehumidifiers measure this in pints of water. For moderately damp conditions, you will need a dehumidifier that can extract around 10 pints or 4.73 liters of water from a room that is 125 square meters, per day.
For very damp conditions, you will need a dehumidifier that can do 12 pints a day and for extremely wet conditions, you will need a dehumidifier that can pull 14 to 16 pints of water from the air every day. For every additional 125 square meters, you can add another 7 pints to the total needed to be extracted from the air daily.
- Final thoughts
Taking the time in sizing up the room and finding the right capacity of dehumidifier are crucial to taking control of the air in your room. If you still feel stuck and unsure of what size dehumidifier you need for your specific application, then get in touch with professionals that are experts in dehumidifier technology and ask them for their advice and recommendations of the system that you need for your home.
Your dehumidifier should be purchased from a reputable dealer that offers warranties on their equipment and are able to readily source spares for the units that they sell, as well as offer servicing and maintenance on your unit. Dehumidifiers come in different options, such as fixed systems and portable units and a consultant should be able to assist you in making an informed purchase that will provide the right size dehumidifier solution for your home.
