Canada Dreams

hi

can someone please explain why we need the air echanger on, i know its to move air around, and change the air inside of the house, but whats the ideal humidity required in the house.
sorry but its new to us, never had one before

XCMTBer

I's assume you are talking about the HRV, the humidifier is usually separate.
The HRV will swap the air in the house for fresh air from outside every few hours whilst retaining the heat of the air. This is a good idea as most new Canadian houses are designed to be air tight to be energy efficient.

other option is to turn it off and open the windows, but in -20 it won't be too cosy....

the Humidifier is to regulate the humidity, to little and its static shocks at every turn, to much and your windows will "mist" up when cold outside. its a fine balance.

MarkG

Our HRV has a humidity control; I believe it's supposed to run the HRV on high when the humidity is above the set level so that humid air is vented out of the house and replaced with fresh air from outside. I've no proof that it actually works, but the humidity level in the house seems to stay fairly constant.

XCMTBer

I have a single control panel, but they are 2 separate "appliances" from 2 different manufacturers. The Canadian basement full of new mechanical things can be quite complicated.

Canada Dreams

our unit has a dial on it, that we need to manually turn to the approx outside temp. and then it runs, we also have a stat in the hall way, which gives us our humidity, was just wonder what % it needs to be

XCMTBer

all houses are different, my internal standalone weather station says internal RH is 39%

Dave+Jules

We had a Ventmar Air exchanger fitted (with humidity control) and the contractor set it to what the book says is normal (40-50%).... dried us out and the ceilings cracked in the ground floor as all the moisture was sucked out. The sensor was in the basement which has a higher humidity

So we now run it on summer humidity (70%) to stop it from dessicating our frail features. I suppose we could run it at normal range and just slap alot of goose grease on our faces before retiring.

Canada Dreams

wow goose grease, we will use old engine oil its a greeen thing, you know, helping the envioment, recycling thingy

geedee

I have a humidifier, a dehumidifier, and an air exchange thingy... goodness knows what they all do!

The bloke we bought the house from said they're a waste of time, but he had to put one in because of the new building regs.

I had my humidifier set to 35% but got fed up with my glasses steaming up when I came in from outside, so have now set it to 15%.

I just hope my walls don't all crack..... (er... why would they, anyone??)

destinationnovascotia

It strikes me that there is no "normal setting". In one house is appear that you need it set as low as 15% and in another up in the 70% region.

I can only assume that the individual units vary in the way that they measure it. My house is fine on around 70-80%, we never have damp or misty windows.

I am generally confused as if there really was 70-80% humidity in the house it would no doubt feel damp. I reckon that you just play around with it until it fells right and then stick to that setting.

Canada Dreams

still confused :curse: oh well, we cant set ours, we just set the thingy to what the temp is outside at the time???

XCMTBer

Do you find the air in the house ok? if so leave it alone, if not experiment. or get a thermometer from Canadian Tire that will tell you the humidity.

Canada Dreams

the stat has that setting, its around 40-50 on average, and the air exchanger is a seperate unit, but just try and keep it to what the temp is outside.
it all seems fine, i guess, just wanted to know other peoples thoughts

yorkie lad

we have recently moved into a new home and it has one of those air exchange "thingys" (technical term!!). the site supervisor advised us to set it to about 24% humidity due to the warm air from the humans in the house!!
it seems to work fine and keeps the windows from steaming up.....

Dave+Jules

The moisture is extracted from the drywall (plasterboard to you new of the boat people) and so it shrinks.

I have the problem in the ceiling because they are artexed and as they shrunk it cracked along the joins between the boards. (ruined now). No problem with the walls though.