Quote:
Originally Posted by Daox
I don't know why you'd have humid air in your attic in winter. The outside air should be very dry. If you have humid air it must be coming from some other place.
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Daox,
From posts you've made about the low indoor wintertime humidity in your locale, it sounds like the prolonged intense cold really pulls a lot of water out of the air.
It sounds to me like there hasn't been a stellar effort to air-seal the living quarters from the attic at Xringer's place, so living space air migration into the attic should be expected. It also sounds like Xringer doesn't have anything like a heat exchange ventilator either, which would mix dry outside air with moist air in the house and lower inside humidity.
comfor zone
So the living room relative humidity could easily be at the upper level of comfort zone envelope.
living space air infiltrates to attic
When the living space air infiltrates into the attic and takes all the humidity with it, the lower temp of the attic can bring the attic air pretty close to 100% humidity, and liquid water (condensation) would form.
living space air (or attic air) piped into basement
...and if the attic air (or even living space air) is piped down into the basement where the new water-heater is lowering the temperature, the chances of condensation are pretty high.
From his previous posts, Xringer has reported on problems with basement humidity, what with an open sump and also an installed dehumidifier... So the basement is already near the dew point and is also, from his descriptions, a flourishing mold garden.
-AC