Reply to post 106 from zorander6:
Dehumidifiers use gobs of energy. After reading the HVAC-Talk forum's threads regarding reducing humidity and reading information that said that dehumidifiers use less energy for the same moisture removal as an air conditioner and knowing that relative humidity is a strong part of whether or not a body feels hot, I decided to let the house get warmer than usual and run a dehumidifier. Things didn't go so well, the comfort was reasonable but the dehumidifier used 700 watts constantly, which is 17kwh per day. That's about 7 hours of energy from my normal air conditioner per day which I don't average even close to that much usage. Oddly enough 2 hours of continuous AC per day from my 2 ton is usually bringing the dew point into the high 40's. ..moral of the story is that an air conditioner while it is running is plenty able to get the dew point to a comfortable level along with the not heating the basement, as long as the AC runs a fair amount. Outside of the swing seasons where it is used less, you probably don't really need to run a dehumidifier unless you have a house with too much air leakage or a water ingress problem.
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