Dehumidifier Report

Despite some issues with experimental procedure (again), there is some data to report on the dehumidifiers.

The unit that is suspected to be bad (i.e., the one that used 11 + kWh in one 24 hour period in the damper location by the cat litter) appears to be, in fact, faulty.  Over a 24 hour period, it used 5.8 kWh in the "dry" location (the music room), where the other unit had used only 3.5 kWh.  It appears it is time to replace this unit.

The "good" unit (now by the cat litter) produced invalid data.  The condensation is supposed to be carried away by a hose that runs to one of the sump pump wells.  The hose connection inside the unit appears to leak, dripping the condensation into the internal reservoir in the dehumidifier.  When the reservoir becomes full (and requires manual emptying), the dehumidifier stops running.  Thus the Kill-A-Watt reading for this unit (2.8 kWh over 24 hours) is clearly incorrect. Today I'll fix the drip and try again.

Even the good unit uses a lot of energy relative to the rest of the devices in our house.  Let's say the good unit and a new unit each use 3.5+ kWh per day.  7+ kWh per day translates to 15%+ of our electricity use during the warm months, and accounts for about a half ton of CO2 released into the atmosphere each year.

Might it be possible to run the dehumidifiers off a renewable source?  This question had occurred to me, so -- to this end -- I've decided to get a better understanding of solar power.  Tomorrow I'll report on my solar education so far.  Much of it involves blown fuses.