Condensatrion , Is The Pellet Stove Doing It??

[drizler]

I notice that the last year or so during the winter months I have been getting a lot of condensation. Of course its a great deal in the bathroom as you would expect but I notice the beginning of dry rot stain occurring in the skylights at the other end of the houseThe rot locations are in the lower corners. Also it is was forming on the lower corners of the bathroom and adjacent bedroom windows and I remove it by wiping. THere is a small ice rind there as well. All windows are Low E Thermopane of good quality and tight fitting.. House is well insulated 1995 built. There are only 3 of us with none taken to the fabled "hour long showers" and there is not a lot of cooking going on, shower fan being used ect. No mods to the attic insulation to prevent moisture escape either. Currently humidity is around 60% give or take. We had no humidity issues before the pellet stove in 2005 and I only began to notice it last year really. I did put on an OAK sometime around then but can't say exactly that it is the cause. I do notice a lot of condensation on the intake pipe which I suppose is expected. On the other side of things we keep the place pretty cold around 55 - 65 throughout most of the house and usually use electric space heaters to keep the temps up during the night. Using the electrics let us drop the temps in most of the rest of the house to around 50 during the night which is again no biggie for us and cut corn / wood consumption overall by nearly half.
Ok so what is the best course of action here? Has anyone ever had condensation issues caused by an OAK kit or is it being caused by keeping the temp too low? Would it be easier and more effective to run a dehumidifier than run the stove hotter all night long or is there a better alternative I haven't thought of. I always tell everyone I live in an Arctic Swamp referring to the Northcountry, is this karma or what?

 

[rickwa]

is the clothes dryer venting sealed up. is the louvers on the outside of the house where it exits clean and allowing good flow. turn dryer on and check for good air flow. also check and make sure venting did not come unhooked from bath fan up in the attic. do you have gas hot water heater? is it drafting properly?

 

[DAKSY]

You're definitely NOT getting moisture from the pellet stove.
It's a forced hot-air furnace burning a fuel that's very low in moisture content.
Even the air your OAK is drawing in is ultra-dry, so THAT can't be the source, either...
It HAS to be from some other source.

 

[sydney1963]

Pellet stove dries my home out. I have an inside humidity monitor and it goes as low at 29 when stove is running 24/7. That's when the humidifier comes on.

 

[drizler]

OK, I got lied to. It seems my hygrometer must have gotten dropped. I dug up another and compared to find it reading almost exactly 20% higher. I guess that means around 40 and topping out around 52 percent. No wonder the place didn't have that swampy summertime feeling.

 

[agrossm]

This situation sounds like a psychometric problem. As dry bulb temperature decreases RH increases, it is an inverse relationship. I run into this all of the time with computer rooms... IT guys want it cold and the RH increases causing high humidity alarms. You need to be concerned w/ your dew point temp, if the dew point in your home is above the temperature of the windows, wall, ect. you will see condensation.

Here's a link to an online psychometric calculator....

http://www.sugartech.co.za/psychro/index.php

Additionally see this manual from Aprilaire page 6 table 1 for recommended humidity levels....

http://www.aprilaire.com/themes/aa/en/manuals/600a.pdf

Do you have a forced air heating system w/ a humidifier?? If so I would check for a humidifier malfunction when the furnace operates. Does you basement leak? I live in a 100+ year old house and when my basement gets wet RH skyrockets. Another problem may be that your home is too tight and you are not getting enough air changes. Even though you are not taking long showers, cooking a lot, the moisture still hangs in your home. It really sounds like the RH in you house is way too high.

 

[Excell]

I had that happen to me one winter .It turned out the drier vent had come off and was dumping air into the basement .

 

[CygnusX1]

I notice that the last year or so during the winter months I have been getting a lot of condensation. Of course its a great deal in the bathroom as you would expect but I notice the beginning of dry rot stain occurring in the skylights at the other end of the houseThe rot locations are in the lower corners. Also it is was forming on the lower corners of the bathroom and adjacent bedroom windows and I remove it by wiping. THere is a small ice rind there as well. All windows are Low E Thermopane of good quality and tight fitting.. House is well insulated 1995 built. There are only 3 of us with none taken to the fabled "hour long showers" and there is not a lot of cooking going on, shower fan being used ect. No mods to the attic insulation to prevent moisture escape either. Currently humidity is around 60% give or take. We had no humidity issues before the pellet stove in 2005 and I only began to notice it last year really. I did put on an OAK sometime around then but can't say exactly that it is the cause. I do notice a lot of condensation on the intake pipe which I suppose is expected. On the other side of things we keep the place pretty cold around 55 - 65 throughout most of the house and usually use electric space heaters to keep the temps up during the night. Using the electrics let us drop the temps in most of the rest of the house to around 50 during the night which is again no biggie for us and cut corn / wood consumption overall by nearly half.
Ok so what is the best course of action here? Has anyone ever had condensation issues caused by an OAK kit or is it being caused by keeping the temp too low? Would it be easier and more effective to run a dehumidifier than run the stove hotter all night long or is there a better alternative I haven't thought of. I always tell everyone I live in an Arctic Swamp referring to the Northcountry, is this karma or what?

No way is the pellet stove causing condensation. If anything, it's drying out your house because it blows hot, dry, forced air into the house.
Maybe, the bulkhead door in the cellar isn't sealed right, it happened to me.

 

[MCPO]

IMO, It`s got to be something that`s pretty obvious.
In the winter when it`s cold and dry we usually refrain from running the exhaust fans when showering since we could use all the extra humidity we can get.

 

[krooser]

Does your home have conventional roof construction with an attic? If so do you have enough roof vents/soffit vents to keep the roof cold? Could you have an ice dam on the roof allowing water to seep into the ceiling?

I have that problem since the roof over my kitchen porch doesn't have enough air circulation.