[Greenbuilding] Relative humidity in heated houses

[Corwyn]

On 10/27/2010 10:09 AM, Sacie Lambertson wrote:
> Interesting the description of high RH.  I need a RH of at least 50 with
> 55 even better to preserve art in the house.  I fight this every year.
> And yes, I haven't had a blower door test yet (difficult to find a good
> tester in our area), but I believe the house is pretty tight--not air
> tight, but tighter than most.  That said, once we start burning wood, I
> am fighting the RH question all winter, trying to create higher relative
> humidity.

Burning wood has no mechanism for reducing relative humidity other than 
driving warm moist air up the chimney, and having it be replaced with 
cold dry air from outside (in other words it is about the leakiness of 
your house, not the burning of wood).  If you burned wood in the open, 
(please don't, of course) it would actually increase the moisture in the 
air: C6-H10-O5 + 6O2 => 5H2O + 6CO2.

I have a beautiful brass dragon humidifier sitting on my wood stove, 
which I only fill rarely (when I have a cold), as my humidity is usually 
high enough.

Thank You Kindly,

Corwyn

-- 
Topher Belknap
Green Fret Consulting
Kermit didn't know the half of it...
http://www.greenfret.com/
topher at greenfret.com
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