Santa Fe dehumidifier quit working

[RalphVa]

Last night, I checked the dehumidifier operation. Humidity was showing 64%. No water was being produced. Bought September of last year. Will be calling Santa Fe's 800 # to find out what to do.

Compressor obviously is not coming one. Unplugged it for a bit. Turned it all the way up. No water.

Had been working great to keep the humidity in encapsulated crawl space to 45-50%.

Think one other person on here mentioned they had troubles with their Santa Fe.

 

[RalphVa]

Lost the refrigerant. They're sending a new one. Need some ideas on how to get the heavy old one out and new one in. Near 70 #. We did enlarge the crawl space. Otherwise, I simply could not even get in there myself. It is located about 20 ft inside. There's a big dig just inside before the earth rises up to about a 1/3 way up to that entry hole.

Wife is thinking some 2bys to slide it on. What do WE get on to hold it and slide it? I'm thinking a movable thing carrying a little crane, like a garage door track. To put this one in, my wife and our friend a handyman got it in there. He is no longer available.

 

[kenmbz]

carpet to slide on and block/tackle to lower/raise using a tripod if you have the room ?

 

[5030]

Sure it's not a bad start capacitor? They are all cap start induction run.

 

[RalphVa]

Compressor runs. No water condensed out nor any heat output in the discharge air.

 

[Sigarms]

Don't have a solution for a PITA retrofit job, sorry.

However, if a HVAC contractor had installed that dehumidifier in North Carolina, if it falls under warranty within the first year of installation, the contractor covers the labor for the first full year.

From what I remember, you had that crawl space professionally encapsulated. What did the installing contractor tell you?

 

[RalphVa]

The encapsulation was done a few years before we put the Santa Fe in. We'd been using a couple of fans in the crawl space until early last year when we started getting a smell from it. Put the Santa Fe in last September. Smell went away. We'd stripped away the insulation in the ceiling of the crawl space in the meantime. Think some of the smell was from a tiny bit of mold we found on the insulation.

The new Santa Fe is due to arrive next Tuesday. We do not have to send the old unit back, just a manufacturer's label. We put the Santa Fe in and plan to replace it. We had the help of a strong handyman friend to put the one that's there now into the crawl space but we put it up on some 3x3s and leveled it out and put the water line in along the wall to a drain just outside.

 

[Sigarms]

Never dealt with Santa Fe, but it seems they are treating you right.

Personally I like Aprilaire, but they have problems from time to time for who knows for what reason, and they (Aprilaire) takes care of the issue anytime I've had to deal with them, couldn't ask for anything more.

Sounds like you had a refrigerant leak, lost refrigerant, thus the issue of no dehumidification. Santa Fe is taking care of it, period, can't ask for anything more.

People don't understand that the reason for the cost of a whole house dehumidifer is because it has it's own refrigeration circuit, including coil and compressor. At the end of the day, a whole house dehumidifier will still remove more moisture from a home vs a variable speed indoor blower, multi stage compressor system.

I've got to ask, when they did the encapsulation of your crawl space, did they offer a whole house dehumidifier in the quote as an option? For myself, it would be mandatory since all the grunt work is being quoted.

 

[RalphVa]

We have whole house dehumidifiers. They're called heat pumps and function in AC mode to dehumidify.

Tried opening an AC duct in the crawl space to dehumidify it. That and fans did not work. Did for a while though.

 

[Sigarms]

tra

We have whole house dehumidifiers. They're called heat pumps and function in AC mode to dehumidify.

Tried opening an AC duct in the crawl space to dehumidify it. That and fans did not work. Did for a while though.

A whole house dehumidifier will remove moisture from the air better in a home vs a multi stage heat pump with a indoor variable speed constant airflow blower motor running at low speed.

I also understand that as long as the AC is sized properly for the load, either multi stage AC or heat pump dehumidify better with an indoor constant airflow motor vs a constant torque motor, BUT, due to the huge advantage of the whole house dehumidifier, generally SOP in NC is to offer one (whole house dehumidifier) on every basement encapsulation to guarantee humidity levels, even from dedicated "crawl space basement" companies.