My basement is already pretty damp and it has your typical basement smell. I live in Colorado so other than a few days a year it is pretty dry outside, usually between 35% and 50% relative humidity. I decided to go the energy saving route of a whole house HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator). This should also get rid of the basement smell.
For those who don't know what a HRV is or does it's a ventilation system that swaps stale humid indoor air with fresh dry outdoor air. It passes the exchanged air through a heat exchanger and heats or cools (depending on season) the incoming air with the exhausted air.
I went with a Honeywell VNT5150H1000. It's a high quality unit that makes balancing the system easy as pie. It's quiet, has a defrost cycle, and has two filters. It require a fair amount of ducting depending on how you want to use it. I chose to pull stale air from the 3 basement rooms and return fresh air into the forced air HVAC system. This will remove the basement air and supply the whole house with fresh air.
Sitting on my office floor. I've been waiting for a while to buy this thing. I'm pretty excited!
You need two 6" ducts running to the outside, one for exhaust, one for intake. A little shout out to my drill, while it couldn't handle turning this 6.25" hole saw in the forward direction, it ran the hole saw backwards and cut through the wall with ease! Brushless Dewalt FTW!!
If I've learned one thing about my house... it is to measure 10 times, drill a small hole, remeasure. Here is where I wanted the first hole so I drilled the pilot from the inside out.
First hole done...
Second hole done...
Layers...
This is probably a perfect time to plug an old time favorite. I don't drink a lot of soda but I'm an 80s kid and loved this soda back in the day. Luckily the grocery store by my house has a steady supply of Crystal Pepsi if you know where to look
I've had my fair share of it this summer while working on this stuff. It's Pepsi and it's clear
Throw back thirsty!!
