Energy-Efficient Basement Dehumidifiers

Our high-performance, SaniDry™ Sedona dehumidifier.

Aside from making a less comfortable environment, humidity creates many problems in your home. Peeling wallpaper, warped wood, rusting tools, blistered paint and moisture dripping from pipes are all signs of excessive humidity. The worst humidity problem by far? Mold. Once mold finds a way to grow in your basement, it will continue to grow and spread until you take action against it. Mold is ugly. It's smelly, and it often lives alongside bacteria, rot, insects, and rodents. It definitely doesn't go well with your ideal finished basement plan!

To make matters worse, mold can also be hazardous to your health. The spores released from mold will travel throughout the entire home. If someone in your home is afflicted by asthma or allergies, mold spores will surely make their condition worse. Mold in the air has also been known to lead to irritation in their eyes, ears, nose or throats, as well as leading to a variety of other health issues. Children, the elderly, and pregnant women are also at a higher risk for mold spore related health problems. Dr. Kenneth Hellevang from North Dakota State University has a lengthy paper on the importance of keeping the indoor air quality high in your home.

Coating your basement floor joists, pipes, walls, and other structures with a mold-preventative coating is an interesting idea. For the sake of argument, let's assume that these coatings work.

Your basement will still be humid, but anything coated will resist mold growth! Sounds great! Just don't bring boxes, wood furniture, cloth, cushioned furniture, clothing, books, holiday supplies, or anything else that is uncoated and contains organic material into your basement and you should be fine.

Of course, it might be more useful if the WHOLE basement is protected, and not just the coated surfaces. If you're planning on using your finished basement, then dehumidification is the answer! Schedule a free estimate with your local TBF dealer and get started with basement dehumidification needs!

Master humidity with SaniDry™!

Excess humidity can spur the growth of mold, which not good news for allergy sufferers.

The only machine that is going to get the results you need for your basement dehumidification is the SaniDry™ Basement Air System. We offer two SaniDry models: the SaniDry Sedona and the SaniDry XP. Both are equipped with a high-capacity, high-efficiency system, that can remove as much as 100 pints (47.318 L) of water per day out of your basement air.

A powerful blower moves the conditioned, dry air around your room to dry the building materials and personal items in the remodeled basement.

As an added bonus, the SaniDry™ drains the water out of your house without the need to empty buckets or perform daily maintenance. Any damp smell or muggy feelings that might have made their way into your remodeled basement are gone!

The SaniDry™ Basement Air system does more than just dehumidify. When it pulls air out of the remodeled basement air, it filters particles from the air as small as two microns- smaller than any mold spore or dust mite dropping. Now you have a second line of defense against mold!

One word of warning: don't allow yourself to be drawn in to buying a fan that blows your basement air outside of the house. The reason? Your basement air tends to be cooler than the rest of the house. Cold air holds less moisture than warm air, which is one reason why condensation occurs most often in basements. As basement air warms, it collects more moisture and rises into the rest of the house. If you blow basement air outside, new air from outside will enter into the house to fill the void. Unless that air is dry and exactly the temperature of the rest of the house, you're going to have to heat or cool that air. After doing so many things to insulate your home, why would you pay to blow that air OUT of your house? You may be making your home even MORE humid!

Energy-efficient dehumidification!

Combining the energy usage of a small dehumidifier with the power of a high-volume dehumidifier, the SaniDry™ is the ultimate solution in finished basement dehumidification! Because it has 10 times the cold surface of an average dehumidifier, the SaniDry™ is capable of removing up to 100 pints of water per day out of your basement and 2.9 liters of water per kilowatt. It removes more water for the same electricity cost as a standard household dehumidifier.

In a test of four dehumidifiers, we found the worst performer was a standard household unit that is available under many easily recognizable names. It weighed in at a cost of 11 cents per pint of water it removed. A more expensive unit - one without the features of the SaniDry™, cost 10 cents per pint of water to remove. 

A high-performance filter protects coils from dust accumulation and helps remove particles from the air you breathe. 

An added benefit to a SaniDry™ dehumidifier is the savings it provides on conditioning the air in your home. Dry air is less expensive to heat and faster to cool than humid air because there's less water to heat and cool in the air. Additionally, a full 30% of an air conditioner's workload is to remove humidity. If you start with dry air, you can save on all your heating and cooling costs!

Dry, filtered air at a great price in your finished basement. Energy-efficient, with no buckets to empty. What more could you want from a dehumidifier? If you're interested in dehumidifying your basement, a SaniDry™ system from Total Basement Finishing is the only way to go!

At Total Basement Finishing, we offer a complete basement finishing system, with products like basement flooring, ceiling tiles, insulated wall system and more. Contact us today to schedule an estimate or to find a dealer in your area!