Three Ormond Beach houses at 74 degrees, damp for three different reasons
Humidity complaints in Ormond Beach come from every era of house, and the era usually tells us where to look. Picture three calls from one wet July week; the houses are typical, and so are the fixes.
House one: a 1950s cottage in Ellinor Village
The duplex-turned-house dates from Ellinor Village’s resort days, concrete block with jalousie windows on two sides and a window unit that was replaced by a small central system in the 1990s. Say the owner keeps it at 74 and says it feels like a boat. The hygrometer reads 64 percent.
What we found. The house leaks. Jalousie louvers never seal, the original wood doors have daylight under them, and the humid outside air, at a dew point in the low 70s on a July morning, walks right in. The central system is sized correctly for the heat but cannot keep up with that much incoming moisture, and the one-inch filter in the hall return is restricting what airflow there is.
What fixed it. Weatherstripping and door sweeps, a return-air fix with a media filter cabinet, and a small ducted dehumidifier beside the air handler in the utility closet. Replacing the jalousies would be the complete answer, and we said so, but the dehumidifier made the house livable the week it went in.
House two: a 1977 home in The Trails
Wood-and-block two-story on a wooded lot west of Nova Road, air handler in the garage, system replaced in 2015 with a unit a half-ton larger than the old one because the upstairs always ran hot. Thermostat at 74; hygrometer at 61. The sliding doors sweat in the morning and the upstairs closets smell.
What we found. Short cycling from oversizing. The 2015 unit satisfies the downstairs thermostat in seven minutes and shuts off before it has removed much water. Meanwhile the original 1977 return ducts in the garage ceiling are pulling in warm, damp garage air through gaps at every joint, so the system is dehumidifying the garage along with the house. The upstairs heat problem that justified the bigger unit was a duct problem all along.
What fixed it. Sealing the return ducts, which dropped the humidity five points on its own. Then zoning the system so the upstairs calls for its own cooling, which lets the thermostat setting come up and the cycles run longer. When this unit’s time comes, a variable-capacity replacement sized to the house will finish the job.
House three: a 2005 build in Hunter’s Ridge
Stucco two-story west of I-95, tight construction, attic air handler, thermostat at 74, hygrometer at 58 percent, which is better than the other two but worse than the owners expect from a newer house. The bedrooms are stuffy in the morning and the bathroom mirrors take an hour to clear.
What we found. The house is sealed well enough that moisture from showers, cooking and four people breathing has no way out except through the air conditioner, and the system’s fan was set to run continuously, which re-evaporates the water off the coil between cycles and sends it back into the rooms. The bath fans vented into the attic rather than outdoors, a builder shortcut we see in more than one newer subdivision.
What fixed it. Fan back to auto. Bath fans ducted through the roof. An energy recovery ventilator in the attic or a utility closet to bring in a measured amount of fresh air without the moisture, which also cured the stuffy bedrooms. No new cooling equipment.
What the three have in common
All three houses were cool. None was dry. In each the thermostat was telling the truth about temperature and nothing about the air, and in each the owner had tried lowering the setting, which made the house colder and no less damp. Ormond Beach’s summer dew points, in the low-to-mid 70s from June into October, mean a house needs to remove water on purpose, not as a side effect of cooling. The way the water gets in is what differs by era: through the envelope in the 1950s house, through the ducts and the oversized unit in the 1977 house, and through the occupants themselves in the sealed 2005 house.
What we measure before we recommend anything
Indoor humidity in two rooms; the temperature and humidity of the air leaving the registers; static pressure at the return; a look at the return ducts and the coil; and ten minutes of watching the system cycle. From those we can tell you which house yours is and what to change first, which is almost never the thermostat. Call 866-266-5709; the truck comes from our Palm Coast headquarters with the meters already on it.
Humidity questions from Ormond Beach homes
What humidity should an Ormond Beach house hold in summer?
Fifty percent is comfortable and keeps mold from getting a foothold; anything over 60 for days at a time is a problem. A twenty-dollar hygrometer in the main living area tells you more than the thermostat does.
Is setting the fan to run all the time a good idea?
Not here. With the fan on constantly, the water that condensed on the coil during the last cycle evaporates back into the house between cycles. Leave it on auto unless we have set up the system specifically to run that way.
Why is the house damper in May and October than in July?
Because the air conditioner only dries while it cools, and in the mild months it barely runs. The dew point outside is still in the 60s and 70s, so moisture gets in and nothing takes it out. Those are dehumidifier months.
My condo in Ormond-by-the-Sea smells musty when we come back after a month away. Fix?
Set the thermostat higher but not off, around 78 to 80, and add a humidistat-controlled dehumidifier or a thermostat with a dehumidify setting. An empty condo at 72 is cold and wet; one at 79 and 50 percent is neither.
Cool enough, never dry enough?
We bring the meters to Ormond Beach and tell you which of the three houses yours is.