Ok, so a lot of time has passed. I hate it that I have not kept up daily! Believe me, things happen DAILY that are worth mentioning. I will jump to NOW and tell you that the big thing we are fighting is HUMIDITY. I designed the house with no air conditioning. I KNOW, how the heck do you survive the south with no AC? Well the thing is , you can’t “afford it” with solar. It takes a huge system to have enough power for AC. I have a very energy effcient home. I have concrete walls (ICF) and a whole house fan. What we had hoped for is that we could open the windows at night and run the whole house fan, which would pull cooler air in and lower the temps of the house and walls of the house at night. So ….I would wake up and shut the windows, and blinds and curtains…and the house would stay cool. Well, it works! Except for the humidity! 73 degrees is nice and cool till it is combined with 85% humidity! Then you have a cool sauna. Who wants that??? Not me! I can’t stand mold…which grows like crazy with moisture. SO….we are now looking for a whole house dehumidifier. I found one I like, that is desiccant. Ok, to put it in a nutshell….desiccants are the little packets you get in pill bottles that absorb moisture. In the one I am looking at, the moisture is removed by the desiccant then the moisture is removed from the disiccant with heat from propane. So, not as much power sucked from my batteries! I am good with that. Problem number 1….I didn’t run ductwork during construction. Problem number 2….cost, cost, COST…..the unit is $4000.00. I don’t know what the ductwork is yet……
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