How long does it take for the dehumidifier to work?

[Guest guest]

We bought 2 dehumidifiers and are running them around the clock. How

long before there is improvement? I'm wondering whether our mites have

evolved to live in low humidity since Phoenix is in the desert. Today,

it was 13% humidity outside. Maybe the dehumidifiers won't work for us.

[Guest guest]

As far as I know, it took Jeff about five weeks.

Even though Phoenix is pretty dry all year long, the dehumidifiers might still work there. I found a website that gives good information about relative humidity in all the major US cities for each month of the year (www.cityrating.com).

If the information there can be believed, the average daily humidity for Phoenix in October gets as high as 49% on average in the AM and drops to 22% on average in the PM The average daily temperature is 75 F. Based upon information in links Jeff sent, 75 F seems to be the perfect temperature for mites. Those links also make clear that one day of low humidity won't kill them. And, it may also be the case that Pheonix' AM humidity each day is all they need to survive.

If you can keep the humidity in your house consistently low all day long for five weeks, you're creating a very different environment than the one the mites may have adapted to in Phoenix. You will also want to get the temperature over 80 F for that period. After a week or two you will be in a better position to evaluate whether things are improving.

In my case, I was quite optomistic yesterday that things were improving but today I am not so sure. Either way, I think it's too early to come to any conlusions. I will keep this up for five full weeks (at least) before I decide whether it worked or not. If not, I will just try other protocols.

Good luck!

Mark

From: lorenuciadoekes <lorenuciadoekes@...>Subject: How long does it take for the dehumidifier to work?bird mites Date: Thursday, October 2, 2008, 9:51 PM

We bought 2 dehumidifiers and are running them around the clock. How long before there is improvement? I'm wondering whether our mites have evolved to live in low humidity since Phoenix is in the desert. Today, it was 13% humidity outside. Maybe the dehumidifiers won't work for us.