I have what I feel is excess humidity in my home. My wife and I purchased a unique 1949 Ranch located outside Pittsburgh, PA a little over a year ago. The area in general seems cool and humid. The home went through a significant renovation before we purchased it, including new roof, sofit, cedar shake, indoor paint, flooring and carpeting. Since we settled in I have notice excessive (60-75%) humidity inside my home year round. We purchased a dehumidifier for the laundry room when we moved in. I have made sure all appliance are properly vented, put 6mil plastic in the crawl space and increased the size of the bathroom fans and have not seen ANY change in the humidity level in our home. We are overly aware about activities that cause the humidity in our home and avoid them. The furnace is newer (1999) and is two stage forced air. The air coming out of the heat vents is about 100 degrease and 15- 20% humid. My crawl space IS NOT vented, but it IS heated. The new roof is low pitch and seems to have little to no venting, only place I can find roof venting is in the old sofit that is venting back into the newly added laundry room. I assume that I need to install sofit venting to the rest of the house and close that section off. I need additional advice, I'm going crazy and spending time and $ with low results. Please help!
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From the desciption of your efforts it sounds as though you are minimizing most internal moisture generators. That leads me to believe that your underfloor space may be a major contributor. Is the crawlspace covered with polyethelene? If not, evaporation from the soil can be a big source of moisture. A poly vapor barrier will cut the evaporation rate significantly. You might place your humidity gauge in the crawl space to see the levels are significantly higher than the house.
Attic ventilation is mostly for the benefit of the wood and to draw off some of the heat in the summer. Whether it is vented or not will not greatly affect interior moisture levels.
Make sure that your exhaust fans actualy vent to the outside. Many houses are vented into the attic space and ,without attic ventilation, it may return to the inside. Particularly be sure that the dryer vent is to the outside.
Good luck
Attic ventilation is mostly for the benefit of the wood and to draw off some of the heat in the summer. Whether it is vented or not will not greatly affect interior moisture levels.
Make sure that your exhaust fans actualy vent to the outside. Many houses are vented into the attic space and ,without attic ventilation, it may return to the inside. Particularly be sure that the dryer vent is to the outside.
Good luck
