[CAUT] Re: Temperature and Humidity

[Alan McCoy]

Jim, Ron and Fred have nailed the issue pretty well. The thing that
administrators don't seem to get is that 67 degrees at 45% RH feels vastly
more comfortable than 67 at 25%. Thus, by simply allowing the temperature to
vary from, say 67 in the winter to 75 in the summer, you can moderate the
seasonal shifts in RH without any attempt at humidification at all. Instead
most institutions keep it so blasted hot in the winter you come to work in
short sleeves and shorts and then in summer they keep it so cold you need a
sweater and all the secretaries need space heaters. Talking to the powers
that be about this issue is like talking to a brick. Can you tell I'm a bit
frustrated by this issue?!

By all means let the temperatures vary seasonally within a "comfortable"
range. This will moderate the seasonal RH shift and actually help to save on
energy costs. But these cost savings are not enough to balance out the money
you'll need to spend for humidification if you want to narrow the RH range
further than can be achieved through just allowing the temperature to vary.

Alan


-- Alan McCoy, RPT
Eastern Washington University
amccoy@mail.ewu.edu
509-359-4627


> From: James Ellis <claviers@nxs.net>
> Reply-To: "College and University Technicians <caut@ptg.org>" <caut@ptg.org>
> Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 18:16:36 -0500
> To: <caut@ptg.org>
> Subject: [CAUT] Re:  Temperature and Humidity
> 
> It's fairly easy to maintain temperature within a few degrees around the
> clock from summer to winter.  Maintaining relative humidity constant so
> that it will not fluctuate more than 10 percent is another matter.  It can
> be done, but it gets very expensive.  One college I know in the southeast,
> when they drew up the specs for their new music building, specified that
> the relative humidity was to be maintained between 40 and 60 percent, year
> round.  I was told that the system would do it, but the electric bill went
> through the roof, so they backed off a little bit on the humidity control.
> 
> Jim Ellis
> 
> _______________________________________________
> caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives