Dishwasher steam venting

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pakle

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I had mold remediation in my attic done recently, and one thing I'm supposed to watch carefully is the humidity level in the home, ideally below 50%. I have a hygrometer which I've calibrated with a salt slurry and going to assume that's reasonably accurate. I run a bath fan in my upstairs bathroom (located next to the attic hatch) for 15 hrs a day straight as a 'whole house fan' and run all the other bath fans/range hood for a long time during & after showers/cooking. The hygrometer reads 60% or more during the summer, which I'm told is okay because the attic gets so hot that any moisture is burned off. But now we're entering the rainy season here in the PNW and I'm trying harder to reduce it without a de-humidifier.

The dishwasher produces an enormous amount of steam (no heat-dry) that's simply released into the air when the door is opened. It's going to kill my numbers. The closest 'vent' is my range hood about 6ft away and the only thing I can think of is some sort of duct from the dishwasher vent directly to the hood. This will not fly with my family. Have you guys seen any creative way to prevent this steam from being released into the air?
 
Yes, stop the dishwasher and dry the dishes by hand.

Then you’ll need to dry the towel you used outside.
 
Yes, stop the dishwasher and dry the dishes by hand.

Then you’ll need to dry the towel you used outside.
Heat dry is off so the dishes come out soaking wet, which is fine. I think the steam is generated by all the hot water used for washing.

Good point about wet towels though, we do have quite a few of those.
 
Thanks I think you're onto something. I suppose keeping it closed after it's done for a couple hrs forces a lot of the moisture to condensate inside, instead of escaping into the air if I open it right away. I'm trying to shift the washing schedule earlier so that we're not so rushed to have it opened right away. I can still feel the heat/moisture coming out the vents but hoping it's less. It's 65% humidity upstairs and getting out of control. Wet towels will be trickier, the garage is even more humid due to the wet car and pretty much same as the outside, will have to think more about this one.
 
Any reason you don't want a dehumidifier? There are portable ones available. Do dishes by hand.
 
Any reason you don't want a dehumidifier? There are portable ones available. Do dishes by hand.
I was told the portable ones won't do enough for the entire home (unless I get one for each room upstairs) so it would have to be a whole house type. Not looking forward to buying another large appliance that takes up room on the floor + the noise. But things are heading in that direction if I can't get the humidity down any other way.
 
I've had decent performance with small (30 pt) dehumidifiers for small areas. You don't necessarily need to dehumidify the whole house when you can contain a problem in one area, provided that you are using air conditioning for the rest of the house. Even if you aren't, you can still have a good impact in specific areas.

There are some types that use a compressor and are loud, and there are some that are thermoelectric, like the coolers that plug into your vehicle's power. The last one I got was from Lowe's, and it is has been performing well for a couple of years. It sits in a basement bathroom and runs continuously. (Vent fan is off/on by a switch.) It is relatively quiet and could be used in a kitchen. You can route a dehumidifier drain to one of your existing drains, or empty the container periodically.

I put vent fans all over the house that we built a couple of years ago, and missed the opportunity to put one in the dishwasher area!
 
There are some in-wall vent fans that will run until a humidity setpoint is reached. That would be nice, but if your environment is over 40% humidity, it would be better to use an on/off switch manually or with a timer, if you have a place in the wall where one can be installed and a vent run externally.
 

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