# sweating double pane windows



## etch (Oct 29, 2011)

My double pane windows sweat badly. We have a humidifier on furnace, but have not had it on.....how can this be taken care of?


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## etch (Oct 29, 2011)

My double pane windows sweat and I didn't have the furnace humidifier on....mostly at night when it is colder outside and the furnace runs more even set at 68 degrees. What can I do???


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## Bud Cline (Mar 12, 2006)

Electric, natural gas, oil, or propane?


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## Just Bill (Dec 21, 2008)

There are other things that introduce moisture into the house, cooking, showers with no fan, house plants, damp basement or crawlspace, etc. Get a humidity gauge and check that, it should be below 50% during winter. Much above that and you will get condensation when the temps are right.


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

-------------Window condensation --------------by Oberon

The reason why there is condensation on the interior of your windows has a really simple explanation – the surface temperature of the window is below the dew point temperature of the air in your home…that’s it…a very simple explanation. 

Unfortunately, the reason that the window surface temperature is below the dew point temperature can potentially become somewhat more complex, but I am going to offer a few thoughts and even throw in a few numbers that I hope might help your situation. 

In the summer, when you pull something cold and refreshing out of the refrigerator, and the air is warm and humid, that cold and refreshing beverage container suddenly and quite magically becomes instantly wet – just as soon as it is exposed to the air. What has happened is that the temperature of the container fresh from the refrigerator is below the dew point temperature of the air – which has caused condensation on the outside of that container. 

What happens to your windows in the fall and winter is that the surface of the glass is below the dew point temperature of the air in your home – which is causing condensation on the surface of that glass. 

Dew point is defined as saturation vapor density...or put in simpler terms, when the air reaches 100% relative humidity and can hold no more moisture. 
Relative humidity is, well, relative. 

Relative humidity is a comparison of the actual vapor density versus the saturation vapor density at a particular temperature. Basically, dew point is 100% relative humidity or the point where the air - at that temperature - is no longer able to hold any more moisture. If the air has reached vapor saturation (100% relative humidity), then the air will release moisture...be it on the outside of that cold beverage container in the summer time, or be it on the interior glass surface of your windows in the winter time, it makes no difference. If the surface temperature happens to be below freezing, then that moisture becomes frost or even ice. 

In order to stop condensation from forming on the surface of a window, you either have to lower the dew point temperature of the air in your home to a level below the dew point temperature of the window surface, or you have to warm up the window surface to a temperature above the dew point temperature of your home, or a combination of both. 

Lowering the relative humidity of the air in your home MAY have absolutely no effect on controlling window condensation…and I bet that that statement is a bit of a surprise to some folks…it is true however. 

There are two ways to lower relative humidity – increase air temperature or decrease moisture content. If you increase the air temperature you will lower the relative humidity but you will not change the dew point - which is based on the amount of water vapor in the air and is not based on the temperature of the air. 

The amount of moisture in the air is measured in grams per cubic meter, which is kind of nice for our metric folks but not so nice for our non-metric folks; but the metric version is much easier on the calculator than the English version. However, in the interest of making this stuff easier to understand for all of us non-metric types, I am going to use Fahrenheit rather than Celsius temperatures in the calculations. 

Okay – consider your home at 65 degrees F and with a relative humidity reading of 40%. There are 6.25 grams of water in a cubic meter of air in your home in that particular scenario - which then equates to a dew point temperature of 38 degrees F. So at 38 degrees the air will be at 100% relative humidity or at saturation vapor density. 

Now, if your neighbor keeps her house at 75 degrees, but she also has 6.25 grams of water per cubic meter in her air, then the relative humidity in her home is 29% - versus your 40%. But, and here’s the kicker, the dew point temperature in her home is still 38 degrees. 

While the relative humidity in her home is much lower than is the relative humidity in yours; if the surface temperature of the windows in her home is 35 degrees she will have condensation on those windows…yet if the surface temperature of your windows is 40 degrees – only five degrees warmer – you will not have condensation on your windows. 

So, while her handy humidity gauge reads (correctly) only 29% RH – she has a condensation problem. 

While your handy humidity gauge reads (correctly) 40% RH – you don’t have a condensation problem…SWEET…well, for you anyway, not her. 

If your home hygrometer measures the relative humidity in your home at 60% while the temperature of your home is 70 degrees, you will have a dew point temperature of about 51 degrees – meaning that if the temperature of the window surface is below 51 degrees then you will have condensation - so now we talk a little more specifically about windows. 

The interior surface temperature of a single lite of glass, when the temperature outside is 0 degrees F and the inside air temperature is 70 degrees, will be about 16 degrees. 
Add a storm window on the outside and the surface temperature of the inside lite jumps up to about 43 degrees – a huge improvement. 

But these are center-of-glass readings and not the temperature readings at the edge of the window where condensation usually forms. A typical clear glass dual pane window is going to have center-of-glass temperature reading pretty much the same as a single pane with a storm.

However, if that dual pane has a LowE coating and an argon gas infill then the center-of-glass temperature will be about 57 degrees – a 14 degree improvement over a clear glass dual pane or a single pane with storm window – but again, and more importantly, there will be a comparable edge of glass improvement as well, particularly if the IGU (Insulating Glass Unit) was manufactured using a warm edge spacer system. Also, the dual pane is going to have desiccant between the glass layers. Desiccant absorbs moisture keeping the inside of the dual pane system very dry. 

The advantage? If it gets cold enough outside, the temperature in the airspace between the lites can get very low. By keeping that space dry, it helps to keep the dew point temperature very low as well; something not always possible when using a single pane and storm window. 

Although a single pane with a good and tight storm window can help the interior lite to avoid condensation (when compared with a single lite and no storm), the storm window itself will frost up when the temperature is low enough – at a temperature usually well above the temperature that will cause the dual pane to ice up. It is unavoidable given the right circumstances 
So what does a window temperature of 57 degrees mean? Well, as I mentioned earlier a home kept at 70 degrees with a 60% relative humidity has a dew point temperature of 51 degrees so it is unlikely that there will be condensation problem on those particular windows despite the relatively high relative humidity in the home. 

But what happens to the dew point if you keep your home at 70 degrees and you have a 65% relative humidity? Well, for one thing the dew point has jumped up to 57 degrees which we have already noted is the same as the window temperature. For another thing, anyone with 65% relative humidity in a home at 70 degrees has way too much moisture in their air and they are in serious need of some sort of ventilation system – or at least several good exhaust fans! 

Somewhere back in this post I mentioned that lowering the relative humidity in your home may not help control condensation…that is still true…IF the relative humidity is lowered because of an increase in temperature. But, lowering the relative humidity by removing water is a different story because in that case you will also be lowering the dew point as you lower the relative humidity and that WILL help to control condensation on your windows.


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## Bud Cline (Mar 12, 2006)

I love copy and paste. Best thing to come along since red fire trucks.


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

Bud Cline said:


> I love copy and paste. Best thing to come along since red fire trucks.


You know it! :thumbup:


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