Need Advice on Dehumidifiers

[JimMB92]

My lounge is in some serious need of drying out. A friend brought round one of those detector things and apparently my relative humidity is way too high (75%) which is why we have lots of mould problems.

Does anyone have experience buying a dehumidifier? Any advice would be welcome. I'm looking at this one (EcoAir DC12) but not sure if it's any good - especially as it often gets quite cold in the lounge overnight in the winter.

Also, does anyone know if dehumidifiers use much energy? I don't want to accidentally rack up a massive energy bill...

Cheers!

 

[Smart320]

Looks good to me. I have used one before and definitely would say having a good sized water tank is important, would not want anything smaller than this otherwise it will keep switching off waiting to be emptied . Cooler at night is a relative term, will be a lot warmer than a garage or conservatory so that not an issue. Electricity consumption not too high at all and once you have got the existing moisture out it will ( or should ) only run for a short while during each day, unless you have a problem with rising damp in the walls. Think I had a de Longhi if my memory is right, hardly noticed the extra electric consumption.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

I went through a couple of supposed commercial type dehumidifiers before finding these: https://www.ebac.com/dehumidifiers and never looked back since, plus they're British made.

We had one that was used pretty much every day for two years on building renovations and it developed a slight leak, one call to Ebac and they picked it up, changed the part but didn't charge for labour.

Really can't recommend them highly enough.

 

[Smart320]

My memory is failing, it was an Ebac , very efficient and nice large tank

 

[bolide]

Sounds like a dehumidifier is exactly what you need...

1 - don't pay a lot
2 - avoid useless features
3 - if you can provide a drain for it, get one with a continuous drainage function

I've been running these things for 15+ years and the longest any of them has lasted is about 5 years. I've been through maybe six in that time

Check online offers, watch Amazon & watch Aldi & Lidl as they have great dehumidifier deals as it gets towards winter

None of the traditional dehumidifiers will do much as the temperature drops towards about 4 degrees but keep the door to the room closed, and leave it on 24/7 if possible, and you'll fid the unit itself will warm the room a bit

Nick Froome

 

[daveenty]

I have a Meaco 20 litre one which only gets used nowadays for drying washing. It used to live in the garage, switched on 24/7 as it was plumbed into a drain, when I was having issues with water ingress and it still works fine several years later.

 

[gaz_l]

Another vote for ebac here. I have problems with mould in my place as the front wall is north facing and never gets any sun. I bought an ebac 2650e from Argos a couple of years ago, it's helped no end. The mould still comes back, but I have to clean it maybe twice over the winter, as opposed to every other weekend. Well worth the ~£230 it cost me. IIRC came with a 3 year warranty extension too (so 5 years) if you registered it.

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[Vintage Racer]

Meaco are brilliant!

Mine is set to evacuate water outside and does not cost a fortune to run.

 

[Ted]

I have an ebac 2250e - bought for the last place when mrs Ted insisted we kept all the windows closed and then go all upset when she started to find mould everywhere. Started at around 80% rh and came down to under 50% in 2-3 weeks ( large bungalow), and all the mould gone. From there, we just left it on econ auto to mop up any stray moisture. Great piece of kit, efficient and almost silent on slower speeds. It's on right now just keeping things in check rh around 60%

 

[BIRMA]

I've been running various de-humidifiers for quite a few years now.
First one was in an outdoor Carcoon where I kept my Alpine A610, I had a desiccant type of de-humidifier in there. Desiccants are cheaper to buy but a bit more expensive to run. They do not suffer from low temperature freezing up like compressor type de-humidifiers.
I currently run a compressor type de-humidifier Igenix IG9800 in my garage although it is fully insulated and heated I still find it a reasonably intelligent unit that can switch itself off when the desired RH is achieved. Being a bit of an anorak I have remote sensors monitoring the garage and it keeps everything in the garage at a steady 60%RH and I haven't noticed the electricity bills getting much higher either.

 

[coalville126]

Perhaps you should have a look at other more economical / energy efficient ways of reducing relative humidity in your home. I've done a bit of online research for my parents and settled on a positive input ventilator. That did the trick with damp/mould as they live in a period property with modern day standards of insulation. The only issue they felt was a slight draught, but the recently upgrade to the Nuaire DRi eco heat with great. Loads of info on the internet. Much cheaper to run than a dehumidifier.