I just bought an "LG" dehumidifier from The Home Depot (yeah, yeah, I know, buying from HD is always a mistake). The box claimed that it had a threaded hose connection, but when I opened it up, I discovered that what it has instead is a disconnected plastic pipe, about nine inches long, with threads at one end and narrower at the other end.
To use a hose, you're supposed to (a) punch out the cut-out in the back of the dehumidifier about a foot from the bottom, (b) screw the plastic pipe into a hose, (c) insert the pipe into the cut-out hole in the back far enough for the other end to enclose the plastic pipe that the water drips out of, and (d) "lock" the pipe into place with a couple of plastic tabs sticking out of it.
Of course, it doesn't work, for many reasons, including:
- The plastic tabs are just barely enough to hold the pipe in place when a hose is attached to it and putting weight on it. You have to get everything Exactly Right to get it to stay, and even the slightest jostle can dislodge it. Furthermore, it's obvious that over time, the plastic tabs will mold to the position they're wedged into and thus stop applying pressure, at which point they'll completely stop holding the pipe in place.
- The pipe is horizontal, which means that you need to tilt the humidifier slightly backwards to have any chance at all of water running into the hose, as opposed to running into the pipe and immediately running back out into the bucket beneath the water outlet.
- The pipe attaches right where the water drips out, not at the bottom of the bucket, which means that there's no water pressure to force the water into the hose. As a result, it doesn't actually go into the hose; it instead drips back out into the bucket or (worse) finds some other avenue of escape and runs all over the floor.
- The instructions claim that the hose should be kept completely flat but do not explain how exactly you're supposed to do that when the pipe is inserted into the back of the dehumidifier about a foot off of the ground.
I don't think the dehumidifier has a manufacturing defect; I just think it's yet another example of a shoddy manufacturer attempting to graft a "feature" onto a product without caring that the design they've come up with won't actually work. If I had to guess, I'd guess that the hose connection method was poorly grafted onto an already finished dehumidifier design in the cheapest possible way.
I've seen Usenet postings suggesting that I install a bulkhead hose fitting near the bottom of the bucket and run a hose from there. I'm sure I could do that, but I'd rather just buy a dehumidifier which has a proper hose draining design. Can anybody recommend one?