Dehumidifier Won't Turn Off

[Bob]

Hi, another question...

Recently purchased a Denby Silhouette dehumidifier for the basement, looks great and runs fine, only problem is it never seems to shut off; I'm wondering if something's broken and if I should exchange it for another one.

It has electronic/digital controls for the settings, it displays what relative humidity you set and what the current RH is and no matter what RH I set it to, it always brings the room down to either the same level or 1% higher and stays on.

Example: I set it to 40% and it will bring the room down to 40 or 41% and stays there. Thinking that was too low, I brought it up to 50% and it did the same thing. The other weird thing is if it's displaying the RH of the room at 41% and I bring the setting up to 50%, shouldn't it immediately turn off?

There is a "continuous" setting on it, but that's definitely not what it's set to, to get the continuous, you have to set the RH to below

35%, which then displays "--".

Any help appreciated, it's fairly bulky and I'd rather avoid having to put it back in the box and bringing it in for nothing if it's behaving normally.

[m Ransley]

Return it, it should shut off

[m Ransley]

A possibility is it is to cold , below 65 or defective, low on freon and icing up and that the unit is defrosting itself. If that is the case get a unit for lower temps. Sears has one for 45f. I would never consider owning a unit that has a always on fan feature, But I realy do not beleive it was designed that way, if it was im sure it does not carry the "Energy Star" rating. There is no reason to buy any apliance these days without the Energy Star rating . The electricty you will waste each year could easily be 150$ in constant fan on mode. I would still return it. Consumer Reports rated them.

[m Ransley]

What did you expect from a brand name of dam b, gees go to Sears.

[Joseph Meehan]

I wonder if it is cycling the dehumidifying part and leaving the fan on all the time. That would allow it to properly monitor the humidity.

[Tom Hemp]

I have purchased two dehumidifiers in the last year or so. The first one from Sears which is made by LG I believe would cycle every 2 minutes once the humidity was met no matter what. I could set the humidity set point to

70% and if the humidity was 50% it would kick on every two minutes. Since this unit was in a small basement it actually kept reducing the humidity because it was dehumidifying in these 2 minutes intervals. Even had the Sears salesman turn on the store model in an air conditioned store with the set point at 70% and you could set your watch by it. So, I returned this unit.

Next I tired a real LG unit from Home Depot and it behaved better however it does cycle every so often to check the humidity when the humidity is below the set point. I believe to keep the whole room at a constant humidity it has to cycle the fan to keep the air moving through out the room. The compressor is not cycling on these start ups of the fan unless the humidity is higher than the set point. I decided to keep this one, but still miss my

20 year old Sears unit that died that had a manual knob to set the humidity level that worked perfectly.

Tom

[David Martel]

Bob,

I think it's a Danby not a Denby. It has a two speed fan which runs continuously. If it is maintaining your humidity near the setpoint it is working correctly. To test this move the setpoint up 10%, look at the spinning disc on your power meter, now move the setpoint down 20%, and look at the power meter again. The disc on the power meter should be spinning much faster with the lower setpoint if the Danby is running properly. Remember to reset the setpoint back to normal. Switch the fan to slow if it seems noisy but they claim it is a very quiet unit.

Dave M.

[David Martel]

Ransley,

The "Silhouette" seems to be designed for unheated basements and works to

44F. Best I can tell from the web-site the fan remains on and the dehumidifier is cycled by a humidistat. There is an EnergyGuide rating which suggests that the unit is economical to run. Your guess of $150 seems really expensive for a small fan motor.

Dave M.

[kdk]

Had the same thing happen with a new Whirlpool model. Energy Star Rated and for low temps. Last summer (purchased July 04) it worked fine, but this August and Sept we noted a big spike in our electric usage, then noted the dehumidifier wouldn't shut off. I adjusted for the lowest humidity level possible and it kept running. Of course it is now off warranty. Contacted Whirlpool who was of little help, just told me it either needed "cleaning" which I had already done, or it needed "servicing".

The new unit replaced a 15 year old unit that never ran up the energy bill like this one, I had to replace it because the Freon started to leak out and it kept icing over.