who makes a good dehumidifier?

[N8N]

Subject says all... need a dehumidifier, preferably quiet and with low temp operability. After searching on Amazon, I can't find a single brand that I feel confident purchasing. Probably the one with the least negative reviews was Frigidaire and I'll be returning one of those this afternoon because it doesn't work properly and Frigidaire apparently doesn't have real customer service personnel, only an annoying automated answering system.

is there *anything* that doesn't suck? Anything at all? All I see are comments like "I had this for two weeks and it died" "loud, rattly POS" "doesn't really have a deice feature, just shuts off until the ice melts" yadda yadda yadda.

nate

[Tom G]

Whirlpool used to (up to 6yrs ago or so) to make an excellent dehumdifier and Sears brand was made by Whirlpool until about 3 or 4 years ago. I was working at Sears when they switched to a Chinese made unit instead of the Whirlpool. Price stayed the same but quality went down the tubes. Not too many of the Chinese units didn't get returned with a month or so. You might check to see if Whirlpool still makes their own units stateside...may be still a good unit.

Tom G.

[ransley]

About 5 yrs ago I bought a sears, it was fine, following year I bought a second sears it was junk and I returned it. They are all made in china, so how can anyone know if any are good.

[Ron]

How about Soleus?

It seems to have good reviews.

[Ermalina]

I can't give you advice based on experience with the specific dehumidifiers mentioned below BUT . . . A few months ago I did some research on basement dehumidifiers in anticipation of replace my ageing one when it dies. . . it's still running.

I think the feature you are looking for as far as not "just shuts off until the ice melts" (which is what my current one does until the basement warms up) is called "hot gas defrost". It's a feature common on high-end (mucho $$$) dehumidifiers but, from what I could tell, not that common in sub-$500 ones.

I found only 2 brands that offerred economy-level dehumidifiers that appeared to be "relatively" reliable and had hot gas defrost:

1. Comfort Aire -- models BHD-501D (50 pint), BHD-651D (65 pint)
2. Whirlpool -- models AD50USS (50 pint), AD75USS (75 pint)

I don't know how noisy those are -- I was looking for something for an unfinished basement so I didn't care much.

HTH.

[Nate Nagel]

I've never heard of that brand before... which I guess is why I'm posting. I've heard of, say, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, DeLonghi, etc. and they all seem to get consistently slagged.

I'll check 'em out.

nate

[Nate Nagel]

Hmmm... I see lots of people saying they like it, but it sounds like it has two of the "features" I didn't like about the Frigidaire... fan runs constantly and it also won't restart if the power goes out. why?

nate

[franz fripplfrappl]

Research Products, Madison, WI, makes a unit called the Aprilaire 1700 Whole-Home Dehumidifier Santa Fe. It is expensive but it removes 95 pints per day. A friend just bought one and we are both amazed at how well it works. She paid $1100 for hers but I've seen them for less.

[Nate Nagel]

The thing is, I don't really need a huge one. That's the problem I have with most of the ones I've seen... if it's going to be running only a few minutes per day, I don't want the fan running all the time wasting all that electricity. But thanks for the recommend, that's another brand I hadn't heard of, so I'll check it out, see if they make something smaller.

nate

[franz fripplfrappl]

I have a smaller unit that runs constantly and costs $20 a month to operate. Ouch! Mine supposedly is sized to the basement, too.

If I were choosing a unit again, I'd consider what it will cost to operate and go with most energy efficient model there is. Even with a higher initial cost, over the long run you would save money and recoup the cost quickly.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Check Consumer Reports. They tested a bunch a few years back, and they may have updated it since. They included noise level measurements, which you may consider important.

[Dave]

[Dave Martindale]

Do you really need a heated deice mode?

We have a Chinese-made Whirlpool brand bought from Home Depot a few years ago. It runs the fan only when it needs to, which is mostly when the compressor is running (but see below).

It has electronic controls that do not restart the unit after a power failure. That's actually an advantage in some circumstances, because it means a momentary power failure while the unit is running will not try to restart the compressor under running head pressure. What you

*really* want is electronic controls that, when power comes back on, remembers that the unit was last turned on, waits a few minutes, and then restarts automatically. But I haven't seen such a unit.

This dehumidifier will operate in low temperatures. The controller is aware that the evaporator will freeze up, and periodically shuts down the compressor while running the fan in "high" to defrost it. That seems to work well enough, and doesn't require a solenoid valve or extra plumbing like hot gas defrost. It doesn't just wait for the ice to melt.

Dave

[Nate Nagel]

Hmm... maybe I should check 'em out. I've seen some reviews of poor reliability of Whirlpools too, but not much more than the others. What I want is something that I can "set and forget" in my garage, which I may only go into once a week or so. It does get below freezing here occasionally, but not for long periods of time, and my garage gets damp enough that I feel I want a dehumidifier, but no condensation, weeping, anything like that - just a vague feeling of dampness and a slight musty odor.

I was actually out in there this afternoon and it felt less musty than I remembered, maybe my grading is slowly but surely working. I wouldn't mind a quieter unit in the basement though, so I guess I'm looking for something suitable that I can try out in the garage and if I like it I'll probably buy another one for the basement (similar conditiona; no apparent water problems other than one leaky window that only shows up in very heavy rain, but it isn't quite as dry as I'd like without the dehumidifier running.)

I guess that's why I don't like the idea of a fan running 24/7 - I don't need serious dehumidification or constant airflow, I just want something to take the edge off.

nate

[Dave Martindale]

Correction: the brand name is Maytag, not Whirlpool. Still made in China.

Dave

[AZ Nomad]

As is 99% of everything else sold in the U.S.

[Nate Nagel]

I've been doing some more searching, it looks like what I'm looking for simply isn't available. So... are there any that correctly restart after a power outage? Brands available to me locally are only Frigidaire and LG/Zenith. I know the Frigidaire doesn't. How about LG/Zenith? I'm thinking of getting a used one off Craigslist and putting it on a cheap Intermatic timer so it only runs a couple hours a day. I figure that's about the only way to keep the power consumption low. That way I can force it to run in the middle of the night as well, when it won't bother anyone.

nate

[Nate Nagel]

Ha- I finally got a one line response from Frigidaire customer service... two days after I gave up waiting and returned their shitty dehumidifier. Just referred me to local appliance repair guy without mentioning anything about my question about the fan running all the time.

Not that I really expect better customer service from anyone, really... it's all disposable chinese crap and call centers in pakistan or something these days. Kinda sad but maybe the dollar going through the floor will actually give companies the ability to move customer service back stateside...

nate