Dehumidifiers

[Mrvile]

Yeah since I can't do anything about AC units I figured I would look into a dehumidifier to at least keep the humidity down in my room. Would a small unit like this one work ok for a single room? Or should I invest in a bigger unit like this one?

Thanks.

 

[jfall]

depends on the size of the room

 

[Mrvile]

Hmm...my room is about 15'x20'x15' (LWH).

 

[andylawcc]

why not buy the small one first.

if it is insufficient (like, you still feel humid or the tank get filled up too fast), then buy another small one, or return the small one and get the big one.

 

[dartworth]

quite a bit of heat comes off those units...well at least the one I have does

 

[Mrvile]

Originally posted by: dartworth
quite a bit of heat comes off those units...well at least the one I have does

Is yours a bigger one or a smaller one?

 

[Mrvile]

Anyone else?

 

[Kelemvor]

For just one room the big one would be way overkill. But why just do one room when you can do the whole place? THe different ratings are how much water they can pull out of the air per day (I think it's per day). SO you also have to empty the bucket more often with the larger ones. I'd look into hooking it to a hose and letting the hose drain to a floor drain or something. Then you don't have to worry about it every shutting off because the bucket is full. That's what we do in our basement.

 

[MDE]

We use something similar for the entire basement, that's overkill for one room. From what I've see though, dehumidifiers can be loud, so I wouldn't put one in a bedroom unless you like the incessant buzz of a compressor keeping you awake.

 

[Mrvile]

Kelemvor, MDE, the three of us have like almost the same postcount. And we joined in three consecutive years. Pretty cool.

But really though, do you guys think even that small unit would either be too loud or give off too much heat in order to be worth buying? I may just end up buying one then returning it if I don't like...

I had a small portable humidifier as a kid (when we lived in Arizona) and IIRC it was dead silent.

 

[drnickriviera]

You do realize they put out a good bit of heat?

 

[tw1164]

What's the rooms current humidity level?

 

[sdifox]

First one is too small for a room. I am not even sure where you can use that one, maybe bathroom?
Just buy the standard size one, turn it on when you are out.

 

[RU482]

I've got a clone of the goldstar unit. When the compressor is running, that thing pulls ~500W. Hell, when the fan alone is running, it consumes 60W. Purchased this last year and it had an energy star label!

The smaller unit said it consumes 65W. Buy two of the smaller one and come out ahead.

 

[jackbristow]

I would urge you to buy multiple fans if you're only using a dehumidifier to keep cool. Those things blow a lot of heat around. It will be dry but warmer than before. I had one in a my room in college and ended up tossing it.

 

[MrBond]

I have a Kenmore 50 pint model from Sears. It's $200 now, but I paid less than that because it was on sale. I just checked and the reviews on Sears.com are terrible for it, which surprised me because it worked pretty well when I was using it. I was living in the basement of a house with no air conditioning for my last two semesters of undergrad and when I moved in it was so humid that the walls were wet.

I bought that dehumidifier and it really helped. I kept it in the door of my room so the hot "exhaust" went out into the rest of the basement.

It'd fill up the water container every day. It ran constantly it was so humid down there. Since I'd go home some weekends and it'd fill up and shut off, I finally went out and bought a length of hose and hooked it up to the floor drain. I made a little stand to elevate it so the water would drain. That worked great.

It was not a big room, maybe 15 x 15. The humidity was just really bad.