Finally decided to buy one. As one of our bedrooms constantly gets damp during colder season. Property is rented. Landlord did some work before we moved in (paint walls, install extra ventilation etc), but its not that good enough.

Keeping windows always open not an option, as newborn sleeps with mom etc.

Room is 6 square meters.

I have no idea what to look out for. What brand, how power measured, capacity tank etc?
Please help.

Similar thing here – single glazing, converted Victorian flat, lack of ventilation.

Borrowed a Delonghi Dem10 for a bit – worked well but noisy as. Ended up buying an ecoair desiccant thing on Amazon, quiet enough to have near/in a bedroom, works well. Eats more electricity though.

I bought the Ecoair model linked above, very pleased so far. Narrowed it down to that model or the more expensive Ruby Dry. Ecoair won out in terms of cost and two year warranty. It’s properly made a difference.

have a look at a concur on sovereign chemicals site. they fit in the loft and work opposite way to a dehumidifier by pushing air in and moisture out. find these work far better

Ebac gets you a 5 year warranty but is of the refrigerant type (‘it sounds like a fridge’, er, well yes, a fridge from the 1970s, its way louder than any modern fridge!). Quoted l/min figures are meaningless, refrigerant types are quoted for tropical conditions, dessicant something more sensible (but different, not cross comparable). Just as well really, imagine what a pain it would be emptying your 3.5l tank with a dehumidifier pulling 18l/day out. Dessicant type uses twice the power but operates twice as quickly therefore there isn’t any real difference between the 2 types. Electricity use can be 😯 until the moisture is brought under control, after that it drops away into the noise of normal consumption. If it’s going somewhere cold eg garage (general comment not applicable to your question OP) then a desiccant type is what you need. Our house definitely comes up to temperature more quickly than it used to, and may ‘feel’ warmer but that is more difficult to be sure about.

I think that exhausts my thoughts on the matter!

We got an ebac one, the cheapest one they do. Has been excellent and when not drying out the house when it gets to feeling damp it’s good for drying clothes, cheaper than a tumble dryer. Dry air feels warmer, and reducing damp aids health.

Have been told that they can over-dry plaster though – I suspect I’ve created a few new cracks since being a dehumidifier convert.

manmurray – Member

Similar thing here – single glazing, converted Victorian flat, lack of ventilation.

Borrowed a Delonghi Dem10 for a bit – worked well but noisy as. Ended up buying an ecoair desiccant thing on Amazon, quiet enough to have near/in a bedroom, works well. Eats more electricity though.

I’m surprised about the power usage, I thought the desiccant ones were supposed to be much better than the A/C type ones.

I’m surprised about the power usage, I thought the desiccant ones were supposed to be much better than the A/C type ones.

From my research, they use more power (~360W to 620W as opposed to ~220W) but get the job done quicker. So may be cheaper in the long run.

I’ve got one of the dessicant ones in the shed as it works at low temperatures.

It does have an intermittent setting but even on that I wouldn’t want to sleep with it on.

tbh, if it were me I’d sleep with the thing off and then run it during the day to get the moisture out.

I’ve had both and would recommend a desiccant one over refrigerated – I had problems with icing up on the fridge type one even in the house.

I bought the Ecoair model linked above, very pleased so far. Narrowed it down to that model or the more expensive Ruby Dry. Ecoair won out in terms of cost and two year warranty. It’s properly made a differenc

+1
– we bought one and helped a lot!

I’ve had both and would recommend a desiccant one over refrigerated – I had problems with icing up on the fridge type one even in the house.

Don’t they have a thaw cycle to stop this? The one I have, runs a self heat mode every so often when its cold…..

Power consumption of Ecoair is 390w on low and 620w on high, not incosiderable but so worth it. You may well save money on CH costs as the house feels warmer as it’s drier plus the dessicant’s use a heater, so it’s not completely “wasted” energy.

Does anyone use one solely for drying clothes? How much quicker do clothes dry in a room with one in, as opposed to just the radiator?

Does anyone use one solely for drying clothes? How much quicker do clothes dry in a room with one in, as opposed to just the radiator?

Yep, I bought two, one lives in the unheated workshop to keep it dry and the other sits in our back bedroom which doubles as a drying room eg yesterday we did about 6 back to back loads having come back from two weeks away inc one week skiing.

It runs at 200W and must have sucked out about 8 litres in 24 hours. We use a fan as well to maximise circulation and then let the dehumidifier suck out all the moisture. Advantage over a drier is it’s much smaller and can be put away in a cupboard when not in use.

Our model is on sale now as well: http://www.screwfix.com/p/wdh-122h-12r-12ltr-dehumidifier/72503?cm_sp=Homepage-_-Slide-_-Dehumidifier

We have a drier in the garage for emergency usage, but I don’t like using it due to the cost.

How long did it take to dry 6 loads of clothes? Just one day, as in 24 hours? Oh I see that, 8l of water in 24 hours.

So that’s 4.8kWh, as opposed to… looks like about 2kWh per 3.0kg load for my tumble drier. So assuming your 6 loads was of a typical 4kg machine then that’s 24kg of clothes, or about 16kWh. So 1/3 as much power, very roughly.

Hmm.

How long did it take to dry 6 loads of clothes? Just one day, as in 24 hours?

Probably less, last load of heavy stuff eg towels was left running overnight and bone dry this am. Most of the normal clothes, T shirts etc can be dry in a couple of hours with a fan + dehumidifier.

Is your washing machine 4kg then or a fancy 7kg job?

6kg AEG and was pretty much stuffed to the brim each time.

That improves the comparison then.

Does anyone use one solely for drying clothes? How much quicker do clothes dry in a room with one in, as opposed to just the radiator?

I bought an Ebac 18L one (on the recommendation of Which? magazine) just over a year ago. It has been fine, it’s audible (especially on max) but not loud and we keep it in the 2nd bedroom anyway. Probably empty it every 2-3 days.

For some reason every newspaper one day decided to carry a story about how drying clothes inside was really bad for you/you home due to the amount of extra moisture in the atmosphere. I’d never thought about it before but it’s obvious really! I live in a flat and we dry all our clothes indoors so I bought a dehumidifier the next day. The difference was massive! The air was dryer and less “heavy” feeling, the flat was much warmer and we’ve had the heating on a lot less and clothes dry a lot quicker.

I would definitely recommend some kind of dehumidifier for anyone who dries clothes indoors.

Since we got a decent humidifier I’ve been surprised how much lower the temperature can be in our house whilst still feeling comfortable. It does make sense as the lower the humidity of the air, the lower the rate of heat transfer to or from a human.

We run it in the back bedroom where the clothes horses live overnight and then in our bedroom during the day. And sometimes take it downstairs. It’s particularly effective in the hall at the bottom of the stairs because so much air moves past it (it heats the air so the dried air heads upstairs and more damp air is sucked through) but our hall is quite small so it gets in the way there. Note that we have a baby and use cloth nappies and we almost never tumble dry them – though we dry them outdoors when the weather is being less silly.

When considering energy costs bear in mind that all the energy a dehumidifier uses comes out as waste heat so any time you’d have your central heating on you need it on less. Drier air has less heat capacity so it takes less energy to heat a dehumidified house.

You get used to the noise, it’s quite reassuring when your house suffers from damp!

Thank you all for advice. Decided to go for Meaco DD8L, it looks energy efficient and ticks boxes. Trawled mumsnet too and it seems Ebac, Meaco are ones to go for.

Time to check enetz for better prices withwarranties.

“I would definitely recommend some kind of dehumidifier for anyone who dries clothes indoors”

unless they have a stove or open fire.

we had a house that we required 2 dehumidifiers on 24/7 – i had no end of respiritory issues in that house – was happy to GTF away from that and hand the keys back. – stupid land lord had blocked all the vents up so that the road noise from outside didnt get inside…..

I think I might experiment with a ceiling fan first. And I’ve also got an idea for a sort of passive dehumidifier 🙂

Did a bit of shopping and found best deal from them all, in case other people consider similar purchase.
Meaco DD8L £158 with 3year warranty

Home Dehumidifiers

Borrowed a Delonghi Dem10 for a bit – worked well but noisy as. Ended up buying an ecoair desiccant thing on Amazon, quiet enough to have near/in a bedroom, works well. Eats more electricity though.

We have the Ecoair simple for drying the washing. It’s far more effective than the Delonghi it replaced, easily drying washing overnight.

We’ve had this one dehumidifiersuk.com/p/8190927/dio-ela-dd822-8-litre-desiccant-dehumidifier for a year or so and it’s awesome. turns a cold damp room into a warm dry (too dry) one quickly. we use it for drying clothes predominantly.

what set it apart from others is that it’s not white!