r/Dehumidifiers

I bought a Midea 50-pint dehumidifier with pump from Home Depot. I followed the setup instructions and chose it over the comparable Hisense because it seemed like the better fit for my needs.

On initial startup, the fan wouldn't run. The compressor would turn on briefly, then shut off, but the fan never started. As a last resort, I manually spun the fan, and it began running under its own power. Since then, the fan has continued to start normally.

The other issue was that the compressor would only run for about a minute before shutting off very abruptly, enough to shake the entire unit. Given how humid our house is, I expected it to run almost continuously.

ETA: I want to leave this post up for anyone troubleshooting the same issue in the future. It appears the unit was stuck in some sort of initialization or protective state. What fixed it was unplugging the unit, deleting it from the app, and then holding the power button for about a minute to completely discharge any remaining power. That was evidently all it needed. It's now been running continuously for over an hour, and the intake/exhaust airflow and compressor operation appear to be normal.

The TCL I bought new for $250 lasted one year, so I am thinking to get this 2005 whirlpool, no frills model, for $125. It is still new in the box, I can even get a one week return window, but I am concerned about the coolant sitting there for 20 years.

thanks for the advice !!!

I replaced my HVAC about a year and a half ago and had all kinds of issues with the install and the unit not dehumidifying sufficiently. To help with that — and to provide dehumidification overnight when the AC doesn't run much — they installed an AprilAire dehumidifier, with the exhaust ducted in just before the blower.

The problem: when the AC and dehumidifier are both running, the humidity creeps slightly higher and never comes back down. My theory is that the warm exhaust from the dehumidifier is warming (and compromising) the coils.

The manufacturer configured it so the dehumidifier shuts off whenever the AC is running, to avoid affecting AC performance. But it's still not working right. Here's what I think is happening: when the AC hits the set temp and shuts off, the dehumidifier kicks on. But before it can actually start dehumidifying, it seems to warm the space just enough to trigger the AC back on — which then shuts the dehumidifier back off.

With this setup, humidity sits around 65%, and the condensate drain line is just a slow drip. I finally turned the dehumidifier off completely, and now I'm at 55%.

At this point, I think my only real option is to duct the exhaust into the living space directly instead of routing it through the AC unit. I know that'll create a "hot spot" wherever it's ducted, but at least the dehumidifier should actually work.

Are there any other alternatives I'm missing?

Yeah. Not good. Some background:

• House in Connecticut so the summers can be hot and very humid. Next to a lake about 200 feet away.
• Property slopes down house. Basement is a walkout to outside, so three walls are underground while one wall is exposed with windows and sliding glass door.
• The basement level is not “closed off” from the rest of the house like a traditional basement. It’s an open staircase from the kitchen and is a main part of the house. I think this makes it really challenging.
• Basement gets very humid and smells musty. This is primarily in the summer. Not year round.
• Even with all the windows and doors closed in the entire house, I’m getting humidity readings of 80-90%
• We gut renovated the basement last year and when we opened up the walls, we found mold and rot on the old framing. We dug a French drain into the floor near the back walls, which drains to outside.
• We excavated around one of the exterior walls and installed drainage to ensure any rain water was being pulled away from the foundation.
• Installed LVP flooring and a vapor barrier underneath it.
• Have a brand new laundry room down there that properly vents outside
• My “80 pint dehumidifier” has a 1 gallon reservoir. It’s working hard and can get the humidity levels down to 60% but the reservoir fills up completely within 3-4 hours.
• This morning I pulled the couch away from the walls to further investigate and found water sweating / beading under the couch where air was not circulating.

We are going to contact a HVAC company to have AC installed, and likely a real deal dehumidifying system for the basement.

I’m pretty concerned about the extremely high humidity levels and how quickly it can grow mold and ruin our newly finished basement. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!

The entire line of the Midea Cube is defective and they know about it. Just got the 50 pint delivered today and it said that I had 30% humidity in my house, even though my two hygrometers show 58 and 60% depending on the location. I googled about it and everyone all over the internet is complaining about this. Just go read Amazon reviews for the 50 pint. The reviews are almost only either 5 star or 1 star depending on whether or not you got a defective unit. Midea knows and they continue to ship out defective products. I called customer service and the girl basically told me that they know and just to send it back send it back if it doesn't fix itself in 24 hours. Send it back? It was so heavy and I couldn't get it out of the box so I ripped the side of the box open. Oh, I'll send it back regardless, but what a huge inconvenience and hassle. I will never do business with a company who knowingly sells defective products like Midea has. If you own any of the products in this line, send them back, or wait either for a recall or class action lawsuit. If you don't already own one, do not buy one. Shady product line form a shady company.

Tengo mucha humedad en mi depto en la serena y busco asesoría de algun deshumidificador doméstico que me ayude con los hongos en paredes. toda ayuda o guia es bienvenida como así también que modelo me recomiendan

I just moved and I have a wall unit ac and I live in Texas, so from 10 am until 1 am the house feels so hot at 74 degrees and like I am submerged in a liquid. I have a small 1 bedroom apartment and am a willing to pay more for something that will last a while and is heavy duty, as it will be used a lot year round. What would y’all recommend?

Any recommendations for a dehumidifier for a 600 sqft apartment? The humidity is 76% in my unit right now and everything feels sticky. I browsed through the sub a bit and saw posts saying small dehumidifiers are a scam. But I also don't want a huge one since my space is so small!

Living in a garden unit right next to the lake in Chicago. 10-foot ceilings, super nice. But big con is that humidity is 70-80% (while it’s about 10-18% in the winter). It‘s a pretty large 1-bed and am considering getting a dehumidifier. Recs on a good one? Also do I need just one dehumidifier or more?

Help me convince someone that a dehumidifier works.

The situation is an old uninsulated house in New Orleans, which is as humid as it gets. It is used as a retail store and is a rental.

The plan is to run the dehumidifier at night, along with the air conditioners set at 74.

Then turn the dehumidifier off during the day and lower the thermostat on the AC’s.

Is this plan good?

Is it cheaper and or better than running only AC’s at night?

Hi everyone,
So I live in an apartment on the 2nd floor, myself and my partner are in the smaller bedroom and since having two people in here every morning the walls are literally wet when we wake up from I’m assuming our breathing and natural body heat?
I’ve tried moisture absorbers (lots of them) and it barely puts a dent in the issue, I can’t afford an expensive dehumidifier at least right now,
There is no window I can open, airing out the room hasn’t seemed to work because the issue mostly only effects us at night, mould is beginning to form but we’ve been very on top of it so I think the bigger issue is to resolve the base issue of dehumidifying
Does anyone have any tips? I’ve done all the basic tips google has told me without any success.
Thank you!

We have a partially finished basement where about 2/3 is finished, and the rest is a large utility and storage space. Like any true Midwesterner, our basement is humid, so we have a 35 pint dehumidifier down there in the finished space. It keeps the finished space dry enough, but because of the lack of much airflow to the unfinished space, that area has about 5%-10% higher humidity levels. Our solution so far has been to crank down the dehumidifier to 40%-45% so that the "spillover" humidification to the storage area keeps it sufficiently dry, but I'm interested in adding a small, second dehumidifier to that room to keep it at a more stable humidity and not overwork the main dehumidifier.

Are there any good budget dehumidifiers that could handle a couple hundred or so square feet? I was hoping to keep the budget around $100, but everything I'm finding is either desiccant or Peltier units, which I don't believe are all that effective/efficient.

I'm looking into getting a Meaco Arete 1 6L for my room. I absolutely hated how humid, sticky and heavy my room felt during 31C and other hot days so I want to get a dehumidifier to try to prevent that. It'll cost me around 160. I do understand that it isn't air conditioning but I wouldn't be able to install one in my room anyway. I just want to make sure I'm not throwing my money into something that won't help me.

There has also been problems with mildew and mould in my room for ages it's less now but I can never fully get rid of it. But that isn't the main reason i'm getting it.

I keep waking up in the night because of the humidity feeling like I can't breathe. I'm having to sleep on my sofa. For some reason my bedroom is the worst room for it. Obviously it's impossible to find an air conditioner that doesn't cost a month salary right now but would a dehumidifier alongside a good fan help? I can manage the heat but i have barely slept since this heat wave started. Thanks.

Hola, estoy queriendo comprar un deshumidificador para mi habitación de 24 m2. ¿Qué marcas y modelos recomiendan ?