Dehumidifiers

I bought a Delongi dehumidifier after an auction that no one wanted for £3.45 to take it away! After checking the electrics out as a safety precaution, I plugged it in to find I needed to sort out the float switch. Then found it was the icing thermostat inhibit circuit not working. To check the unit I bridged out the icing inhibit - hey presto I had a working dehumidifier! Now to repair the icing inhibit stat.

The only potential problem is that it's got R22 refrigerant so when the units compressor finally gives up it will have to be disposed of correctly but they do this at the household waste recycling facility run by the council.

John

Edited By Johnboy25 on 22/11/2015 09:10:11

It's while now since I repaired the dehumidifier now looking at the last post. I've been using it intermittently during this wet period that we've been having. To my amazement, the unit has been extremely successful considering the state of my garage/workshop roof! For example, I wandered out into the workshop to find my cherished lathe and milling machine covered with condensatation droplets. Switching on the dehumidifier - after a couple of hours it dried the condensation up! I know I'm using more electricity when the unit is working, 0.4kWhr but the overal effect is extremely effective. (I'll just have to shorten to period my central heating is on to compensate for my carbon footprint!) 😳

Conclusion - if you are offered or can find one at a good price I recommend get it.

John

Screwfix have a couple on offer at the moment, but I've no idea how good they are.

Just had a spot of bother with my workshop/shed, which it seems has been leaking with all the heavy rain we've just had. I put a new roof on over the weekend and am running a dehumidifier I got cheap from a neighbour when he was having a house moving sale.

It pulled out quite a bit the first night, then very little. I then went down yesterday and ran a fan heater for a couple of hours. This seemed to work and the gizmo pulled a load more water out last night. It's fairly well insulated and reasonably draft proof, barring the single glazing, so with the dehumidifier generating a bit of it's own heat and the residual heat from the fan heater, it seems to work well enough.

I'm not sure I'd want to leave it running full bore all the time though for cost reasons - it seems to be rated @ 250W

Have a look at the Meaco website - plenty of info on humidifier types and appropriate applications.

I have a Meaco DD8L Junior running in a (poorly insulated) double garage with two (occasionally wet) cars, no significant problem with rust.

These are dessicant dehumidifiers (no volatile refrigerant or compressor). They are light, run fairly quietly (depends on fan speed), with a 4 stage humidistat, and work down to low temperatures. One side effect is that they emit warm, dry air. On the down side they have a small drainage tank considering the efficiency with which they extract water (about 20 litres/week on the medium setting in my garage), although they can be set up for continuous drainage (I use a 25l external tank).

Meaco have an online ordering system (other vendors are available) and a good delivery service (just a satisfied customer).

Hope this helps.

I also recently bought one of these (from here - which gets you a three year warranty rather than the two you get in most places) and am very happy with it. Tend to keep it on the low fan setting to keep the noise down but it still extracts water at a fair rate and the heat is a welcome side effect. It does shut itself off once the humidity is reduced to the level you've chosen so hoping the next electricity bill won't be too much of a shock...

I understand where everyone is coming from regarding running costs but I think it was last year when we had a sudden temperature change - when I went out do a bit of swarf making I was distraught to say the least as all my cherished machinery look like it has spend the last couple of days in a Turkish bath - rust included! 😱

I use it sparingly - so far so good.

P.S. I don't have any connection with anyone selling these things! If I hadn't got mine 'on the cheap' I'd still be pulling my hair with all the damage with the condensation in my workshop. I'm hoping this year I can improve the workshop with a new roof and good insulation - prior to moving to the Somerset (above the flood level) as part of the retirement plan! 🤔

Not arguing with you but just to calibrate the discussion (for my own understanding), 1kWh seems to cost about 12p, so if this device ran flat out it would cost about 3p/hour or 75p/day or £22/month. They probably have humidistats and the humidity probably varies during the day anyway so that's a worst case figure.

Incidentally, if you look at the cost of running a conventional clothes drier, the heat of evaporation results in a cost of about 10p / litre of water. These humidifiers are heat-pump based, so the cost of recovering a kg of water with a dehumidifier is a fair bit less, like about 1/3 the cost of boiling it off the other way.

I have one of those new-fangled "A***" heat pump clothes driers and plan to measure it using a plug-in energy meter. Should be similarly frugal. There is no external vent pipe, only a condensate drain pipe and the amount of heat given off is very small. Makes some funny noises, mind!

My workshop is 5mt*5mt there is a studio above.The walls are 4" brickwork and has 3 double glazed windows.I run a dehumidifier on economy 7 over night from 11 until 8 in the morning on a time switch.I never have heat in the workshop and just wear extra clothes when the temperature drops to 40f. i have no rust and I would recommend anyone to use a dehumidifier.I think that heating a workshop intermitantly can cause condensation to form.I have worked outside for 50 years so the cold doesn't bother me.

Frank

Some good points Muzzer. Comparing the power consumed with other domestic appliance certainly put these dehumidifiers in perspective. I'm one of these people who literally boils enough water at a time for coffee or tea so I can rest easy knowing I'm trying to my bit!

I've have a delonghi DEM10 for about 6 years, good value for around £125, It does, as most do, cut out when too cold but I stand it in a corner sheltered by a big wooden bench and my tool boxes. As a by product of dehumidifying it throws out about 200-250w of heat, so keeps its own area warmish in the "wooden bench corner"

I also have thick towels/blankets over all my machines. I did try a heater under the lathe cabinet but it didn't work for me - it probably created more convection currents around the machine and stirred things up.

The Meaco website was avoiding the subject of power consumption while making a 'feature' of it giving out warm air, Finally found it on the Maplin site - no wonder the air is warm!

Edited By Bazyle on 12/01/2016 22:38:50