Dehumidifier Recommendations

[natureman]

Need recommendations on a dehumidifier. First some background. I have a 1,500 sf poured wall basement that stays between 63 and 73 degrees year round. It is not heated or cooled but is insulated. It has no visible water leaks. During the past 10 years I have gone thru 8 dehumidifiers that I run in the warmer months to keep it at 45% humidity. All of the dehumidifiers failed within one year by icing over the coils and no longer working properly. I had 4 of them replaced under the one year warranty. These were all $200-250 range units which were on a couple of hours a day. I have tried GE, Frigidaire, and Toshiba. They and their competitors all have reviews about not lasting more than a year. In looking at commercial units in the $400-800 range, hoping to get a more reliable unit, they have similar problems. Does anyone have a recommendation?

 

[brunofishing]

Try dri-eaz they might have some smaller LGR's or Therma-Stor

 

[westcobbdog]

Need recommendations on a dehumidifier. First some background. I have a 1,500 sf poured wall basement that stays between 63 and 73 degrees year round. It is not heated or cooled but is insulated. It has no visible water leaks. During the past 10 years I have gone thru 8 dehumidifiers that I run in the warmer months to keep it at 45% humidity. All of the dehumidifiers failed within one year by icing over the coils and no longer working properly. I had 4 of them replaced under the one year warranty. These were all $200-250 range units which were on a couple of hours a day. I have tried GE, Frigidaire, and Toshiba. They and their competitors all have reviews about not lasting more than a year. In looking at commercial units in the $400-800 range, hoping to get a more reliable unit, they have similar problems. Does anyone have a recommendation?

Perhaps a dehumidifier installed on your hvac system?

 

[westcobbdog]

Also I run one nearly 24-7 in my basement, gotta keep the filter clean regularly or they quit working. 3 yrs no problems besides a dirty filter.

 

[dixiecutter]

Get a real one like a dr90 and have it properly installed on a real dehumidistat. Keep the filters changed. There's just no reason to keep installing retail ones.

 

[BeerThirty]

Our basement is finished and very similar to yours in size and temperature variation. My basement tends to like 50-55% humidity without intervention. We also have our laundry room in the basement and with our large family, we are running it constantly. In fact, we hang up a lot of clothes to air dry, which doesn't help.

We bought two of those GE dehumidifiers: one for downstairs and one for upstairs. We put the downstairs one in the laundry room. The one downstairs started getting funky after about a year. The humidity sensor worked but for some reason would not trip the unit to turn on, so I had to manually do it all the time. GE only warranties for 1-yr, so I had to throw it out. I have the exact same one upstairs, and I just moved it downstairs. It has worked flawlessly for about 3.5 years now. I think I might actually buy another GE one and just get the $30 protection plan on it. I've read a lot of reviews and I have not seen one that is highly recommended anywhere...

 

[Mauser]

I’ve got a Santa Fe in our crawl space,been going for 6 years

 

[georgiadawgs44]

Santa Fe for the win.

 

[gobbleinwoods]

The ones from a big box store aren't meant to run continuously so either buy one that automatically shuts down for an hour or two every day or put one on a timer.

I have one that is on a timer and is still working after 10 years and a new one in another part of the basement that shuts itself off for an hour everyday and no problem going on 5 years.