Jonathan Kamens wrote:

I just bought an "LG" dehumidifier from The Home Depot (yeah, yeah, I
know, buying from HD is always a mistake). The box claimed that it had
a threaded hose connection, but when I opened it up, I discovered that
what it has instead is a disconnected plastic pipe, about nine inches
long, with threads at one end and narrower at the other end.

Sears models are also currently made by LG. Other names may be as well.



To use a hose, you're supposed to (a) punch out the cut-out in the back
of the dehumidifier about a foot from the bottom, (b) screw the plastic
pipe into a hose, (c) insert the pipe into the cut-out hole in the back
far enough for the other end to enclose the plastic pipe that the water
drips out of, and (d) "lock" the pipe into place with a couple of
plastic tabs sticking out of it.

Of course, it doesn't work, for many reasons, including:

* The plastic tabs are just barely enough to hold the pipe in place
when a hose is attached to it and putting weight on it. You have to
get everything Exactly Right to get it to stay, and even the slightest
jostle can dislodge it. Furthermore, it's obvious that over time, the
plastic tabs will mold to the position they're wedged into and thus
stop applying pressure, at which point they'll completely stop holding
the pipe in place.

* The pipe is horizontal, which means that you need to tilt the
humidifier slightly backwards to have any chance at all of water
running into the hose, as opposed to running into the pipe and
immediately running back out into the bucket beneath the water outlet.

* The pipe attaches right where the water drips out, not at the bottom
of the bucket, which means that there's no water pressure to force the
water into the hose. As a result, it doesn't actually go into the
hose; it instead drips back out into the bucket or (worse) finds some
other avenue of escape and runs all over the floor.

To be fair, there wouldn't be any "water pressure" if the outlet was at the
bucket bottom either, for the simple reason that if the water's immediately
going out the tube, it's not collecting anywhere to create any pressure via
pascal's law and gravity.

I believe they put the outlet higher up rather than at the bucket bottom so
that the humdifier could be used with a hose while sitting on the floor.
If the outlet was at the bottom of the bucket, you would have to have the
unit up higher to make room for the hose underneath. Also if the outlet
was on the side of the bucket, some quantity of water would remain in the
bucket at all times, leading to stagnant water, bacteria, mold problems,
re-evaporating back into the air thereby reducing efficiency, etc.