Dave Martindale wrote:
N8N writes:


is there *anything* that doesn't suck? Anything at all? All I see
are comments like "I had this for two weeks and it died" "loud, rattly
POS" "doesn't really have a deice feature, just shuts off until the
ice melts" yadda yadda yadda.


Do you really need a heated deice mode?

We have a Chinese-made Whirlpool brand bought from Home Depot a few
years ago. It runs the fan only when it needs to, which is mostly when
the compressor is running (but see below).

It has electronic controls that do not restart the unit after a power
failure. That's actually an advantage in some circumstances, because it
means a momentary power failure while the unit is running will not try
to restart the compressor under running head pressure. What you
*really* want is electronic controls that, when power comes back on,
remembers that the unit was last turned on, waits a few minutes, and
then restarts automatically. But I haven't seen such a unit.

This dehumidifier will operate in low temperatures. The controller is
aware that the evaporator will freeze up, and periodically shuts down
the compressor while running the fan in "high" to defrost it. That
seems to work well enough, and doesn't require a solenoid valve or extra
plumbing like hot gas defrost. It doesn't just wait for the ice to
melt.

Dave

Hmm... maybe I should check 'em out. I've seen some reviews of poor
reliability of Whirlpools too, but not much more than the others. What
I want is something that I can "set and forget" in my garage, which I
may only go into once a week or so. It does get below freezing here
occasionally, but not for long periods of time, and my garage gets damp
enough that I feel I want a dehumidifier, but no condensation, weeping,
anything like that - just a vague feeling of dampness and a slight musty
odor.

I was actually out in there this afternoon and it felt less musty than I
remembered, maybe my grading is slowly but surely working. I wouldn't
mind a quieter unit in the basement though, so I guess I'm looking for
something suitable that I can try out in the garage and if I like it
I'll probably buy another one for the basement (similar conditiona; no
apparent water problems other than one leaky window that only shows up
in very heavy rain, but it isn't quite as dry as I'd like without the
dehumidifier running.)

I guess that's why I don't like the idea of a fan running 24/7 - I don't
need serious dehumidification or constant airflow, I just want something
to take the edge off.

nate

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