This article assumes at least some prior knowledge of your own toilet and the products involved, but has been prepared in a general fashion by using relevant information learned from many sources only to clarify any misconceptions or incorrect assumptions. There is no obligation to provide a complete list of the most common and best-performing dehumidifiers.
For all such matters please refer to a competent, knowledgeable person. Finally, I am not providing medical advice. No one should be putting themselves or anyone else in danger using this article. If anything of interest appears which seems to be disputed or misleading then it probably should be clarified by someone with more experience than I ever hope to have.
The good news is that you can find an affordable and reliable dehumidifier at just about anywhere. The bad news is that there are hundreds if not thousands of different models available, so getting your hands on a particular model can cost more than $200 but will be worth it in the end.
Most dehumiders available today are made either as portable units or by companies like LG and Whirlpool, and can generally be found for less than $100 dollars in stores and online. And while a new model or model upgrade can run upwards of up to $700 dollars more than a standard dehumidifier, a great price tag on these things is what helps justify their high prices.
A few years ago when I was looking for a decent dehumidifier I usually looked past the $500 dollars mark and went into areas where I could buy something reasonably priced, like around $250.
But having recently spent much more time around water in my community and in particular in rural areas, I quickly became desensitized to inexpensive dehumidifiers and had rather high hopes after seeing numerous reviews that seemed to imply they would work for me and that they were really cheap to use too.
I have since changed those expectations and have started to pay attention when it comes to how effective these dehumidifiers are in terms of keeping my indoor air clean and hygienic, and this will hopefully help make them more accessible and affordable to a wide range of people who want a simple way of ensuring their home isn’t contaminated with harmful carbon dioxide or other contaminants.
1. Portable dehumids
I’m going to look at dehumidifiers as though they were just that, a water pump that pumps out excess water and allows its return to normal flow. That’s a very simplified and simplistic model. However, this is also a model that is prone to being installed in the wrong location because of poor installation materials or for reasons unknown and it simply doesn’t function properly. So my first point of concern with portable or small dehumidifiers (even though they’re extremely useful) is that they’re too darn small (or they’re too expensive) so they cannot fit down most doors and have to be kept away from windows. They aren’t very rugged but as long as you keep a door or two shut, the floor space for this thing shouldn’t be very large for a small space, and the main area that it needs to occupy is a wall or ceiling above.
2. Low maintenance
A lower maintenance version of a dehumidifier called a “Water Softener” can last quite a bit longer but tends to get worse over time and requires frequent servicing, unless that part of it has been damaged. The fact that it’s not able to prevent any potentially dangerous bacteria growing under the soil in the bathroom, and it is unable to deal with the smell and taste of odors doesn’t help. These dehumidifiers tend to become pretty big over time.
3. Poor installation
One main reason why these dehumidifiers don’t work as well as anticipated is that they simply do not fit into a bathroom. According to various publications it’s recommended that the dehumidifier and toilet seal air tight, but this is not strictly true. Some manufacturers of low-maintenance dehumidifiers actually recommend against the seal fitting. Seal fitting allows moisture and moisture to seep through a sealed seal and cause mold growth under the floors and carpet. In addition to this, many newer portable dehumidifiers are designed for smaller spaces, making room for any additional equipment to fit inside the unit itself. Seal fitting should still be used for this type of dehumidifier but one must think before they start the process and not trust word-of-mouth reviews from people who don’t have the necessary knowledge of the product and/or aren’t particularly happy with the final results.
4. Not safe
Just because these dehumidifiers have worked for years for another homeowner doesn’t mean that they’re safe. There’s not enough data available to say that they’re safe, and even if you read several reviews of them they aren’t necessarily safe. Many people have died or suffered injury as a result of defective electric devices like blower motors, and other similar problems and although these are rare they do happen.
Some manufacturers give buyers instructions on how to fix the problem, but this does not mean they were 100% correct. An easy fix by yourself may end up costing you money, but it doesn’t stop anyone like myself who takes these types of things back.
Other than the basic issues mentioned below, these are often also the only choices someone is left with in a situation where someone else already had a working dehumidifier in hand. These units might be affordable, affordable to work with, and most importantly, effective.
While the advantages of these units far outweigh the disadvantages, they still leave a lot of questions unanswered like whether they are safe, how durable they will be, and how expensive they can be compared to competing products.
You’re paying less for the same amount of protection but without knowing it. Is there a safe place that I can go to for example a friend’s house with no other way of charging my phone, but it doesn’t seem safe that they’d take someone of a family with a toddler around it. And where is our little guy safe? Is he safe from his father’s hands and/or from the environment at that specific time?
5. Bad idea
This is very much a personal opinion, but I have seen some questionable dehumidifier reviews on the internet. One review I came across was from a customer in Palm Bay Florida who said she didn’t know about the seals that were placed underneath the door seal as to seal off the door and the possibility of rain damage. Another reviewer wrote:
“I used two different dehumidifiers at the same time (I did not know which was better) and I could hardly believe the difference between both of them. With the previous version it took 2 hours of cleaning time, almost 10 days, for the seal to be perfect. Now with the current design it takes 7 days”
This is what made me so frustrated with all the different dehumidifiers claiming to be “better” or to perform very poorly on different people. I don’t know if these people can really tell the difference in performance between one and the next, but most of the time this kind of stuff is pretty subjective. Like anything in life, people can have two totally different opinions on how the same issue works with their eyes closed.
Conclusion
While there’s no denying that some of the biggest names in dehumidification, like LG, Whirlpool, Nestle, Kohler, Honeywell, Emerson, among others are fairly reputable and top quality, there’s lots of good dehumidifiers out there. Whether that’s for people with a budget or one with a lot more features and more options, there’s no shortage of options for everyone to choose from.
Finding the right one can sometimes be tricky, but hopefully when you decide to take a closer look at someone’s experience and the value of their testimonials and assessments, you’ll see where the real difference lies. Good luck!
