Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This review compares these big dehumidifiers: - Frigidaire 70 pint (FAD704DUD) - SoleusAir 70 pint (DP1-70-03) - LG 65 pint (LG651EBL) NOTES/WARNINGS: ------------------- - If you have a medical/allergy, anti-mold, archival, or otherwise serious reason to maintain a humidity range you need to get something SEPARATE TO MEASURE HUMIDITY. The Frigidaire thought the humidity was 5-9 RH higher than it was as measured by 2 humidity instruments including a data logger, the SoleusAir was off by more than that, the LG doesn't show what it thinks the humidity is. For example, here are some settings and resulting relative humidity ranges for the Frigidaire in my tests: Setting Humidity_Range_Result 50 41.0-45.0 55 46.0-49.5 60 51.5-54.5 - Be sure to have a 3-PRONG OUTLET for each dehumidifier you get, NO 2-prong with adapter shortcuts, you want this kind of appliance grounded, like a refrigerator or air conditioner. - Running big dehumidifiers non-stop often costs hundreds of dollars per year each and it may only bring the humidity lower than needed for comfort, medical, or archival purpose. Consider aiming for just below your target, for example 53 RH to keep below 55 RH rather than continuous running to get as low as possible. Of course, if it takes continuously running to get to the target, ignore this suggestion :). Sometimes you can get BIG savings by not doing more dehumidifying than you need. For example, we set our Frigidaire in the basement to 60, which gives us 51.5-54.5 RH on a range, anything lower is a waste of electricity for us. Using the average cost of electricity in the U.S. of 12 cents per Kilowatt Hour you can see the savings below: Setting Humidity_Range_Result Watt_Hrs Cost/Yr_at_12cents_per_kWhr 50 41.0-45.0 11738 $428 55 46.0-49.5 10403 $380 60 51.5-54.5 970 $35 <-- Not a misprint - I highly suggest getting no-fault extended warranty for 2+ years if you can get it for any dehumidifier, even though I rarely bother with them for other products. - If you need to reliably pump a few feet up to get into a sink (for drainage), for example, ignore all of this and look at something like the Friedrich 70 pint with the built-in pump. - See near bottom of review for section on one inexpensive easy way to get the water right into the drain (for example, if you have pets tempted by dribbling water - its not drinking water). - The LG has pretty terrible reviews on Amazon regarding durability. Also, note that LG made the Sears Kenmore Dehumidifiers sold up to 2009 that are being recalled last year due to fire risk. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW NOISY (dBA) I FOUND THEM TO REALLY BE AT MAX FAN SPEED: -------------------------- dBA at distances (1'/5'/10'/15'): Frigidaire: 62.0 / 56.0 / 53.0 / 51.5 SolieusAir: 66.0 / 60.5 / 57.5 / 55.5 LG: 58.5 / 55.5 / 53.0 / 50.0 If your primary concern is noise then you might want to avoid the SoleusAir. Since Frigidaire is so much better reviewed than the LG, I'd lean towards the Frigidaire over LG for this since the loudness difference is fairly small unless you are going to be fairly close to it. I should note that the nature of the noise of the Frigidaire is more like white noise from a strong fan as you rarely hear much from the unit's compressor over the fan. HOW MUCH WATER I FOUND THEY ACTUALLY HOLD: --------------------------- Frigidaire: 17.7 lbs SoleusAir: 13.4 lbs LG: 15.8 lbs If you can't use a drain and you want it to do as much work as it can during the night or while you are at work, then Frigidaire wins here. If water hauling weight is a primary concern then SoleusAir has an edge here. HOW MUCH WATER I FOUND THEY CAN REALLY PULL OUT OF THE AIR IN AN HOUR AT MAX FAN SPEED: --------------------------- Frigidaire: 0.82 lbs water per hour SoleusAir: 0.69 " LG: 0.53 " If sheer power is your main concern, for example correcting an 18 RH humidity spike ASAP after towels go through the dryer, Frigidaire wins here. These numbers are an average of the bottom two runs out of three tests I did for each unit. Note that the first Frigidaire I tested performed poorly at 0.47 lbs of water per hour. I returned it and the new one I got 3 months later did this well which much better reflects the performance satisfaction by a leading consumer magazine. HOW COST EFFICIENT I FOUND THEY ARE TO RUN: --------------------------- Frigidaire: 645 Watt Hours electricity to remove 1 lb. of water SoleusAir: 690 " LG: 800 " This is not extrapolated from data sheets, this was measured. The LG will likely overall cost more to operate, the Frigidaire and SoleusAir win here. These numbers are an average of the bottom two out of three test runs for each unit. HOW MUCH TIME TO FILL THEIR BUCKET IN WINTER IN ONE EXAMPLE BASEMENT AT TOP FAN SPEED: ------------------------- Frigidaire: 0.9 days SoleusAir: 0.8 days LG: 1.2 days Remember that the bins hold different amounts of water. The full range for the Frigidaire in my tests was 0.74-0.92 days to fill its bucket. MISC. NOTES: -------------- Frigidaire: Easily the most attractive, build quality is excellent. Well reviewed by respected independent consumer magazine. Has top and side handles. Look out for cleaning filter light going on erroneously early on in order to facilitate an exchange while it is still easy to do. It is easy to spot, after going off early you would clean the filter put it back in and it would still be on. As noted above, the first Frigidaire dehumidifier I bought was performance defective and I returned it. These numbers are from testing the replacement. LG: As noted above, has pretty bad reviews on Amazon regarding durability. Vents out the back and thus requires 1' distance from a wall, the others vent upwards. So expect in some cases to have to point the front to the wall and spin it around to remove the bin (if you use a bin) now and then (easy to do, just FYI). Has no top handle only side handles, the others have top and side handles. If it ever goes up steps you will likely wish it had the top handle. All: All of them had easy to remove and place bins with good handles and were tough to spill unless not paying attention (I've read a review saying LG was bad for spilling the bin, though I didn't find it difficult, but I thought I should mention it FYI). They all have wheels. I often don't get no-fault replacement warranties, but I would definitely get 2+ year one for these. CAN THESE REALLY HELP AFTER A FLOOD: --------------------- After a week running continuously at full fan speed the wet/damp smell from a little flood in the basement went away. GIVE ME A REAL WORLD EXAMPLE OF ON-GOING UTILITY: ---------------------- To help prevent basement mold we target 50-55 RH as a cost efficient target. We found to get this we need to set the dehumidifier to a higher target value (in our case 65 RH in Winter, 60 RH in Spring), your unit will vary, see warning above about needing a separate humidity meter). Ordinarily our basement ranges from 54-59 RH or so in Winter. Depending on what we set the dehumidifier to we can target a 3-4 RH range anywhere between 38rh to 54rh (we didn't test higher) but couldn't get it lower than 38 RH with a single dehumidifier for our middle-sized basement. If we wanted to keep it down to 38-41 RH by running it continuously I measured it costs around 6x-10x more in kWh of electricity (depending on time of year), thus costing hundreds of dollars more per year, compared to keeping it in the 50-55 RH range which meets many folks basement needs. Obviously your mileage will vary by time of year, geography, unit, air leakage, etc., this is just one real world example, hope it helps! HOW TO GET THE WATER RIGHT INTO A DRAIN: ------------------------ Get a 3/4" to 1/4" brass female HOSE FITTING ($5.50) (Home Depot 098268532173) and have someone at a hardware store attach it to a 10' 1/4" flexible VINYL TUBE ($2.75) for you (Home Depot 048643025486) using a 1/4" Delrin SLEEVE INSERT (Home Depot 048643070356) cut to preferred length, and put the tube right into the drain. I edged the tube along the wall behind a pipe to keep it taught, straight, and sloping. Now the cats can't drink the non-potable water as it comes out and the tube is almost invisible.