How to choose a dehumidifier?
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Defined Tag: Choose Dehumidifier.
It is often a difficult decision when it comes to dehumidifiers evaluation. Here are a few tips that will help you decide which dehumidifier best fit your house. Having a right dehumidifier will not only allow you make the air less moist, it is also a great way to fix the mold problem in your house.

This buying guide lists all the important factors that need to be considered when buying a dehumidifier.


1) Humidity level:

Mold cannot grow when the humidity level is below 50%, so it is impoartant to make sure to control that number to go below 50%. However, any number goes below 40% will become ineffecient and result in a waste. It would be wise to target a range from 42%-50%. In addition to indoor humidity, outdoor humidity is also an important factor effecting which dehumidifier you need. If you are living in a place with high outdoor humidity, I would recommend you to choose a dehumidifier with higher pint.

2) 30-pint, 40-pint or 50-pint?

30-pint, 40-pint, 50-pint represent the number of pints of water a dehumidifier can remove within a 24 hour period of time. However, one thing should be kept in mind is that the number of pint are given under certain condition (80 degrees and humidity level of 60%). The amount of water a dehumidifier can actually remove varies depending on your location (refer to additional information).


In addition to pint, the number of "Area dehumidified" provided by manufacturers are also using the similar ideal conditions that may not accurately predict whether one dehumidifier is suitable for your house. When choosing a dehumidifer, make sure you compare your own condition to the ideal condition (80 degrees and humidity level of 60%) and make necessary changes to predict which dehumidifer can provide you the best result. (Again, refer to the pint table at the bottom of this page)


3) Temperature factor:


Some dehumidifiers only works when the temperatures is above 60 degrees. If you are looking for a dehumidifier for your basement, it is better to find "low temperature" dehumidifiers (For more info, please refer to the tag basement dehumidifier). If you are looking for "low temperature" dehumidifiers, please make sure the machine has the "frost guards" or "freeze guards" designe to let the fan blowing warm air to the coil when low temperature is detected. If you are looking for a dehumidifier that will operate under 33 degrees, you may have to consider a dehumidifier that uses a process called "hot gas" to heat the coil. You can of course buy a machine with "frost guards" to save more money than buying a seperate dehumidifier, but please notice that low temperature dehumidifiers are generally noisier than the regular machine that are designed to work above 65 degrees.

So by now you should have learned some basic concepts of choosing a dehumidifier. We will now move to next part to show you what function(s) to look for when buying a dehumidifier.

1) Built-in Hygrometer/ Humidstat:

A Hygrometer allows the dehumidifier to measure the moisture level in your house so that it can maintain the moisture level at the specific range you choose. Most dehumidifiers nowadays have built in humidistat that can control the moisture automatically, but I would recommend you to double check to ensure the dehumidifier has this function because it will make your life a lot easier.

2) Automatic Shut Off:

Make sure you buy a dehumidifier that can shut off automatically when the tray is full. Otherwise you can only run the dehumidifier for a few hours and empty the water bucket regularly.

3) Continuous Drainage:

In addition to the automatic shut off function, you should find a dehumidifier with continuous drainage function that can empty the water bucket automatically for you. It is no easy to empty the bucket manually especially when the capacity of your dehumidifier is high.

4) Energy Star Rating:

You do want a dehumidifier to work effectively and save you hundreds of dollars on your electric bill. Don't you? Most people overlook this function and it turns out that they are complaining how inefficient their dehumidifier is.

5) Find the right sales:

You are here in this web site looking for a good dehumidifier that can help you to prevent mold, but you may not know how important of having a proper size dehumidifier is. The difference between a technical sales and and regular sales is that regular sales will usually concern on which dehumidifiers can save you more. They can do the math, but they have no idea what they are actually selling.

Professionals and technical sales people on Homedepot should be able to guide you in finding a good dehumidifier. Sometimes an improperly sized dehumidifier can fail in preventing mold simply because of the improper way of using it. Some units are ideal for single rooms, while others are designed for the entire house. It is important to understand the difference so that you won't be paying far more than you need and buying too little that won't be able to get you a desired humidity level.

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In case you still have no idea what to buy, please have a look at the following articles:

1) Case Study: Cheap Dehumidifier that covers upto 500 sq ft? - You can also ask question at the bottom of that page.

2) Ready to buy? Read this article to see which dehumidifier we think is the best dehumidifier in the market.

3) It doesn't matter where you are going to buy your dehumidifier, read this aritlce to see how people actually save upto $200 on a dehumidifier.

A table that help you determine the pint you need: