To spend £100 on a dehumidifier

[Pinkpowerofthought]

We just bought a house that needs a bit of work. The windows aren't great to be honest but we can't afford to get them done until after everything else is done.

When we get up in the morning our bedroom windows are soaking. I mean soaking! I don't want to cause mould. We open the windows but they are that wet it takes ages for them to dry and we have to wipe down with kitchen roll and towels.

We have a tumble dryer we use rather than hanging clothes up too.
I was thinking of getting a decent dehumidifier to combat the problem but not sure if they are worth the money.
Opinions?

[Madcats]

We have an Ebac. We must have had it for about 15 years, possibly longer, because I don't remember spending hours online researching!

Most of the time I just switch it on if I have several loads of clothes drying indoors (we have quite a draughty house). I needed to switch it on this morning, though, and I quite expect it to have removed about a 1/2 litre of water from the air.

OP in some of our rooms we have put up fairly cheap secondary perspex glazing (which attaches to the windows with magnetic strips). Those windows are rarely troubled by condensation (and it keeps the draughts out). Double glazing is tricky and eye-wateringly expensive for our listed building.

[52FestiveRoad]

Hi Mirime, thanks you are right it is a DeLonghi, I remembered as soon as I read it. Our house is 1930's, so would not have originally had double glazing. The room that is worst affected has two outside walls, and it never seems to get warm in the corner of these walls, except if we run an electric heater all night but a) the cost b) my DD sleeps in there and often gets too hot in the night with the heater on. So currently we are running the dehumidifier, using the Karcher vac on the windows and dealing with the mould on the walls as and when it appears. I would love to be free of doing that though, to find a system that actually works to keep it at bay. We have washed the filter recently, yes.

Sorry to de-rail the thread OP, most people on the thread seem to have a good experience with de-humidifiers so please don't be put off by my experience!

[RobberOfCatan]

Yanbu. We've just had to do the same as our entire upstairs is sopping every morning. We have started to get mould too so dehumidifier it is as until now we've just been keeping windows open which has mostly cleared it but it's getting cold now!

[mirime]

@52FestiveRoad what kind of windows did you have before and how old is your house? Double glazing in old houses is terrible for condensation. That was one of our problems. As was our bathroom having no extractor fan so we had to leave the window open all year, it was amazing having a warm bathroom - and having socks take less than a week to dry!.

Also dehumidifiers work best if your house is slightly warm - warm air can hold more moisture.

[drspouse]

We have one for the washing in the basement. DH wants a window vac... Should I listen to him? Or another dehumidifier for the bedroom?

[DancingLedge]

Ok I think that's a Delonghi.
It's got a washable filter. (never come across that before)Do you wash it? Cause filters getting clogged up can reduce efficiency.
More to say, back later

[52FestiveRoad]

Dancing I can't see the manufacturer of the de-humidifier, but it is currently on and I don't want to turn it round to check the back (it is quite heavy) but it says DEC 180 as the model . It is probably about 10 years old. Pulls out a pretty impressive amount of water, but maybe due to its age it is not working as it should? I don't know what the life span of these things are!

[FlouncyDoves]

Posted this on the other thread about dehumidifiers...

I bought this one [https://www.screwfix.com/p/wdh-316db-16ltr-dehumidifier/1379g] yesterday from Screwfix. Not a brand, but has excellent reviews and recommended by a friend. It seems very reasonably priced at £125 when compared to some of the branded ones.

Already it’s taken upwards of 5 litres out of the house and we’ve been moving it around from room to room to help with some damp patches (seaside home) and condensation.

We still need to solve the damp at its root, but in the meantime this will help keep the problem at bay. The patches in one bedroom have already disappeared.

[DancingLedge]

52Festive what kind of dehumidifier?
How old?

[SemperTemper]

Ooh! I started a thread in dehumidifiers yesterday and, based on the results, ordered an Ecoair one today. It seems that it will solve our window condensation problem, dry our clothes faster, improve the air quality inside and generally make our lives amazing.

Appliances Direct seem to have the best prices for many of the brands.

[casualobserver]

Definitely get a dehumidifier and a karcher window vac. Both are worth their weight in gold in our house. We also vac the bathroom tiles, window and bath after showers which makes a huge difference to moisture levels in the house.

[52FestiveRoad]

Oh no, what are we doing wrong? We have the dehumidifier running all day (turn it off at night as noisy) but there is still condensation on the windows in the morning. I have a Karcher vac and use it on the condensation every morning but still we have some mould on the walls. Is our house built over a swamp or something? IMO it has got worse as we got new double glazing.

[sonjadog]

Mine cost about 200 pounds. Absolutely worth it. I live in Scandinavia and the cold, dry winter air makes me asthmatic and brings out my eczema. I was recommended the dehumidifier to help. The difference is enormous to my health.

[Dieu]

Couldn't do without ours in our Edinburgh basement flat. Ours shuts off when the moisture level in the air has reached an acceptable level, and then it just automatically turns on again. Also has a laundry setting (the highest one) so dry clothes quicker.
I got it from Amazon for around £120. Just PM me if you'd like to know the exact model, as I can't remember it offhand.
One point I would stress is that it won't actually SOLVE a damp problem. We still have mould on our bathroom ceiling. It just stops it from getting worse, I guess.

[milliemolliemou]

I'd get one. Especially one that stops when the water store is full or has other controls you can set eg a timer but that could be done with a timing plug.

DBiL phoned me up one day to say his wasn't working - turned out he hadn't emptied the water store.

If you're living in a home with inadequate ventilation (most modern homes it seems) or lots of kids in a smallish space with showers/washing machine going - then def worthwhile. Make sure it's energy efficient. It also means for some reason the house is warmer - poss because there's less damp - so heating doesn't need to be on or high so the costs can balance out. And def good for mould.

[Littlebear88]

Karcher window vac for clearing the windows in the morning! And use the dehumidifier for when you dry clothes indoors

[stevie69]

Have you been watching Coronation Street ?

[Gibble1]

Mine broke a year or so ago and I now have to redecorate 3 rooms due to mould. Will be buying another ASAP!

[toomuchtooold]

We have an ebac. Had it 11 years (not running continuously!) and it's still running well. I first got it in a flat that had really bad condensation - it took a good 5l out of the air on the first night! It carried on like that for about a week and then started to tail off - the walls and everything must have been just full of water.

[moggle]

We bought one about 9 years ago, just a 1l one from B&Q and I think it was about £60? We lived in a flat with single glazing and metal window frames, no tumble dryer and my DH who mouth breathes at night and the windows were all streaming in the winter mornings. I can't remember if we ran it at night or just when we were drying washing and then in the evenings before bed, but it made a big difference. We didn't really use it after we moved into a better insulated / ventilated house but recently I've got it out again to use our spare room as a drying room and save money on tumble drying.
Definitely been worth it for us.

[NotTheMrMenAgain]

I recently spent £200 on an Electriq that was the Which 2017 best buy - it's great at reducing humidity and has various air filters / purifiers and UV to kill anything nasty. We use it downstairs and have an older one upstairs which is mostly used for drying washing.
I wouldn't be without one now, no condensation or mould.

[deadringer]

We bought the argos value one about 5 years ago for about 120 euro and it is terrific. I bought it for our cold damp downstairs bathroom and its brilliant. I would highly recommend it.

[JonnaSilvie]

We spent £200 on ours! I would never live without one again, they're brilliant. We live within a couple hundred yards of the sea, and I have chronic asthma, so it's pretty essential for controlling the damp.

And it dries the washing in a few short hours.

[Nquartz]

Ours costs 11p a day to run so cheap to run for a few hours when it is cold