Dehumidifiers

[herecomesthsun]

Hi, we are seriously thinking of getting a dehumidifier. We live in deep countryside, with lots of trees around, and have a north-facing ground floor bedroom. DH is also very keen on drying clothes indoors and-not-using-the-tumbledryer-in-the-garage-which-isn't-very-efficient-anyway. This clearly adds to the damp!

I have quite serious chronic chest problems and am thinking that the dehumidifier might improve things for me also.

We don't have a device to measure humidity - would it be sensible to check this before getting a dehumidifier?

I have done a bit of research and looked at

• DeLonghi ones of varying portability. I would have thought that a handle and wheels would be a big help in getting it round the house.

• Mitsubishi ones. These are about twice the cost but have a sleek profile. Would one of these powerful ones sitting in the hall way just, erm, suck moisture out of the whole house? Or would we have to keep moving it round?

-one from the Guardian readers' offers website that has special clothes drying functions, with adjustable heat for summer and winter. That does sound appealing. However, the overall moisture-per-day extracted is only 8l, a lot less than some of the other designs. This seems to be important.

-one from our local hardware shop which can extract 12l/day and is relatively inexpensive but also is quite bulky. I can see it getting in the way therefore.

-one which extracts 20l/day but is fairly bulky-looking.

Any advice (help, help)?

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MNHQ

Hi, we have a delonghi one. It is about 3 years old but is brilliant! I move it from room to room and its not too heavy. It also dries clothes well which is a bonus! I am convinced it has stopped me having chest infections too, only one chest infection in 3 years as opposed to 2-3 each winter before that!

wet washing draped around the house or over radiators is the main cause of condensation, damp and mould in UK houses.

Buy DH a washing line.

We have a washing line (although I am much keener on using it than DH) but he does have a point that washing does not dry all that fast in the winter. We are not very good at ironing (we don't basically) so having clothes hanging is not a bad strategy. I think a dehumidifier would help a lot. The question is how to balance out the various considerations re bulkiness, cost, litres of water per day extracted, mobility. Some claim to be specially for drying clothes and to have an "upwards air flow" to help with this or to have special settings which will make the room warmer in winter and less so in summer.

We could afford to buy a more expensive model but I am not sure whether we really need to, or whether the special clothes drying settings really work. And I would like to get it right first time.

If the more expensive "5 bedroom house" Mitsubishi one would just sit in the hallway and make the whole house feel warmer, more clement and better aired (and speed up washing drying in the kitchen) then that would be great, but I am not sure that is how these things work!!

We have a Mitsubishi one, and it is fab. We bought it when we had an old, damp, house and it sat downstairs and sucked moisture out of the whole house, and now we use it under an airer to dry clothes.

Very glad to hear from you CMOTdibbler, as I have encountered your enthusiasm for the Mitsubishi in reading past threads! I note that the capacity is supposedly less than the Coopers one though (16L vs 20L). Also there are 2 models I have found, the MJ-E16V and the MJ-E16VX - which one do you have?

Is it possible or worthwhile to get an extended warranty on these as reading the reviews of different types on, say, Amazon, there seems to be a lot that can go wrong?

Also - does anyone else have any experience of any of the other types?

The MJ-E16V. Oh dear, I am a bit over enthusiastic about it aren't I ! But its currently drying 5 loads of washing upstairs which will be done by morning, and as I dry things on hangers, the vast majority won't need ironing.

I wouldn't bother with extended warranty - ours has been used heavily for 5 years now with never a problem from it

Another vote for mitsubishi, we have the MJ-E16VX as it has a child lock on it. Fabulous machine, everywhere was out of stock at the beginning of jan so we got a reconditioned one from here and it was much cheaper and still had a 12 month warranty.

Do you have to have the dehumidifier directly under the washing to dry it? Or could it sit in the hallway, to "work on" the ground floor of the house, with the washing on the landing above?

I'm not sure, we have the washing in the room with the dehumidifier and the door shut. I think it would help to dry it faster however you have it arranged.

In what way is a child lock so useful? (I hadn't considered this as being important before you mentioned it!)

If its not over the dehum, the washing will only dry a bit quicker than without, but the house will be better off as the excess moisture will be taken out

We have this one it's great!

We bought from this site - they were really helpful

We have an Ebac and so far so good. I'm still experimenting with the best way to position everything to get the fastest laundry drying time but the effect on condensation on windows is great already. I'm being a coward about looking at the effect on our electricity usage though - hopefully not a big effect but I haven't dared check it!

Ebac here as well. It has been great, as has their customer service re delivery etc.

I can also recomend ebac, we had shocking condensation/mould even without washing on the radiators, the dehumidifier has totally got rid of the problem. We had one room which has a "cold wall" which had really bad mould - it has cleared it right up. If I want to dry the washing I put the dehumidifier in the bathroom, hang washing up and shut the door, it dries overnight rather than taking days.

I bought this one a fortnight ago - is scary how much water is in the tank. It fills up in 2 days. I have it on the landing, seems to keep whole house dry and washing is drying in half the time.
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000BP81DW/ref=asc_df_B000BP81DW6217637?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B000BP81DW

CMot's Mitsubishi one will cost about 70p a day if it's on all the time - around £20 a month - roughly equivalent to running a tumble dryer for 2 hours every day.

I bought at Ebac (2650e from bhs £164) last week as we're living in the world's dampest flat (mould, condensation and humidity at ~80%) and it's brilliant

It has an 8hr laundry dry function and a 3.5l water capacity, so i've been popping it on then emptying it morning and night.
The washing had been taking up to a week to dry (even with windows open) but it's now doing a load in

Child lock stops the 2 year old pushing all the buttons and putting it on a different program or turning it off! In my house it's essential but it depends on your layout and how much the children have to fiddle with everything.

I am feeling quite tempted by the Mitubishi, as I think it would fit well in the house/ corridor, but it is quite a bit more expensive than the other ones. Thank you very much for all the recommendations, it is really amazingly helpful.