If your home or workplace suffers from overly humid conditions then a dehumidifier should be your first port of call. Undesireable things like musty odors, mould rusting and so on are all far more likely to occur in areas of high humidity. The best dehumidifiers will certainly lessen the harmful effects of moisture and given time can eliminate them altogether. Here is our short buyers guide to getting the best dehumidifier for you:
Firstly a short explanation: if how dehumidifiers work will enable you to gain some valuable insights to allow you to find the best dehumidifier for your needs:
Most dehumidifiers work by absorbing excess moisture and water vapour from the air. They draw in air through a small vent, reduce its temperature fast which make the air condense. The dehumidifier then blows the air out with a fan. The condensed water then trickles into a holding tank or through a hose pipe leading to a type of drain. The best air dehumidifiers are not however only useful for lowering the humidity level, they are useful in order to:
Save energy– When the air around you is less humid you can feel cool regardless of whether the temperature is warmer, thus saving you on energy billing costs.
Supplement ACs To feel cool two things need to happen 1) cool enough air 2) dry enough air. Often people keep running their AC because the air is simply too must and they will never actually decrease the temperature of the air significantly. The air conditioner unit would naturally become more efficient if you used a home dehumidifier and it would decrease the need for you to keep it operating for long periods of time.
In the long term excessive moisture may cause structural damage to your property. Buckling floor panels, rotting support beams can be very costly to mend not to mention decreasing the price of your house.
On the market today you can find a massive range of dehumidifiers. They are most commonly categorised by their functionality. The categories usually are: residential, industrial and commercial. When deciphering which is the best dehumidifier for you it is worthwhile considering the following elements:
Size: Dehumidifiers are designed in order to remove a set amount of water out of a set amount of air per day. It is most easy to consider the size of the room you wish to be dehumidified rather than the amount of water you want to have removed as this is much simpler to workout. Sometimes square foot measurements/guidelines are provided in shops for guidance but even these my not be accurate as your area depending on where you are located may have more or less than the average humidity level.
It may well be worth buying the next model size up than the guidelines suggest if your room is towards the higher end of the provided scale. This will decrease the stress placed on your dehumidifer and therefore ensure its longevity.
More commercial sized and priced units may well be worth considering for areas that have particularly heavy humidity levels. If a smaller dehumidifier is used then it will have to work for a good deal longer which in turn will affect its lifespan and the amount of breakdown costs it may incur. Very humid areas like basements and bathrooms have their own specially designed dehumidifier range to help deal with them especially.
Many air dehumidifiers are not designed to operate in very cold conditions so again you will need to take this into consideration when making your purchase, the best dehumidifiers are equipped with anti-frost sensors so they will turn themselves off if they get too cold thus preventing themselves from getting damaged. These are particularly important for areas such as basements and outdoor buildings.
As there are both low end and high end dehumidifiers. The main differences are down to the features that are available on the machine and the amount of pints per hour they are able to suck out of what size area. What you ideally need to do is think about what exactly it is that you want and then match these features up with an existing product to find the best dehumidifier for you. Of course shopping around for a home dehumidifier is essential to make sure you are not paying over the odds and get the best dehumidifier (ebac dehumidifiers are highly recommended). Prices can range from 0 to over 00, so there will be something to suit everyone.