I am so tired of dehumidifiers that last just a few years. I keep two units; one for the finished half of my basement (where my 3d printer lives) and one in the unfinished part (where my shop is). After a couple failures, I thought I'd found a good kind, and bought a second one of that kind — only to have the first fail shortly thereafter.
So I found one that was listed on Amazon, sold by the manufacturer and fulfilled by Amazon, with the listing stating "5 year warranty".
When I got it, the warranty is actually six months of covering shipping, one year of general parts and labor but no shipping, three years of parts and labor but no shipping on the refrigeration system only, and five years of parts only and no shipping on the refrigeration system.
I'm pondering sending it back because of the misleading listing. I paid extra for a unit from a company that at least claims to be a US company of many decades' standing, specifically to expect to be able to trust a "5 year warranty", and they definitely didn't live up to my expectations already.
Now that AlorAir responded, claiming that there isn't enough room in an Amazon listing to be honest about their severe warranty limitations, I'll name and shame them.
Amazon promptly agreed to a return.
So now I'm searching again for quality. I had hoped to have found it...
We've had very good luck with the Crane ultrasonics. They just keep going. One of the oldest finally died when its fan gave up the ghost.
@jonhendry Those aren't dehumidifiers, are they? I would expect "ultrasonic" to mean humidifier? Too little water in the air isn't the normal problem where I live... (For us, in North Carolina, a humidifier is for someone who is sick during the winter, when heating means the house has lower relative humidity.)
Curses, foiled again. Yeah I blew it. Sorry for the unhelpful suggestion.
I probably had humidifier on the brain because I recently set one up for our cat that has a persistent stuffy nose in dry air
@jonhendry Oh well! No harm done!
We bought a desiccant type of dehumidifier - quiet and simple - and so far it does the job. You might of course have more challenging conditions.
Specifically, after research, the Meaco DD8L Junior.
@EdS North Carolina, where I live, has plenty of wet air. (At least... usually!) These aren't for closets, they are for multi-room areas, and the units I need are measured in liters per day they can be expected to remove and pump out of the house (at a reference temperature/humidity, of course).
There are times of the year when the humidity is so high that without a dehumidifier, I could expect the tools in my shop to flash rust.
@mcdanlj We have just one domestic dehumidifier manufacturer in the UK and they offer device-specific warranty durations and you can pay extra to extend your warranty to 5 years.
An interesting point in one of their FAQs is that "oversized units remove more moisture per unit of electricity and last longer".
I guess we work with, and use, solid-state technology so much that we get accustomed to the reliability it offers. Mechanical dehumidifiers are obviously less reliable and their lifetime seems to be linked to amount of time spent in operation.
@neil Well, many manufacturers have been using thinner copper in the coils than they used to (copper is expensive...) and they break much more easily, even under normal use.
I hoped that a higher purchase price with a longer warranty period would indicate thicker copper. It's overall a lower utilization of copper to put more in and not break, of course.
(Honestly I paid more than bargain basement price for the previous ones I bought and hoped that had pushed me over the edge of the disposable device curve...)
@mcdanlj I’m using this one in my mountain house crawl space: https://amzn.to/3XDHl1t (affiliate link!) and it’s run for almost three years fine.
@djb_rh Thank you!
I do need a pump; I can't do a gravity drain where I need to run it. So at a minimum I'd have to also buy a separate pump for this unit. But that means no internal tank to need to clean.
Also I see that AprilAire don't cover any labor or shipping costs at all for any warranty coverage. All such costs are expressly excluded. It's only parts, and not even clear that it covers shipping for those parts. So it's not obviously better from a warranty standpoint than the AlorAir. It covers all parts, not just refrigeration parts, during those five years, but never shipping or labor, even immediately after purchase.
Uses A2L refrigerant (yay!) without service ports (hmm).
@mcdanlj @djb_rh
Not sure of your situation but have you considered the adsorption types? They are routinely used in Finland to dehumidify work/renovation sites without HVAC working and spaces that have suffered water damage. They do not need a drain but need access to outside to vent the humid exhaust air. There are various types some that only use heating and some that have a heat pump. Some can be configured to generate positive or negative pressure to manage the humid air exhaust volume.
@kallemp I'd never heard of them, but the sites I need them don't have access to outside air, so they wouldn't work for me. Also it doesn't look like they are widely commercially available in the US, as far as I can tell.
Reading up, I like the concept of not having liquid water and not worrying about mold or algae. So I'm glad to have learned about them even though they won't help for my use case.
I'm curious about which is more energy efficient; refrigerated condensation dehumidifiers or adsorption.
@mcdanlj I think the combination units are the most efficient but cost the most.
The adsorption units are generally bigger and CANNOT extract directly to water but together the heat pump provides the energy 'multiplication' and the adsorber the grunt work. On big building sites the capital cost and unit size are not as important as speed and convenience.
@mcdanlj Yeah I’m not saying it’s the best option, but it’s what I chose 3 years ago after going through hell trying to keep a cheap typical Home Depot-type unit running. My HVAC guy later said “yeah, even those more commercial looking units suck, too.” But so far, anyway….
@djb_rh At least AprilAire had a more honest representation of their warranty on the Amazon listing...