I’ve heard of these of course but not really sure what they are & why people have them.
They’ve been recommended for drying washing but all I know is they are supposed to draw damp out of a room.
Does anybody on here have one? Are they worth buying?
A humidifier would just add more moisture to the room it’s working in. What you are probably thinking about is a dehumidifier and they are far from quiet.
What is a dehumidifier? | Best dehumidifiers | Argos
My only experience with a dehumidifier is with an air conditioner I had. It drew the air in, took the moisture out of the air and blew the air into the room. I live in a place with low humidity already, so it dried out my skin and left me prone to nosebleeds from the dryness.
I had to drink a lot of water to make up for the dry air and even that was not enough.
I bought a de-humidifier after I moved into this small bungalow to combat a condensation problem. I have found it very useful every Winter.
I had the bungalow renovated and the walls and ceilings had been re-plastered before I moved in, so there was lots of moisture in the house during my first Winter here and everything felt damp.
I moved the de-humidifier from room to room and was amazed at how effectively the de-humidifier removed the moisture - it took out gallons of water in the first week or two of use.
That was about 15 years ago and I still use the de-humidifier for part of the time each Winter, when humidity levels are high, especially in my utility room, where mould tends to form around the doorway if I don’t reduce the moisture level in there.
It also doubles up as a handy clothes drier in Winter, when it’s too wet to hang clothes outside to dry. I can take clothes straight from the washing machine and hang them from the drying rack - I can switch the de-humidifier machine on and off manually but it also has a useful automatic setting, so you can choose the level of moisture you want in the air - I have mine set to keep the moisture level just a little bit higher than the “normal” setting because I don’t like the air to be too dry - the machine switches itself on if the moisture content goes above the value you have set and switches off again when it reaches the level you’ve set.
On mine, the air is drawn in through the front of the machine, the moisture is extracted from it and drops into a 2 litre storage tank, then the drier, slightly warmer air is blown back into the room through the top of the machine.
The machine stops if the tank gets full and shows a warning light to remind you to empty the water from the storage tank. I usually empty the tank most mornings if it’s in use, so it rarely gets totally full anyway.
The model I have is a Dio , WDH-210HB 12L extraction, with a power input of 200 Watts - that makes it much cheaper to run per hour than a high Wattage tumble dryer but of course a de-humidifier will be running for hours longer than a tumble dryer while the clothes are drying.
I don’t know if they still make the model I have - I chose it based on the best Reviews at the time and a recommendation from a friend - but there may better models out there now.
One drawback of mine is that it doesn’t work well in very low temperatures - you need a different type of de-humidifier if you want to run it in temperatures below about 10°C but that’s probably only likely to be a problem if you want to dry out an attic or a house which is not being lived in.
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like Long driver said a dehumidifier takes moisture out the air ,
When I worked in a small Hair Salon the owner used it in the winter months when windows steamed up , too cold to leave doors and windows open to keep the room aired .
It worked a treat and at the end of each day she showed me how much water was in the reservoir , she emptied it away , to start a fresh the next day …
My daughter also has one for a Damp room which once again is used in the winter months .