Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Dehumidifier FAQ
Our house came with a basement dehumidifier. The previous owner used it in an attempt to keep his wood supply nice and dry.
Janel had kept turning it on so that the baby clothes stored in containers in the basement would not grow mold or other yucky nastiness. I kept turning it off because I didn't think it was doing anything and I was scared it was going to start on fire or something since it was just running all the damn time.
A few months back I bought a watt meter. I had a couple of uses for it and the dehumidifier was one of them, but I never got around to it.
The other night I thought I was actually going to go to bed early. Sucker. Janel got mad at me for turning it off again and that made me finally remember about the watt meter. So I went and hooked it up..
820 WATTS! Holy shit. That's almost as bad as both our window air conditioners put together.
So my early bedtime hopes were squashed and it was debugging time.
Long story short..
DEHUMIDIFIER FAQ
1. Clean the filter.
So I tried to clean the filter before, but I could not get the thing out. I even tried prying it out. Nothing. Apparently in order to get it out I needed to move the entire unit 2 feet and 180 degrees for no reason. After I did that the filter pulled out with zero pressure. WTF.
Cleaned the filter and bam.. Hey look.. It's actually sucking water out of the air. Pretty fast too. 30 minutes later and I had about 2 cups. This particular unit is pretty beefy at 50 pints and hour which is why it use 820 WATTS. Geez.
The stupid thing still does not turn off on its own, but at least I feel better that it's not going to burn down the house. Though $3 a day is a pretty steep price to pay for a dry basement. There has got to be a better solution.
Janel had kept turning it on so that the baby clothes stored in containers in the basement would not grow mold or other yucky nastiness. I kept turning it off because I didn't think it was doing anything and I was scared it was going to start on fire or something since it was just running all the damn time.
A few months back I bought a watt meter. I had a couple of uses for it and the dehumidifier was one of them, but I never got around to it.
The other night I thought I was actually going to go to bed early. Sucker. Janel got mad at me for turning it off again and that made me finally remember about the watt meter. So I went and hooked it up..
820 WATTS! Holy shit. That's almost as bad as both our window air conditioners put together.
So my early bedtime hopes were squashed and it was debugging time.
Long story short..
DEHUMIDIFIER FAQ
1. Clean the filter.
So I tried to clean the filter before, but I could not get the thing out. I even tried prying it out. Nothing. Apparently in order to get it out I needed to move the entire unit 2 feet and 180 degrees for no reason. After I did that the filter pulled out with zero pressure. WTF.
Cleaned the filter and bam.. Hey look.. It's actually sucking water out of the air. Pretty fast too. 30 minutes later and I had about 2 cups. This particular unit is pretty beefy at 50 pints and hour which is why it use 820 WATTS. Geez.
The stupid thing still does not turn off on its own, but at least I feel better that it's not going to burn down the house. Though $3 a day is a pretty steep price to pay for a dry basement. There has got to be a better solution.
# posted by billyzelsnack @ 1:21 PM 
