Decorating & Renovating
kaylie622
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Good dehumidifier?
We just moved into our house and the basement smells basementy. Does anyone have a larger (65 or 70 pint) dehumidifier that they can recommend?
Re: Good dehumidifier?
We love our Frigidaire dehumidifier from Menards. Works great and has some energy saving programming options to cycle on and off. The one we got from Sears (I think it was Kenmore?) doesn't work worth a damn and is always over heating itself.
Try to position it near a floor drain if you have one and buy a hose so it will drain itself instead of you having to empty the bucket all the time. Just so you know the size of the unit is based on how many pints it can remove in a 24 hour time period. Use this to help you size out the maximum pints of moisture in the air for your space. If your able to drain the unit directly how many pints it can hold doesn't matter and you just want something that can handle the load of the space without needing to run 24/7. You can usually go down to a smaller size unit that way. Bigger is not always better because the bigger units use more energy per hour than the medium -small units. Does that make sense?
Also always get an energy star rated unit. Dehumidifiers use a ton of energy and may run all of the time in the humid summer months. You will see an increase on your electric bill so keep it set as low as you can without smelling the musty odor. It's also a good idea to seal the concrete/cinder blocks walls and floor to help keep moisture from getting into your basement in the first place. DryLoc or similar products work well for this. More than one coat should be used and the generic brands work just as well. You'll also want to make sure the landscaping around the house is directing water away from the house and that you don't have bigger water issues than just the musty smell.
HTH
Thanks! It's a finished basement and the grading is good around the house, so I don't think we'll get too much moisture and the smell is fairly faint. We're sort of phobic about it though. According to that link we probably need between 14 and 17 pints, so maybe getting the largest unit would be overkill.
There is a french drain in a small unfinished part of the basement. Can I drain the hose into that?
Good just checking. : ) It still wouldn't hurt to seal the concrete in the unfinished side of the basement. We did that with some generic DryLoc on the walls of our unfinished side (smaller than the finished side) and saw a big decrease in how often the dehumidifer had to run. It paid for itself in only one or two months. I wouldn't use DryLoc on the floor because it would wear and peel like paint but you can use a clear sealer if you'd like to do that too.
Yes you can definitely drain it there. Just make sure you're leaving the doors open to the finished side so it can condition the whole space. Just plug it in, connect the hose, and the basement should be smelling better in no time.