This review compares these big dehumidifiers:Frigidaire 70 pint (FAD704DUD)
SoleusAir 70 pint (DP1-70-03)
LG 65 pint (LG651EBL)
NOTES/WARNINGS:
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If you have a medical/allergy, anti-mold, archival, or otherwise serious reason to maintain a humidity range you need to get something SEPARATE TO MEASURE HUMIDITY. The Frigidaire and SoleusAir thought the humidity was 15-25 RH higher than it was as measured by 2 humidity instruments including a data logger. The LG doesn't show what it thinks the humidity is.
Be sure to have a 3-PRONG OUTLET for each dehumidifier you get, NO 2-prong with adapter shortcuts, you want this kind of appliance grounded, like a refrigerator or air conditioner.
Running big dehumidifiers non-stop often costs hundreds of dollars per year each and it may only bring the humidity lower than needed for comfort, medical, or archival purpose. Consider aiming for just below your target, for example 43 RH to keep below 45 RH rather than continuous running to get as low as possible. Of course, if it takes continuously running to get to the target, ignore this suggestion :).
I highly suggest getting no-fault extended warranty for 2+ years if you can get it for any of these, even though I rarely bother with them for other products.
If you need to reliably pump a few feet up to get into a sink (for drainage), for example, ignore all of this and look at something like the Friedrich 70 pint with the built-in pump.
If you have cats or dogs the water isn't drinking water, so if you use the gravity drain don't forget to contrive a way to get the water down under the grate. What I did was get some 1/4" flexible transparent tubing, a brass adapter from garden hose size on the back of the unit to 1/4", and a mini elbow to stick in the drain. The parts cost $10 dollars from the hardware store, it took maybe 5 minutes to make. You could also make a slit on the floor side of a hose on the grate so the pets never see the water.
The LG has pretty terrible reviews on Amazon regarding durability. Also, note that LG made the Sears Kenmore Dehumidifiers sold up to 2009 that are being recalled last year due to fire risk.
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HOW NOISY (dBA) I FOUND
THEM TO REALLY BE AT
MAX FAN SPEED:
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dBA at distances (1'/5'/10'/15'):
Frigidaire: 62.0 / 56.0 / 53.0 / 51.5
SolieusAir: 66.0 / 60.5 / 57.5 / 55.5
LG: 58.5 / 55.5 / 53.0 / 50.0
If your primary concern is noise then you might want to avoid the SoleusAir. Since Frigidaire is so much better reviewed than the LG, I'd lean towards the Frigidaire over LG for this since the loudness difference is fairly small unless you are going to be fairly close to it.
I should note that the nature of the noise of the Frigidaire is more like white noise from a strong fan as you rarely hear much from the unit's compressor over the fan.
HOW MUCH WATER I FOUND
THEY ACTUALLY HOLD:
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Frigidaire: 17.7 lbs
SoleusAir: 13.4 lbs
LG: 15.8 lbs
If you can't use a drain and you want it to do as much work as it can during the night or while you are at work, then Frigidaire wins here. If water hauling weight is a primary concern then SoleusAir has an edge here.
HOW MUCH WATER I FOUND
THEY CAN REALLY PULL OUT
OF THE AIR IN AN HOUR AT
MAX FAN SPEED:
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Frigidaire: 0.82 lbs water per hour
SoleusAir: 0.69 "
LG: 0.53 "
If sheer power is your main concern, for example correcting an 18 RH humidity spike ASAP after towels go through the dryer, Frigidaire wins here. These numbers are an average of the bottom two runs out of three for each unit. The range of the Frigidaire performance was 0.8 to 1.0 lbs of water per hour.
Note that the first Frigidaire I tested performed poorly at 0.47 lbs of water per hour. I returned it and the new one I got 3 months later did this well which much better reflects the general impression of performance by a leading consumer magazine.
HOW COST EFFICIENT
I FOUND THEY ARE TO RUN:
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Frigidaire: 645 Watt Hours electricity to remove 1 lb. of water
SoleusAir: 690 "
LG: 800 "
This is not extrapolated from data sheets, this was measured.
The LG will likely overall cost more to operate, the Frigidaire and SoleusAir win here. Due to other competitive issues with it I didn't swap for another one to see if it was just defective. Your mileage may vary.
These numbers are an average of the bottom two runs out of three for each unit. The range of the Frigidaire performance was 450 to 660 Watt Hours to remove each pound of water.
HOW MUCH TIME TO FILL
THEIR BUCKET IN WINTER
IN ONE EXAMPLE BASEMENT
AT TOP FAN SPEED:
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Frigidaire: 0.9 days
SoleusAir: 0.8 days
LG: 1.2 days
Remember that the bins hold different amounts of water.
The full range for the Frigidaire was 0.74-0.92 days to fill its bucket.
MISC. NOTES:
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Frigidaire:
The most attractive and the build quality is excellent. Well reviewed by respected independent consumer magazine. Has top and side handles.
Look out for cleaning filter light going on erroneously early on in order to facilitate an exchange while it is still easy to do. It is easy to spot, after going off early you would clean the filter put it back in and it would still be on.
As noted above, the first Frigidaire dehumidifier (same model) I bought was performance defective and I returned it. These numbers are from testing the replacement.
Vents upwards so no need to keep a distance from a wall.
LG:
This has pretty bad reviews on Amazon regarding durability. Vents out the back and thus requires 1' distance from a wall, the others vent forward. So expect in some cases to have to point the front to the wall and just have to spin it around to remove the bin (if you use a bin) now and then (easy to do, just FYI).
Has no top handle only side handles, the others have top and side handles. If it ever goes up steps you will likely sincerely wish it had the top handle.
All:
All of them had easy to remove and place bins with good handles and were tough to spill unless not paying attention (I've read a review saying LG was bad for spilling the bin, though I didn't find it difficult, but I thought I should mention it FYI). They all have wheels. I often don't get no-fault replacement warranties, but I would definitely get 2+ year one for these.
CAN THESE REALLY
HELP AFTER A FLOOD:
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After a week running continuously at full fan speed the wet/damp smell from a little flood in the basement went away.
GIVE ME A REAL WORLD
EXAMPLE OF ON-GOING
UTILITY:
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To help prevent basement mold we target 45 RH as a cost efficient target. We found to get this we need to set the dehumidifier to a much higher target value (in our case 60-65 RH, your unit will vary, see warning above, you'll need a separate humidity meter).
Ordinarily our basement ranges only from 54-59 RH or so in Winter. Depending on what we set the dehumidifier to we can target a 2-3 RH range anywhere between 38rh to 46rh (we didn't test higher) but couldn't get it lower than 38 RH with a single dehumidifier for our middle-sized basement.
We can get it to range between 43-46 RH (except for temporary events like drying a load of towels, etc.) for roughly the cost of a 75w bulb averaged over a day with the unit going on and off as necessary.
If we wanted to keep it down to 38-41 RH I measured it costs around 6x that in kWh of electricity, the low hundreds of dollars per year around here.
Obviously your mileage will vary by time of year, geography, unit, air leakage, etc., this is just one real world example, I hope the example helped someone.
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