I just commented on another review, telling how I got this cute little dehumidifier to drain externally instead of filling the bucket. I'll copy that information below too. But first I should talk about a much more serious problem I had with mine, a problem that required my disassembling the unit to an extent probably no other owner would be willing to do. But this little dehumidifier was so cheap and appealing it was worth the risk to me.
(I discovered the hard way that all manufacturers now consider dehumidifiers disposable items, so they never fix them even under warranty. Some like Frigidaire will give you a replacement, but most will make getting it serviced under warranty so expensive and tiresome that you'll give up and buy a new one. I figured at this price trying to get it fixed professionally would end up costing more than it cost new. Besides, I love taking things apart to see how they tick.)
The problem was that the "Bucket Full" light was always on, and nothing I did would make it go off; and if the dehumidifier thinks the bucket is full it will not turn on the compressor. That meant my brand new dehumidifier would NOT dehumidify. After carefully disassembling the thing, I finally discovered that the cable from the bucket sensor switch was unplugged from the circuit board, and all I had to do to fix it was plug in that cable. If I had known from the beginning what was wrong, it would have taken no more than 15 minutes to fix, but since I DIDN'T know it took several hours.
In disassembling the unit, I was impressed by the quality of the workmanship and materials inside; it's a shame it was almost ruined by one little unplugged cable. By the way, I found a very responsive contact at Soleus Air by sending an e-mail to contact-at-soleusair-dot-com. The guy who responded in a matter of minutes was named Christopher, and although the disconnected cable deep inside was beyond his expertise he was very responsive and did his best to be helpful. If he was really on the other side of the world, he impersonated an American better than most do.
Now I have a great little dehumidifier that cost less than half as much as any other dehumidifier I could find, and it's keeping my basement just as dry as the two 70-pint, $200+ dehumidifiers I had before. I'm going to buy another one while they're still available at such an astounding price.
Solving the drain problem:
I already had a garden hose y-adapter I wasn't using, like this one: Camco 20113 RV Metal Garden Hose Y Valve, although I expect any similar adapter would work just as well. I screwed it onto the dehumidifier's drain adapter, with the two outlets pointing up and down. Then I screwed the drain hose onto the outlet pointing down, made sure the valve for it was open, and now it works perfectly.
Make sure there is no place in the drain hose that is kinked or that rises instead of falls, because the drain depends entirely on gravity and can't force the water to rise any distance at all or go through a restriction.
This is a problem with many dehumidifiers, not just this one. If the water has to rise any distance at all even a fraction of an inch to get out of the external drain, it will flow into the bucket instead.
I'm using a length of clear plastic ½" hose I bought at HD so I can see the water flowing through it, and the brass coupling that fits it onto the ¾" garden hose outlet has enough offset in it to keep the water from passing through when it's mounted horizontally; but the downward angle of the y-adapter allows the water to flow easily down into and through the hose now.
I also opened the valve on the y-adapter for the outlet pointing up. It won't hurt anything, since (as described above) the water can't rise high enough to go out it, and letting air in at that point can help the water to flow more freely down through the hose.
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This is a powerful vac. I am using it for an area approximately 3000 sf, but all single level.
