Dehumidifiers help keep our homes in tip-top condition, reducing condensation and dampness and keeping clothes and furnishings dry. They’re especially useful in winter, when it can be hard to open windows and air the house without letting cold air in. However, wading through technical jargon to decipher extraction rates, tank capacities and energy costs can be confusing.
That’s where Ideal Home’s experts come in – our team has put each dehumidifier through its paces to make sure it’s the right one for your home. We test them in a controlled chamber, where each model is run for a full day at the same humidity levels as a typical UK household. This helps us calculate how much each one extracts, and how much it will cost to run throughout the day at the current electricity price cap of 27p per kWh.
We also test whether each dehumidifier can actually help your clothes dry. We weigh wet, hung laundry before and after using it in each dehumidifier to see how much it reduces the drying time. We also check if each model has a laundry mode, which we use to dry two full washing loads of clothes in a single cycle – it’s important that the dehumidifier can do this as efficiently as possible to save you time and money.
Another key thing to consider is how quiet each dehumidifier is. There are some very quiet models that work discreetly in the background and won’t interfere with your daily life. Some have a near-silent mode, too, which can be particularly helpful for people with allergies or asthma. smart dehumidifier uk