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You know what sucks about dehumidifiers these days? In the past, they had a feature where you could cycle them 4-hours-on, 4-hours-off.. not anymore, now it's

You know what sucks about dehumidifiers these days? In the past, they had a feature where you could cycle them 4-hours-on, 4-hours-off.. not anymore, now it's either sensor, continuous on, or run for an interval then shut off and stay off. To answer the question why not use sensor? They advertise +-5% accuracy on the humidity meter.. except on my current model it is WILDLY inaccurate. I calibrated an analog dial myself and the sensor shows there's a +30% reading difference between the machine and the dial.. no wonder it was never running..

crazygringo 3y ago
They do use a sensor. E.g. the bestselling dehumidifier on Amazon (HomeLabs) does exactly that. Same as Frigidaire, etc. Mine seems to cycle on/off about 8-10 times per hour -- it turns off when humidity reaches 5 percentage points above its set point, and turns off once it reaches 5 percentage points below. I've had humidifiers/dehumidifiers in the past that have been off by 20 to 30 percentage points of humidity, but honestly that was never really a problem, because I just set the target off by the same amount. Also it really helps if you have fans circulating the air -- especially with ultrasonic humidifiers, it can easily humidify the nearby air by 20-30 percentage points and turn off, because local humidity really has gone up, but it hasn't spread throughout the room.
- Sunspark 3y ago
  I can't change the target by the same amount because the lowest I can set the machine I currently have is 30%. Except 30% on that is 70%+ in actuality. So that means it will turn on for 75-80%. That's way too high. If it let me turn it to 0% or 5% then that would be fine.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Oh yikes. Then that's definitely not in the "miscalibrated" range, that's just totally broken. And while humidifiers can suffer from moisture buildup next to the sensor which you can fix in a couple of minutes with a handheld fan, that shouldn't be the case with dehumidifiers. Sorry but it sounds like you just need to get a new one. Hopefully it's still under warranty. Your unit isn't representative of what's being sold these days, it's just flat-out defective. (I assumed you were talking about a difference of 15-20 percentage points, which is more common to see, although more in humidifiers than in dehumidifiers.)

crazygringo 3y ago

They do use a sensor. E.g. the bestselling dehumidifier on Amazon (HomeLabs) does exactly that. Same as Frigidaire, etc. Mine seems to cycle on/off about 8-10 times per hour -- it turns off when humidity reaches 5 percentage points above its set point, and turns off once it reaches 5 percentage points below. I've had humidifiers/dehumidifiers in the past that have been off by 20 to 30 percentage points of humidity, but honestly that was never really a problem, because I just set the target off by the same amount. Also it really helps if you have fans circulating the air -- especially with ultrasonic humidifiers, it can easily humidify the nearby air by 20-30 percentage points and turn off, because local humidity really has gone up, but it hasn't spread throughout the room.

Sunspark 3y ago
I can't change the target by the same amount because the lowest I can set the machine I currently have is 30%. Except 30% on that is 70%+ in actuality. So that means it will turn on for 75-80%. That's way too high. If it let me turn it to 0% or 5% then that would be fine.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Oh yikes. Then that's definitely not in the "miscalibrated" range, that's just totally broken. And while humidifiers can suffer from moisture buildup next to the sensor which you can fix in a couple of minutes with a handheld fan, that shouldn't be the case with dehumidifiers. Sorry but it sounds like you just need to get a new one. Hopefully it's still under warranty. Your unit isn't representative of what's being sold these days, it's just flat-out defective. (I assumed you were talking about a difference of 15-20 percentage points, which is more common to see, although more in humidifiers than in dehumidifiers.)