24th July 2023
You may only be familiar with desiccant dehumidifiers or when doing your research that was the only one you found information for. Does this mean that this is right for your home? Well, no. Here’s why.
They remove lots of water
One benefit of desiccant dehumidifiers is that they can remove large amounts of moisture form the air at one time. This is particularly useful for large, industrial settings where the temperate often drops very low, or places with high humidity and condensation and mould are a common problem, such as swimming pools.
Desiccant dehumidifiers remove water by natural absorption. They use an electrical heater to continuously regenerate the adsorbent material – i.e. they dry the absorbent material out so it can collect moisture again. They have high extraction capacities at typical UK winter conditions but are not suitable for a domestic use.
However, a domestic desiccant dehumidifier removes around 3 times more moisture than is required for an average British home with 4 occupants.
Impressive, but very costly
Although they can remove large amounts of water, they have very high running costs. Usually, the places that use desiccant dehumidifiers do not have to worry about running costs. However, in a domestic setting, these running costs would be unnecessarily high and you could use a different dehumidifier for a fraction of the price and running costs of a desiccant dehumidifier.
Just because they can remove large amounts of water at a time does not mean that they are the right option for you and your home. At UK home conditions, desiccant dehumidifiers will use twice as much electricity to extract the same amount of water as good compressor dehumidifiers
They are very wasteful
Desiccant dehumidifiers consume substantially more amount of energy to run than compressor dehumidifiers with no additional benefit. Therefore, if used in your home, your energy bills would be substantially higher than they should be. The additional water extraction performed by desiccant dehumidifiers is 100% wasted as the moisture is simply pulled in from outdoors.
They should only be used for industrial applications
Desiccant dehumidifiers are perfect for locations where temperatures may drop below 3°C, such as garages, unoccupied properties or caravans.
We do make desiccant dehumidifiers…
Ebac manufacture desiccant dehumidifiers for industrial clients who have large amounts of moisture to remove from swimming pools, construction or building projects where running costs are not important. However, we do not recommend desiccant dehumidifiers for you and your home.
Compressors are better
If looking for a dehumidifier for you home, compressor dehumidifiers are much better. They have significantly lower running costs, take out the suitable amount of moisture from the air in your home and use Ebac’s Smart Control technology to monitor the temperate of the air and adjust the settings accordingly.
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