Arete® One is crowned the “gold standard” on Channel 5’s ‘Shop Smart, Save Money’

This November, we featured on Channel 5’s series ‘Shop Smart, Save Money’. We were delighted to see our MeacoDry Arete® One 10L put to the test as a chance to show off all its features, capabilities, and cost to run. 

What impact does a dehumidifier have in the home?

With the dehumidifier market on the rise (increased sales of 200%, according to PriceRunner), this episode aimed to shed light into the value a dehumidifier can have in the home. Host Jon Bentley explains that, during the cold winter months, many of us are closing our doors and windows to keep the cold out of our homes. 

But what this can unwittingly do, he explains, is create the perfect environment for mould to grow. 

That’s where dehumidifiers come in. They are built to solve this problem. Their job is to efficiently extract all excess moisture from the air and maintain a target relative humidity. Using a dehumidifier not only prevents mould build-up, but they can also help you dry your washing indoors, meaning you don’t have to use energy-hungry appliances like a tumble dryer (estimated to cost over £1.50 a cycle). 

With this in mind, Jon wanted to put dehumidifiers to the test. In this premium vs. budget segment of the show, Jon aims to see whether it’s worth paying the extra money for a premium product, or whether you could buy a cheaper version and get better value for your money. 

Our MeacoDry Arete® One 10L dehumidifier was named the premium product, and was set against Eletriq’s 5th generation CD10L dehumidifier, costing almost half the price. 

Then, they put them to the test, measuring the efficiency of removing moisture from the air for the first test and the speed of drying laundry for the second.

Premium vs budget for value for money: Testing the dehumidifiers

To put these machines to the test, host Jon Bentley visited Sky Blues Community Training Centre, home to Coventry City Women and Girls Football Club. The typically damp steamy changing rooms with low airflow made for the perfect location to test a dehumidifier’s ability to extract moisture. On top of that, there was plenty of muddy kit to be washed and dried! This created the perfect conditions to showcase the dehumidifiers and test the drying laundry function. 

Test 1: Extracting moisture and achieving a sensible relative humidity

In the first test, Jon and dehumidifier specialist Mark blasted the showers in two identical changing rooms, getting the relative humidity up to 75% (a typical humidity level in a bathroom after showering). The job of the dehumidifier then is to remove this excess moisture and bring the relative humidity back down to a reasonable level, which would be around 50-55%. And according to Mark, the ideal level for the home would be 50%. 

To measure the effectiveness of extracting moisture, Jon and Mark inspected the amount of water in three intervals: after 3 hours, 4 hours and 5 hours. The results were as follows:

As you can see from the results, the Meaco product continues to extract more moisture over time, whereas the Electriq “ran out of puff”, according to Jon. Mark explained that, after 4 hours, the Electriq reached its capacity for extracting moisture as it had dried the air as much as it was capable of doing.

So after 5 hours of running, our Arete® One 10L extracted nearly double the amount of water as Electriq’s machine. It also brought the relative humidity down to an impressive 49.7%, compared to 56.9% for the Electriq.

Test Two: Time taken to dry washing

The second test aimed to test the machines’ efficiency at drying laundry. To do this, the football team’s kit was washed and then hung out to dry on a clothes horse. Each environment was set up in exactly the same way, using an identical set of kits, in two identical rooms.

Within the first 2 hours of the test, the dehumidifiers were neck and neck in the race to dry all of the clothes the fastest. After 3 hours however, our Arete® One 10L was taking the lead, drying more difficult items like a fleece before the Electriq.

All in all, the Electriq took 5 hours and 15 minutes to dry all of the kit compared to the Meaco taking only 4 hours, a massive hour and 15 minutes difference.

But what about the cost to run?

So, even though Arete® was faster at drying the clothes, does that mean it’s using more energy?

By using an energy monitor, Jon and Mark were able to track exactly how many kilowatts the machines were using and therefore could track how much they cost to run. They found that, in fact, our Arete® One 10L was cheaper to run than the Electriq (calculated with current electricity prices of 27 pence per kWh): 

• Meaco Arete® One 10L: 20p per load
• Electriq CD10L-V5: 25p per load
• Average condenser tumble dryer: £1.30 per cycle*
• Average vented tumble dryer: £1.35 per cycle*

Both appliances are much cheaper than running a tumble dryer, proving that dehumidifiers are a cheaper means to drying your washing. The Meaco does however win on cost to run, since it is cheaper to run per hour and gets the job done faster.

The MeacoDry Arete® One 10L Dehumidifier and Air Purifier costs just 5p / hour to run. Based on a 4 hour dry time (as demonstrated in this test), this dehumidifier will cost 20p to dry a load of washing. If you’re also using the MeacoFan 1056 to increase airflow to dry your washing more efficiently, it costs less than 1p / hour, even on the highest fan speed. Therefore, we can estimate this technique will cost less than 36p per load.

Meaco Arete® One 10L is crowned the winner

Despite the higher expense up-front, Mark concluded that it is still worth spending a little bit extra on Meaco’s premium product. It will save you money long term because of its significantly lower cost to run. He supports this conclusion by saying that its ability to achieve below 50% relative humidity is “the gold standard really”. 

We are really proud of our products, so we are delighted to see our Arete® One model perform so well under testing. We believe that it’s worth paying attention to the cost to run data, and not just the initial cost of buying a premium product: you’ll save money by not running a tumble dryer, and, better than that, Arete® One is cheaper to run than other dehumidifiers on the market.

We are proud of the time and effort we’ve put into the design of Arete® One to make it as efficient to run as possible. 

You can find out more about the design of our Arete® One range by reading our blog: ‘The look, feel and function of Arete® One: a dehumidifier designed with a real user in mind’.

Watch the video on YouTube here.

Watch the full episode on Channel 5 here.

*How Much Does It Cost to Run a Tumble Dryer in the UK? (November 2023)

Products featured: 

MeacoDry Arete® One 10L (only available at meaco.com)

Browse our dehumidifier range here