Just had a lovely chat on the phone with a customer who has spent a lot of time researching dehumidifiers and has been testing his Platinum 20L Low Energy dehumidifier against his DD122FW desiccant dehumidifier. After a long chat with Mike he gave me permission to reproduce the review here to help spread the word.
“I have only had this machine for one day but my initial impressions are very positive.
Yesterday I tested its performance back to back for a few hours with my 1 year old Ecoair DD122FW Simple (a Desiccant machine) in our unheated laundry room filled with wet laundry on airers. The ambient temperature of the room ranged from 13.5C to 18.5C (I have a humidstat with thermometer on wall) over the test period.
I couldn’t believe that over the test period the new Meaco extracted 920ml of water while the DD122FW managed just 505ml. The DD122FW was in low fan mode (drawing about 335 watts) and the Meaco was on low fan mode (drawing 240 watts – tested with energy meter plug). I’ve done the maths and in terms of litres of water extracted per watt of energy used, the new Meaco was at least 150% more energy efficient than the desiccant unit. I say “at least” because the Meaco spent a significant part of its running time in “defrost mode” drawing only 28 watts. I suspect in reality it may have been close to 200% more energy efficient.
Based on my usage rate the £100 extra in purchase cost of the Meaco over the DD122FW should be recouped in under a year.
I bought the new Meaco to save energy when drying laundry as, while it does a good job a drying, I’m conscious my DD122FW consumes a lot of power due to the heat created which is great if you want heat a room. From now on I will use the DD122FW as a low powered fan heater when I need the heat. The way I look at it is if you can benefit from all the heat it produces, it effectively dehumidifies for free.
Personally I think all dehumidifiers sold in UK should be rated on litres/KwH when running in a 18C/60%RH environment. That is the figure that most buyers really want to know (or at least should want to know!).”
Mike K.
