Always looking to save you money, all year round and year in year out
We are very close to our customers and one of the recurring themes in your telephone calls, emails and messages is ‘how much will this dehumidifier cost to run?’. We are all worried about the cost of electricity and running appliances. There is no doubt that we have all felt the effect of the recent rises in energy prices and, as the economic problems continue, energy along with food, makes up an ever-increasing percentage of our monthly outgoings.
Almost every conversation that we have with our customers will refer at some stage to the cost of running a dehumidifier.
Because low running costs are something we consider right from the earliest design stage, we are able to reassure customers that Meaco dehumidifiers are a sensible purchase. That’s because they can actually reduce your heating bill and keep overall energy costs down. But this did not stop us from thinking about how we could reduce the running costs of our dehumidifiers still further. It’s my job to save our customers money and to show that Meaco really is different from other dehumidifier manufacturers.
Lower bills since 2010, quieter dehumidifiers and longer lifespan
Back in 2010 we changed the way our dehumidifiers functioned, resulting in a major reduction in running costs. In fact, the system we implemented reduced the amount of electricity used by up to 80%.
Prior to this, Meaco dehumidifiers, in common with other brands would run continuously. So when the target relative humidity had been reached, they would switch into fan-only mode and sample the air waiting for the relative humidity to rise again. This fan-only mode would typically use about 30 watts – not a huge amount, but with high electricity bills, any saving is important. By changing to completely shutting the fan down, we were able to lower running costs and reduce the noise from the dehumidifier. This process also increases the lifespan of the fan, so one small change delivered three great outcomes.
Lower bills in 2023
When we designed our award-winning Arete, we wanted it to be the quietest dehumidifier possible, and also the cheapest to run. It took five years, but we achieved both these goals across the range.
We didn’t stop there though. We looked at how Arete dried laundry and set the control logic up so that when Arete senses that the air is dry enough around the clothes it turns the compressor off and runs just in fan-only mode. This will be fine to finish drying your clothes and will save you a fortune in electricity costs. This attention to detail is what sets Meaco apart from our competitors and gives you the lowest running costs possible – with a great performance.
Save even more money when you dry your clothes
Lots of us are now drying clothes indoors without using a tumble dryer. Drying a load of washing in a tumble dryer costs on average £1.80 per load, so you could easily save almost £300 per year if you switched to drying that washing on a clothes horse with a dehumidifier. You can dry your washing faster and cheaper if you follow the simple advice in our money saving video here.
Some other top tips include:
• Use the rinse cycle when you wash to remove excess water from the clothes
• Hang your washing on a clothes horse so that the clothes do not overlap
• Place the clothes horse in a small room
• Put the Meaco Arete dehumidifier next to the clothes in Smart Laundry Mode
• Use a Meaco fan on the opposite side to push air across the clothes
• Keep the door and windows closed.
The full details of how to achieve cost-effective, healthy indoor drying are in the video. It’s a quick and easy guide – take a look and share it with your friends, so you can all start saving! And why not tag us in your social media posts and let us know your top tips to dry clothes effectively indoors?
What is the secret weapon?
Using a fan to help dry the washing makes a lot of sense if you think about it. What would be the perfect day to dry your washing outside? If you could choose you would do it on a hot, dry, windy day – the conditions you know will dry your clothes will dry fast.
The dehumidifier provides some warmth and the dry air, while the fan brings the wind. As a Meaco fan only costs 1p to run on low fan speed for ten hours, running it on full power is a really cheap way to speed up the drying time.
Using our advice could see you drying washing for less than 30p/load.
The hidden cost of not using a dehumidifier
There is the temptation to not use a dehumidifier or a fan and just leave the washing to dry on its own around the house. The problem with this approach is that in the winter it will certainly lead to condensation and mould problems. This increase in the relative humidity will push up the cost of heating the house and will impact your heating bills.
In spring/summer many people still have to dry washing indoors because they don’t have access to outside space. If you leave washing to dry whilst you go out during the day, then you will naturally leave the windows closed for security reasons.
In the warmer spring and summer temperatures this will actually lead to faster mould growth and a bigger mould problem than you would see in the winter months. Our advice would be to still dry the washing using the dehumidifier and the fan. In laundry mode, the dehumidifier will turn off after six hours and you can use the off timer on the fan to limit it to six hours as well. That will help you to cap the electricity you use, as well as protecting your home from mould growth.
You could save thousands!
In 2022 we looked at the cost of running a Meaco Arete for six hours a day, 365 days a year and compared this to other dehumidifiers available in Britain. The results were shocking: buying a non-Meaco brand could set you back over £700 over the five-year Arete warranty period! This shows just how poorly designed some dehumidifiers are.
Add to that £700 saving the potential to save £300 per year on drying laundry costs and you are looking at a massive, combined saving of £2,200 by using Arete to dry your laundry over that period of time – and that’s got to be worth investigating.
In my opinion this is yet another reason why Meaco dehumidifiers are different – and it all starts with listening to our customers.
