 Unconventional but miles ahead |
| Review Date: May 20, 2005 |
| Reviewer: J. Douglas, Falls Church, VA USA |
This dehumidifier seems to be substantially superior if you have a living space to dehumidify or care about the amount of energy you use. It is, however, quite different from any other dehumidifier I have used.
First of all, the controls are much simpler. You can only choose continuous dehumidification or three measured settings: 50%, 60%, and 70% RH. I thought I'd miss the continuous variability of my old unit, but these settings are the only choices I would really use. As a general principle, this seems like a better design because its easier to achieve accuracy at reasonable cost with three discrete measurements vs. a whole range. And I'm pretty sure it won't get stuck in the "on" position like the mechanical controls on my old noisemaker.
Its light enough for an average guy to pick up, while my old unit would give me a hernia. While it wouldn't exactly add to my decore upstairs, it looks far better to my eye than most units. Its not going to satisfy the people that like industrial, in-your-face appliances.
Speaking of noise, the Soleus is really quiet. The box says 39 db(A), but it seems like even less on the lowest fan speed. Its quite acceptable background noise for a bedroom or for watching a movie and night and day quieter than a standard dehumidifier.
The fan, as B. Hughes noted, does run continuously. However, Home Energy magazine's 2002 article on basement humidity indicates this is better for efficiency as it tends to even out the humidity in your conditioned space. It certainly does a better job of keeping corners dry.
The big selling point for me is efficiency. The Soleus excels here in several ways despite the fact that Soleus seems to have not bothered to get an Energy Star rating.
Both the Canadian and US governments participate in the Energy Star program but the Canadian one actually gives you some useful dehumidifier data on their web site. By my calculations, the Soleus is roughly twice as efficient as the better models in its size class (measured in terms of liters/KWH, the CFM-25 rates about 2.4, while the *best* units on the Candian Gov't site in its size class clock in at 1.3. Obviously, Energy Star sets an exceptionally low bar for dehumidifiers).
Additionally, most manufacturers only offer units too big for a small space, which means that they have to short cycle and won't reach their peak efficiency. The CFM-25 is much better sized for many smaller houses.
Finally, here's some data I couldn't find anywhere -- but fortunately I have a nice watt meter. The fan on my CFM-25 takes 22 watts on low and 28 on high. My meter shows a power factor of 1, which is as good as it gets. On the low fan speed with the barely audible compressor running, that jumps up to about 205 watts and a PF of 0.9, which is still pretty good.
I couldn't find a greener, easier to live with dehumidifier anywhere and am very happy this the CFM-25. |
Excellent product!!
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| Review Date: March 28, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Frank Jackson, Hawaii |
Great dehumidifier at a great price. Worked straight out of the box. We live on the 'wet side' of Oahu and have been getting more rain than usual. Humidity was so high, we had mold growing on the bottom of shoes on the floor and the entire 12x12 room felt damp. No more. This baby pulls about 1.5 gallons of water a day from the air. We already have a window a/c unit that puts out a good bit of noise and I didn't want a loud dehumidifier. This model is sooooo quiet, you can't even tell its on. Simply amazing.
Lots of pluses and very few negatives:
Very lightweight and small footprint on floor.
Doesn't require a lot of space around it as some other do.
Easy to use (just plug it in!)
It only has four settings for dehumidifying and doesn't tell you the humidity level of the room, but that wasn't important to me...I want to keep the room dry and keep it on 'continuous dehumidify' all day long. Also, it vents warm air into the room, raising temp 1-2 degrees F but with the drier air we barely notice.
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Does its job perfectly
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| Review Date: July 7, 2005 |
| Reviewer: J. Su, Chicago |
I bought it about a month ago. It's been working effectively in my basement and making the 800 sqr-ft area nice and dry. The noise is minimum. Normally you don't hear it unless you listen to it purposely. The settings are very easily understandable.
There are a few things you may want to keep in mind:
1. Fan is always on no matter it is dehumidifying or not.
2. I usually want to set the dehumidifying level to 'dry' (50%). Each time when I power it off and then on, however, level is always restored to 'continuous'. So I have to reset it. But no big deal - just one click - as long as I can remember.
3. The user's manual only gives size of the water pipe in millimeter. I found out that ID-5/8" OD-3/4" is a perfect fit to the pipe.
Over all, strongly recommended! |
Ahhhhhhhhh, silence is golden
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| Review Date: February 10, 2005 |
| Reviewer: Earthling, S.E. USA |
Pros: low electricity usage(?); effective; quiet; simple; looks good; drain hose not on bucket.
Cons: fan always on, unless powered off manually; drain by-pass connector isn't garden hose screw-on type, is push-on for plain (connectorless) hose.
This is a refreshing change from the old style dehumidifiers, except I don't have any comparison to other newer ones.
My parents bought this one for me from amazon.com to replace an old Goldstar brand they had once stored away and gave me last year. They use a couple others (Goldstar) at home and at a lake retreat, both also outdated, and we ran this Soleus Air in their basement first where they have their entertainment, office, hobby rooms so they could see what I was talking about while I had shopped around for a new one and they decided to give it as a gift.
The Soleus is hardly noticeable, even on high continuous settings, so that the TV volume could be turned down a lot.
Got it home to my place and ran it draining to bucket for a day (have drain hose in floor) and collected about 3 pints of water while central heating also runs (drier air). I normally use a vent-free propane heater that creates copious amounts of moisture in the air, but just happen to need a refill of LP right now so it isn't being used.
The CFM-25E label states it is rated to pull 10.5 pints of water per day from 80 degrees F air that has 60% relative humidity (or 25 p. from 86 F air @ 80% RH). Began at about 61% here, temperature 70 F, and dropped it to 55% in that amount of time, albeit with a little confusion about how it should be running. Meaning, I had thought all dehumidifiers turned on and off completely, whereas this one only cycles the compressor not the fan, so I had used the lowest settings all night expecting the fan to stop at some point.
If I weren't so satisfied with the performance and appearance of this dehumidifier I'd have given it only a 4 star rating for not being able to power itself completely off after dropping humidity level to one of the 3 possible settings. Yet it is so quiet my refrigerator seems noisy now! Not much difference from high to low fan speeds, far as sound output goes, but every speed blows a lot of air. This could be a big minus if you don't like air blowing all the time since, like I said, it never turns off. I'm anxious to find out if power cost drops or stays the same, the 220 watts (on label, not 200W said elsewhere) was a selling point for me.
At least it doesn't put hot air into the room like those old dehumidifiers because I'll be using this all summer in our humid climate of the Deep South, and in my case I can use the extra air movement even when the vent-free gas heater is on to help convection.
Anyway... I'm very happy with the Soleus Air CFM-25. Real good price, too.
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Works great, quiet and good price
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| Review Date: March 23, 2005 |
| Reviewer: sj, san francisco, ca |
I've never owned a dehumidifier before, but we needed one for a room that is built a ways off from the rest of the house. The room tends to get more moisture and a mild mold problem becuase the area is foggy. Since we've had the dehumidifier, its been raining and the musty smell in the room is gone. The small amount of mold on the walls was removed when we bought the dehumidifier and none of it has come back. so far so good. i highly recommend this product.
The above was written in March 2005. Just wanted to update 6 YEARS LATER and these dehumidifiers we bought back then are still working great! |
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