I’m living in Wufeng, Taichung. Currently, my apartment is heavily infested with mold. I’m not sure which one to buy. My budget only allows me around 1k NTD. For reference, my apartment consists of 1 bedroom (3.5x3.5) meter and 1 bathroom (2x1) meter. I was considering this one.
But if it’s possible, I want to combine it with an air purifier. I heard the ones with a HEPA filter are the good ones. But I’m fine with just a dehumidifier as long as it solves the mold issue, is within my budget, is energy-efficient, and covers for my whole apartment.
If you have any suggestion or recommendation, please help me. Which one should I buy?
Been in your position before. Room same size. Mold everywhere. But sorry to not be able to recommend any lower budget dehumidifiers. I now have a large house so need large robust dehumidifiers to reach my level of accepted humidity. Good luck with your search…
Unfortunately, for $1000 you’re not going to find a dehumidifier that will make a notable difference. In that price category, you won’t be able to get a model with a compressor, so the amount of water the dehumidifier can get out of the air per day will be really small.
Even the cheapest models with a compressor will set you back around 3000-4000$. For example, this one:
But that one will already dehumidify at 12L/day (30 degrees Celsius/RH80%) or 6L/day (27 degrees Celsius/RH60%).
The one you linked doesn’t even seem to specify how much water it can get out of the air per day. But it’s very well possible that it’s less than 1L/day…
It was crazy, walls were “sweating” and my metal magnet on the door started to rust after a month or two already!
We bought a dehumidifier from Sharp, it was discounted, but without discount the price would be about 6,5k NTD.
For one room plus bathroom works like a charm. (Removes 6L a day.) As long as I use it every day, the humidity can be kept under 65%.
Please note, that it still makes slight noise, and needs to run for a while, which is mostly completely fine for me, but if someone wants to turn it on for one hour a day and keep the humidity low, then really needs to buy even more expensive one, which can remove the water from the air even much faster.
To kill the mold, UV-C lamp makes a great combo, but beware, either turn it on only before you leave for 4+ hours or open a window, as the ozone can be irritating.
Also might be harsh to plants and degrade all kind of surfaces faster, anyway, many doctors have such, it is very useful.
You can buy one with remote control, so you can easily avoid the ozone and UV-C light exposure (it is different than sunbeds, really not for tanning!).
Heater does not dehumidify the air, just if there is higher temperature, the air can hold more water.
It did not help us, especially, as almost every afternoon it rains here.
In the winter, if it hasn’t rained recently that day, it actually helps to open the window, because the inside air is warmer and goes up, therefore away faster, but can get a bit cold for my taste.
But you should not breathe it much neither, so again, if he uses it, he should open the windows wide open and go somewhere for a day.
A dehumidifier is basically an ac unit with both coils inside. Ac is going to have much higher water removal capacity because it just has a higher heat removal capacity.
Forced air heater reduces humidity because cold air doesn’t hold much moisture in the first place, and warmed air will have much lower relative humidity as a result. Dehumidifier doesn’t work well when it’s cold. It might work better when it heats up the air however. All that condensate from ac units is it removing moisture from the air.
I checked and it probably is, because we have an old AC which does not have dehumidifying function. And generally landlords who do not care about mold would not buy a newer better model of AC, which might be the OP’s case as well.
It is my first time living with AC, because back home generally we need heating, not cooling, except of the 2-3 hot months a year.
Well, but that is only relative humidity, also the windows in Taiwan have terrible thermal insulation, so it is very cold near them, therefore the water is going to condensate around the windows like crazy → mold.
If you have an AC, which can dehumidify, then that’s great - I did not know about such, but if the OP does not have, he needs dehumidifier…I pour down the washbasin like 1-2 litres every day to keep the air between 50-65% and the apartment is really small.
Seeing the the extreme rusting even on a magnet, I am sure such high humidity is going to rust laptops, computers etc as well.
Also another thing is, that dedicated dehumidifer consumes just a little of electricity.
The one we have (I think it is good deal for the money) uses just 120 Watts per hour.
If you get a really powerful one, might be 360 Watts per hour - gets the job done 3 times faster, so that’s fine.
I just quickly Googled it, but approximately the dehumidifier is going to consume about 10% of electricity compared to an AC.
While electricity in Taiwan is not so expensive, yearly the difference can add up to dozen(s) of thousands NTD.
If you get the indoor weather station, you might get shocked about the humidity numbers.
We bought a basic one in Ikea, but these mixed hardware-drug stores have them too.
Above 60% humidity, bacteria and viruses thrive.
Previously I got even moldy pillow , as the bed is (genius idea) tightly to the window wall.
Getting humidity in Taiwan below 60% will be a huge challenge. This means hermetically sealed room and a dehumidifier running nonstop. It’s easier if temperature goes below 10 degrees because you can just use a space heater and watch the humidity drop. I have a humidity meter so I know this.
Ac sucks out humidity just as a byproduct of their operation. Just keeping the ac running will lower humidity. If you want lower humidity at the cost of less cooling, run an undersized unit and have it run nonstop, it will reduce humidity too. A dehumidifier is basically an undersized ac unit.
I noticed that too, but I think it’s just poorly phrased — even fairly correct by TL standards. Like you said, heating decreases relative humidity by increasing the denominator and expands the air, but since it’s not actually removing any water, saying it “dehumidifies” is probably a stretch.
This is wrong though, so we’re back on brand now. I have humidity meters too and my room isn’t hermetically sealed (obviously), and it’s trivial to reduce the humidity below 60% just using my AC unit.
It does require being willing to use the AC unit rather than some convoluted money-saving setup, but otherwise it’s no challenge at all. A dehumidifier would work as well of course (though I don’t personally use one, because I don’t have one).
Dehumidifier work better in the winter because its operation generates a considerable amount of heat. That heat would in turn help the dehumidifier work better.
Ac works really well for dehumidification but if the ac is starting and stopping too much, it won’t work as well and the ac becomes a swamp cooler for about 5 minutes after the compressor stops. This would add humidity. You want the compressor running more often than not. It’s how inverters work, reduce their capacity so it runs nearly nonstop. Otherwise if you have a non inverter you must set the temperature so that the compressor runs nearly nonstop, which gets expensive.
I’ve built a low capacity system for my room, about 4000 btu or so of capacity. It actually works very well to reduce the humidity in the room in the summer, but their ability to cool isn’t very much at all.
Mold spores are everywhere, and filling the room with bleach will only kill what happens to be on the surface at the time. It doesn’t address additional spores that will land.
Reducing humidity makes the condition less favorable for mold growth.
, as the bed is (genius idea) tightly to the window wall.