Bionaire BDQ24-UC 20-Pint Dehumidifier, White Review

I live in an old house outside San Francisco where there is no central air or heating. During the summer, we leave the windows open because the weather is perfect, but in the winter and fall, we close up -- unfortunately, this means having a damp house because the bathroom and kitchen never dry up. Humidity was a new problem for me and I had never purchased a dehumidifer before, so I crossed my fingers and bought the Bionaire BDQ24-UC.

My first impression was "wow, it's bigger than I thought" (of course, this was my fault for not reading the dimensions on Amazon before ordering). However, it really isn't all that imposing. It fits neatly into our tiny bathroom, and doesn't stick out at all.

Secondly, the thing works like a champ. The economy mode is great for us, because we'd like to keep utilities low AND let our towels dry at night. The first night we had it on, it pulled out about 2-3 cups of water, and brought the relative humidity down to 50% from about 78%, on a night where it was about 50 °F. From my perspective, this was an overnight fix.

As far as the noise, I'm a very light sleeper; a drip from the bathroom faucet next to our bedroom will keep me up at night. The Bionaire is pretty quiet-- it's similar in volume to a window-unit air conditioner. So it doesn't keep me up at night, and I can watch movies in the next room without really noticing.

I gave it four out of five stars because the humidistat lags a bit (~20 min) when in economy mode -- while this really is not a big deal for me, I could imagine that a different design might work better for those who need an instant response. I can't attest to its long-term reliability because I only have the experience of a few weeks, but if you're concerned about that, then it does have a 2-year warranty. It ships with a receipt from Amazon, so be sure to hang on to that. Best of luck!

UPDATE (Jan. 2008): Two years later, it works great. A month ago, it seemed like it wasn't sensing the humidity so well. It turns out the air filter was clogged-- oops, I hadn't cleaned it since I bought it! I washed the filter in the sink and put it back on the machine still wet. Works like it did on day one. I recommend it very much still, and if I could give it 4.9 stars, I would.

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Product Description:
The Bionaire Dehumidifier can remove up to 20 pints of moisture per day.The standard features include a digital humidistat which reads the relative humidity level in the room, two present humidity level options, an economy mode option, and a continous mode option.Additonaly the unit comes with castor wheels and a handle for easy portability.

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