Customer Reviews

Haier HDN455 45-Pint Capacity Mechanical Control Dehumidifier

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

This dehumidifier will nicely done, and has several well executed details. For example:
Hose drain connect has a cap that can be replaced.
It includes a three foot hose.
The drip bucket has a handle inside it.
The whole unit has a handle on the top, making it easy to carry.
It has a basic filter on the back to prevent dust buildup on the coils.
It is reasonably quiet, at least compared with my 9 year old white-westinghouse. It might be too loud in a bedroom, but I can't hear it in my basement until I'm 2/3rds the way down the steps.
It is energy star rated, and (according to the manual) consumes 520 watts of energy.

I take one star away because water can drip into the bucket even if the hose is connected if it isn't leveled just right for the water to go down the hose. If you have it such that a little water gets into the bucket AND the hose, it may be a potential for mold growth. This is a design problem that is fairly easy to overcome once you are aware of it.

I first became aware that I needed a humidifier when the condensation from my basement walls left mildewy puddles on the floor. My basement is about 900 square feet. I did a lot of research online, and although I couldn't find a review for the Haier, it had a lot of the features I was looking for (45-pint, Energy Star, Auto-Shut-off-when-full, price, etc). I left the settings on full at first; in one day there was no visible water, in two days there was no obvious dampness, and by the third or fourth day, I turned the settings to normal, and the unit began clicking off when it reached its target humidity level. Because it's in my basement, I'm not really aware of the noise, but it's quite a bit quieter than the air conditioning. If you compare it to your average box fan with three settings, I would say it's substantially quieter than the highest setting and a little bit louder than the medium setting. I've run it continuously since May and haven't noticed a huge difference in my electricity bills.

The positive reviews for this dehumidifier are most often from people who just started using it and are happy with the features. The fact is, I was happyt too until it stopped working after 9 months. There are 3 out of 14 reviews like that, one of which had it not work from the beginning. I would be interested to have people who wrote their reviews shortly after buying to update after 2 years of use. Even without this, 3/14 (over 20%) failure rate isn't good for one year of use!

I used this dehumidifier in the basement of my house. This worked fine and then stopped dehumidifying after 9 months. I don't feel that a dehumidifier should stop working after such a short period of time. I examined the inside: The compressor gets very hot and the cooling coils are not cold at all, except for a very small region of thin tubing connecting two banks of coils. Water condenses on this small portion but on no other part of the coils so total condensate is <1 ounce of water/12 hours. Deffective!

This dehumidifier has worked wonderfully since we purchased it in May 2006. We have a very humid basement, and it has turned it into a perfectly acceptable room. No more humid, dank smells coming from down there. No assembly was required; I had it up and running in less than five minutes. It has automatic shutoff when it is full, and a humidity control you can modify depending on how dry you want the air to be. It is not a quiet machine, so you may not want this in an area where you spend a lot of time. It gets a lot of use in my home and there have been no problems to date. Well worth the purchase price!

As of April 2007 it is still working great!!! and, still heavily used....

This unit worked fine for about a year. Second summer season it ceased to remove humidity from the air. May be an isolated incident, but can't recommend it.

This was fairly easy to set up and use. We are using the drain hose and after looking at the directions and looking at the materials we figured out how to connect it. The directions were not helpful at all.

I bought this dehumidifier and an LG Model LHD45EL from Home Depot at the same time. My main requirement was energy star compliant, but I have noticed some shortcomings for this model. I run both models in my damp basement continually. The Haier is very good at pulling moisture out of the air (but this should be expected) however there are some disadvantages compared to the LG:


-Water bucket is much smaller than LG, so I have to empty twice a day compared to once a day for the LG.

-Substantially louder than LG, it seems like something internally is vibrating which makes the unit even louder than it should be.

-Shell on Haier is plastic, LG is metal and more sturdy. Maybe this is why Haier vibrates more.

-Controls on Haier are manual and there is only a dial for humidity, and a slow/fast fan switch. LG is all digital with more options such as a timer.

-Haier runs constantly even when set humidity is reached. LG turns itself off.


Bottom line: this dehudifier will do the job, but there are better ones on the market.

I live in a basement apartment in a climate that is extremely humid during the summer. Under those conditions, I could run the air conditioner all day and the apartment would never cool off. After doing some research on Amazon and the EPA website, I settled on this unit and I'm very pleased with the results.

The Good-
1) Energy Star Rated - my electric bill only went up about 80 cents after I started using the unit.
2) There was a remarkable difference in humidity after the FIRST DAY. The room (approx. 750 square feet) always felt moist, but after 24 hours it had dried off to a level where I could actually feel the air conditioning.
3) The drip bucket is very easy to remove and drain. It is not at all cumbersome and has a handle that makes splashing less likely.
4) Variable setting that works like a thermostat...set the unit to a comfortable level and let it run!
5) Casters on the base and handle on the unit itself for ease in movement.
6) The auto-shutoff feature ACTUALLY WORKS!

The Bad-
1) The unit is a bit loud...about the same noise level as a window unit air conditioner. If you are buying for a basement or any area where you don't mind or don't hear the sound, then this is the perfect unit. I, however, find myself turning the unit down when I watch movies or listen to music (the unit is in my living room.

I am very happy with this purchase. It has made my apartment very comfortable at a very low cost. I highly recommend this item!

No mention in product information that fan is always on, even when target humidity level is reached. Second issue which I'm not sure is a design defect or mfg QC issue involves auto-defrost feature. I suspect auto-defrost uses heating element to control ice build up, but that heating element is always on by design or defect, Haier CSR couldn't tell me for sure. The result is when not dehumidifying this unit blows enough warm air to heat up my small basement by a few degrees. Not exactly my idea of a "high-efficiency Energy-Star dehumidifier". This unit is going back for a full refund.

I bought this last year from Amazon the same week I bought a similar LG model from Home Depot after our basement took a foot of water because of a sump pump failure. This one's still running great after spending the year in an unheated detached garage building. It performed great and has now moved to the basement since the LG model has a perpetual CH01 bucket full warning that keeps it from running at all. No negatives at all on this model from me.