It all started with a notice from National Grid about dehumidifiers. We have one. It’s pretty old, but we need it because otherwise, the basement gets soggy. And smells damp. I hate that smell.

A few years ago, we had to replace all the window air conditioners because they were old, heavy, and grimy … and they weren’t really cooling the place like they should. This year, it’s time to take on the dehumidifier. Not nearly as bad as replacing five or six window air conditioners, but not free, either.

I needed something that would fly lower under the electrical radar.

We have recently become “that family” to which all other neighbors are compared, with the lowest electricity bill in our neighborhood. No one was more shocked than me when they sent me that same message two months in a row. But those days are about to end because as the outside temperature heats up, the window A/C units get installed … and whoopee, those electric bills fly up and away.

Meanwhile, getting the damp smell out of the basement is looming large. A new unit? Okay. But … how big?

None of the units I found myself staring at seemed ready to offer me information about how big an area they could handle. I needed numbers. How big a dehumidifier to dry up a damp basement? The size of a unit is measured by how many pints of water it can suck out of the air. The smallest for an average-sized basement would be 30 pints, the biggest probably 70 pints. If your basement is just a little bit damp, you might get away with a little one. If you have small pools of water on the floor, bigger is better.

I typed my question into Google.

I love Google. You can type anything into it and the answer comes up before you finish the question. Where was this marvel when I was researching papers for school? Come to think of it, I doubt it would have helped me much comparing the writing of Thomas Wolfe to Lawrence Durrell. I don’t think you find that on Google. Yet. Maybe next year.

Meanwhile, I found a couple of sites and eventually, rating our basement of 1350 feet (and only half of it is damp … the other half is bone dry), calculating it as “damp, but not really wet” — which would be discounting drenching rains, hurricanes, or run-off from snow plus a spring rain — I went for the 50 pint. The 70 seemed to be overkill. More would not hurt the basement, but it would use more electricity.

The prices were pretty much standard. Between $170 and $250 for 50 pint model. Frigidaire had the top rating, no matter where I looked. The difference in price was minimal and I have learned to not buy the cheapest appliances. When I do, I wind up buying them again and you don’t save anything when you have to buy the unit twice.

Price: $200 plus tax. Including free shipping.

It took me a surprisingly long time to coördinate the size of the basement — which I know from all the times I’ve refinanced the house — with the “damp level” of the area. This process chewed up my morning. I didn’t even look at Serendipity until I realized the WordPress daily prompt was “measure.” Nothing could be more measured than my morning.

All of which reminded me of why I was so good at technical documentation. When I’m thinking measurements and numbers, my brain locks down.

So, to reiterate, if you have a soggy basement — and so many of us do — maybe you need a newer dehumidifier. If the basement is damp, but you don’t see actual wet spots on the floor — and your basement is in the 1000 to 1600 square foot size, you probably need a 50-pint unit. Especially if you hate that damp basement smell wafting up the stairs. Save yourself the extra effort. Get one of the Frigidaire units. I’m told the wheels work well too, so you can roll it reasonably easily from room to room.  Good to know!

Categories: Economics, Shopping, Technology

Tags: basement, Daily Post, electricity, home appliances, measure, shopping online