Happy with dehumidifier purchase

I live in humid western Oregon, and my shop has been pretty sealed off for most of the winter. I also obtained a load of green western red cedar at the start of winter which is stickered for drying. These two facts together led me to feel that a dehumidifier might be a good investment for my shop.

After researching reviews on the different models out there, I decided on the rectangular 45 pint model by Soleusair. I chose this one because of a number of features:

Timer mode, to shut it off in either two or four hours
Auto shut off when the collection tank is full
Three fan settings
Low temperature (41 degrees) functioning
Casters and a handle to move it around easily
Range of humidity settings – in five % increments from about 35% to 80%, or continuous mode that never stops. In the non-continuous mode it will run until the tank fills or until the desired humidity is reached.

The unit also contains a humidistat which tells you (in 5% increments) the current humidity level. If this part is accurate, I am very glad that I bought a dehumidifier, because my shop was reading at 90%! I ran it for the first 24 hours continuously (as per the operating instructions) and the reading dropped from 90% to between 75% and 80%. The tank nearly completely filled, as well – you can just see the water line on the top right of the second photo.

I like this dehumidifier. On the low setting it is quieter than my air filtration unit, so I didn’t really notice that it was on. I got it for about $170 shipped from a company called Savinglots.com, which I have never used before but it seemed to get decent reviews online. Part of the casing is a bit warped on one side (things didn’t align correctly in factory assembly I think) but it doesn’t appear to affect performance at all. I was a bit nervous about leaving it running and unattended overnight but I checked on it that evening after having it on for 9 hours straight and there was no heat buildup or other indications of potential trouble.

I was surprised to find no reviews of dehumidifiers on LJ, and very few conversations about them in the forums…it seems like a useful tool for anyone who is drying wood in their shop and can’t keep the shop open to the outdoors for air circulation.

An update – when I first starting running this dehumidifier, my shop was reading at 90% humidity on the little display window. After running it for about four or five days over the course of a week (often overnight) it’s now reading 70%. I’ve no idea what level I should be shooting for, but I’m definitely impressed with this little machine.