It is a common occurrence that basements get more moist and damp than the rest of the house. The answer is appears would be to look at basement dehumidifiers. But what exactly is this creature? I mean sure there are all sorts of dehumidifiers out there but what makes a certain one the special thing that you need to dry up your basement?
Well first lets look at why you may need to look into basement dehumidifiers. Normal levels of humidity in a house are deemed to be less than 50%. If you have higher than 50%, we get a point. Got any mold, mildew, warped wood or wet carpet? That’s a point. How about odor? That’s a big old point. These are tell tale signs that the levels of moisture in the air are too high and you need a basement dehumidifier.
The big question is however, is there a difference between basement dehumidifiers and the many other styles out there. I don’t really think so. There are several basement models that operate better under lower temperatures than others and so get the special title but nothing really significant. One selling point of basement dehumidifiers is that they can remove moisture from air all the way down to 50°F
Of course if your basement is really damp than you will want to make sure that the basement dehumidifiers that you look at are higher capacity. Most will hold anywhere from 45 to 120+ pints of condensed water vapor. Other than water holding capacity issues I cannot see why you wouldn’t just go shopping for a nice portable dehumidifier that you could use all over your house instead of just the basement.
One valid reason that I can see to buy a specifically labeled basement dehumidifier is if you have a large basement between 2000-3000 sq ft that is very damp and you want to use only one machine to do the whole job. If this is the case basement dehumidifiers usually have a bit more power and square footage capacity than the smaller portable units do.