Dehumidifiers

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  Buying guide

  The best dehumidifier for a basement

  For most basements, buy a 50-pint (DOE 2019) portable and run it on a hose to a floor drain; the Midea Cube 50 is our pick because its 4-gallon bucket and app make it the easiest to live with. If the only drain is uphill, buy the Frigidaire FHDP5033Y1 with its built-in pump. If you want a conventional box with a published spec sheet, the Frigidaire FHDD5033Y1; if the basement is small and only musty, the 20-pint Cube.

  Top pick: Midea Cube 50-Pint (MAD50S1QWT)

  4.0 · 8.2/10

  13 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

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  Buying guide

  The best crawl space dehumidifiers

  For most sealed crawl spaces, buy the Santa Fe Compact70: 70 pints a day at 80°F/60%, a 12-inch-tall cabinet, a MERV-13 filter and a 6-year warranty. If the space runs cold or you need a pump in the box, the AlorAir Sentinel HDi90 is the value pick; if you want to duct it or run a wall control upstairs, the AprilAire E080 is the upgrade.

  Top pick: Santa Fe Compact70

  4.0 · 7.8/10

  16 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

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  How-to

  Crawl space vents: open or closed, and when

  The folklore says open the vents in summer and close them in winter. The physics says the opposite for most of the country: in a humid summer the air coming through the vents is wetter than the crawl space, and it condenses on the cool ducts and joists, so open vents make the space wetter, and in winter they freeze pipes. Field studies by Advanced Energy and the Department of Energy's Building America program found closed crawl spaces drier, cooler in summer and cheaper to heat and cool, and the building code has allowed them since 2009. Here is how to decide for your climate, what automatic vents do and do not fix, and how to close vents properly so the space dries instead of rotting.

  14 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

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  How-to

  How to fix crawl space humidity

  A crawl space that reads above 60 percent relative humidity, drips off the ductwork in summer or smells musty through the floor registers has a moisture source, and a dehumidifier bought before the source is fixed just runs forever. The order that works is the one restoration and encapsulation crews follow: stop bulk water, cover the ground with a sealed vapor retarder, close and seal the vents, air-seal the rim, and then put in a dehumidifier sized to the space and drained properly. Done in that order, the space settles at 50 to 55 percent and the framing dries below 16 percent moisture content within a few weeks.

  15 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

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  How-to

  Dehumidifier not collecting water: how to find out why

  A dehumidifier that runs but collects nothing is usually not broken. In rough order of how often we found each one: the air is already as dry as the unit is set to make it, the room is too cold for a compressor to pull water, the bucket is not seated or the float is stuck, the drain hose is sending the water somewhere other than the bucket, or a dirty filter has choked the coil into a block of ice. Only after those come the real failures, a compressor that will not start or refrigerant that has leaked out, and those are the ones where the answer is a new machine. Here is the sequence, cheapest first.

  16 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

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  How-to

  What humidity should a basement be, and how to measure it

  Thirty to fifty percent relative humidity, measured in the middle of the room at chest height, is the target; the EPA's guidance is to keep indoor humidity below 60 percent and ideally between 30 and 50. Basements miss it for a physical reason, not a mysterious one: the same air that reads 50 percent upstairs reads 70 percent in a basement that is ten degrees cooler, and 100 percent on a cold slab. Here is how to measure it so the number means something, what the seasons do to it, and how to tell a basement that needs a dehumidifier from one that is taking on water.

  11 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

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  How-to

  How to set up a dehumidifier continuous drain

  A 50-pint dehumidifier fills a 1.9-gallon bucket about three times a day in a damp basement, and it stops the moment the bucket is full. The fix is a hose. If there is a drain, sump or sink lower than the unit within reach, gravity does it for the cost of a garden hose; if the only drain is uphill, a condensate pump or a pump-equipped unit does it. Here is how to set up each so it keeps working in August when you are not home.

  12 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

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  Calculator

  What size dehumidifier do I need?

  Enter the floor area, ceiling height and how damp the space is, and the calculator returns the pints-per-day rating to buy, in the DOE 2019 pints printed on today's boxes, with 25 percent headroom and a crawl space mode that converts to the AHAM rating commercial units still use.

  InteractiveUpdated October 30, 2026

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  Head to head

  Santa Fe vs AprilAire crawl space dehumidifiers

  Buy the Santa Fe Compact70 if clearance is under 18 in., you want a MERV-13 filter and a 6-year warranty, and you can gravity-drain. Buy the AprilAire E080 if you have 20 in. or more, plan to duct the unit or mount a wall control upstairs, and want the better efficiency figure. Both are rated at 80°F/60%, both stall near 50°F, neither ships with a pump.

  Top pick: Santa Fe Compact70

  4.0 · 7.8/10

  11 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

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  Review

  Santa Fe Compact70 review

  Buy the Santa Fe Compact70 if your crawl space is sealed or about to be, the clearance along the path from the hatch is under about 18 in., you can drain by gravity, and the footprint is under roughly 2,200 sq ft. Skip it if the crawl space is cold and vented and will stay that way (its floor is 49°F), if you need a condensate pump and a remote control in the box, or if the space is large or divided enough to need a ducted 90-to-100-pint unit.

  Top pick: Santa Fe Compact70

  4.0 · 7.8/10

  11 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

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  Review

  AprilAire E080 review

  Buy the AprilAire E080 if you have 20 in. or more of clearance and you plan to duct the unit, tie it into the house return, or put the humidistat on a wall upstairs; it ships with 10-in. collars and a backdraft damper, holds 135 CFM against 0.2 in. of static, and runs at 2.8 L/kWh with a 5-year warranty. Skip it if the crawl space is under 18 in., if it is cold and vented (the floor is 50°F), or if you want a pump and a remote in the box rather than on the order.

  Top pick: AprilAire E080

  4.0 · 7.9/10

  11 min readUpdated October 30, 2026

What we have scored

Every product in these categories is scored out of 10 against a published rubric; the stars are that score halved. The buying guides above rank them in full.

• Crawl space and whole-home dehumidifiers
  6 products scored
  1. Santa Fe Ultra984.0 · 8.1/10
  2. AprilAire E0804.0 · 7.9/10
  3. Santa Fe Compact704.0 · 7.8/10
  Buying guide: The best crawl space dehumidifiers
• Portable dehumidifiers (basement and room)
  5 products scored
  1. Midea Cube 50-Pint with Pump (MAD50PS1QWT)4.5 · 8.7/10
  2. Midea Cube 50-Pint (MAD50S1QWT)4.0 · 8.2/10
  3. Frigidaire FHDP5033Y1 50-Pint with Pump and Wi-Fi4.0 · 7.8/10
  Buying guide: The best dehumidifier for a basement