86'n It

Goodbye LG.

So of course, now that Marc almost killed himself installing the floor drain and sump pit, we have not had enough water down there to even get close to the floor drain.

(Well actually, I think that once a 1/2" stream got close that enough maybe a drop or two went down the drain.)

While we were busting our butts on the backyard, we noticed the basement was getting humid, then downright tropical. I tried fixing the old dehumidifier, but could not get it to work consistently. This LG brand has performed valiantly, running almost non-stop 8 months of every year for the last +4 years. So we decided to retire it.

Goodbye dear, sweet dehumidifier. Job well done.

I did a bunch of research on the web, particularly this website. I narrowed it down to Frigidaire or Danby. I found the Frigidaire much cheaper than the Danby, so I scored the Frigidaire FAD504DUD 50 Pt. Dehumidifier off of amazon for $168.54 with free shipping. There are some reviews on Amazon talking about the direct drain, we just put a piece of thin wood under the front wheels and it is working fine.

At first we thought that this new Frigidaire was not as good as the old trusty LG because the basement still seemed damp. But then I thought: well, it has about 3 months worth of moisture to remove, so we let it run for a week and now the basement feels bone-dry! Which is saying something considering we got a TON of rain from the Lee storm. (We only got a nice breeze from Irene.)

The Frigidaire has turned out to be quite the workhorse and it is much much more quiet. Plus, even though the sump pit hasn't handled any floods, it is worth it just to have the dehumidifier drain directly in it. Because what good is a dehumidifier if you forget to empty the bucket??

To be honest the dry basement is also partly due to my trench drain and the new gutters, but let's give the dehumidifier its due too.