EcoAir DC14 MK2 Compressor Dehumidifier - Review

Like many of us, I’ve recently been spending a lot of time at home, especially now that I’m working from home. As a result I’ve been looking into ways to make my home not just a more beautiful place, but also a healthier home for the whole family too.

After a damp and seemingly endless winter I’ve been noticing signs of high humidity levels in the house. An excess of moisture in the air can have damaging effects on us and our health, as it could lead to damp and mould issues as well as respiratory problems and allergy symptoms. So I decided to try EcoAir’s DC14 MK2 Compressor Dehumidifier and see what difference having a compressor dehumidifier would make.

EcoAir sell both desiccant and compressor dehumidifiers. As compressor dehumidifiers are better suited to higher temperatures normally found in the average household, this is what I chose to go with.

Stand-Out Features:

• Lightweight and portable at 12kg

• Quiet at 35 dBA

• 1.7 Litre Tank

• Touch button LED control panel

• 1 to 24 Hours Timer

• Laundry mode

EcoAir’s DC14 MK2 Compressor Dehumidifier is small and compact but still robust. As it only weighs 12kg it is easy to move around the house on its wheels, and also to occasionally carry upstairs if needed. Despite it’s compact size it still has the ability to gather 1.7 litres of water in its tank and has a 13 litre per day extraction rate, making it immensely effective at tackling humidity issues such as damp and condensation.

In the Box:

The dehumidifier arrived in a fairly small box without any unnecessary excess packaging, which is great for the environment.

The box itself includes the dehumidifier unit, a continuous drainage hose, and the user manual too. The device doesn’t need to be put together, as the water tank and the filter are already in the right place. This makes set up easy, as it is just a matter of pushing in the 4 caster wheels and plugging it in.

Functionality:

One of the reasons I like this particular dehumidifier is because of the range of useful features it has to offer. The handy touch buttons combined with the clear LED screen make it easy to monitor and maintain the humidity in the room and the Low/High Modes allow you to alternate the power when needed.

I found the timer option, which ranges from 1 to a full 24hours, particularly useful. When using it in the bedroom I could easily set it to turn off a few hours after we had fallen asleep, thus saving on electricity too. It’s also very quiet and as a light sleeper I was relieved to find it was at only 35 dBA on Low.

• Laundry Mode

During the winter months, not having a tumble drier means I have to resort to hanging the clothes up on a clothes rack in one of the rooms. I have noticed that this quickly leads to an increased humidity in the room, especially when the central heating is on full blast too.

As a result I was really looking forward to using the laundry mode on the dehumidifier, and I was impressed with the results.

After hanging the freshly washed clothes on the clothes rack, I turned the dehumidifier on to see that the humidity had increased to 68%. The ideal humidity for a room is between 30-50% so this indicated that the wet clothes were having an effect on the humidity of the room.

I turned the dehumidifier to 40% on High and left it to work. After about 5 hours I returned to see that the humidity levels had decreased and the clothes were also much drier than they would normally be at this stage. This was a great result as faster drying clothes is always a win! I also saw that the water tank was almost full of water, which demonstrated just how much water it had taken out of the air.

• Condensation and Damp

We’ve often woken up to see the windows in our bedroom covered in condensation. This foggy mist and droplets of water on the winder persists from winter through to the warmer nights in the Summer. I’ve also noticed that it coincides with the appearance of nasty black mould spores on the ceilings above the window.

Up until now a quick wipe every morning has got rid of the water, but I was looking for a long-term solution which the dehumidifier proved to be. Having it on during the night meant that we woke up to bone-dry windows in the morning, as the dehumidifier was clearly doing the job of pulling all the moisture out of the air as we slept. Dehumidifiers used over a long period of time have also contributed to the reduction and end of damp problems too.

Often with condensation and damp problems they need to be tackled early and at the root to stop it spreading, and the DC14 MK2 Compressor Dehumidifier does a great job of reducing excess moisture in a room and keeping it at bay.

• Allergens

Drier air is much less conducive to the growth of allergy-triggering dust mites and mould, which is why a dehumidifier can certainly help when reducing allergens. Although the DC14 MK2 Compressor Dehumidifier doesn’t have a particular mode or function which is targeted at this, the use of a compressor dehumidifier alone can have a positive impact on respiratory illness.

Cost:

The DC14 MK2 Compressor Dehumidifier comes in a larger 13 litre per day model as well as 11 litres per day. I opted for the 13 litre which seemed the appropriate size for our 2 bedroom home. This costs approximately £130 with the smaller version costing approximately £120.

This is the average price range for a compressor dehumidifier, and the quality of the product and the addition of a 2 year warranty makes it well worth the cost. In the longer term you would also make the money back through avoiding the costs of tackling damp and maintaining the property.

Overall?

A dehumidifier is essential to help ward off damage to your home and to yourself caused by excess water in the air. With the long and damp winters we have in the UK I saw the benefits of using the DC14 MK2 Compressor Dehumidifier immediately.

I particularly liked the EcoAir DC14 MK2 Compressor Dehumidifier because of its compact size, as it didn’t look out of place in the room and didn’t take up too much space either. I liked it’s durability and the range of features included laundry mode, which is probably where I use it the most. I’d highly recommend this model for anyone looking to solve humidity problems early and avoid the dangers it could pose longer term.

What features would you look for in a dehumidifier? Let me know in the comments below!

Browse EcoAir’s dehumidifier range on their website now.

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The DC14 MK2 Compressor Dehumidifier was gifted, all opinions and images are my own.