Dehumidifiers

A dehumidifier pulls water out of room air and collects it in a bucket or sends it down a hose. The catalog treated it as its own appliance, not as a setting on an air conditioner.

Capacity is stated in pints per day at a test condition, commonly a warm, humid room. A cool basement does not match that test. The coil can ice, the fan keeps running, and the bucket stays light. A unit with a low-temperature defrost cycle is the one that still collects water when the basement is in the 60s. The sticker pint number will overstate what you get downstairs.

The bucket switch stops the compressor when the pan is full. If nobody is home to empty it, run a hose to a floor drain and keep the hose below the outlet so it does not air-lock. Place the machine with the inches of clearance the manual asks for. A unit shoved against a wall recirculates its own exhaust and the humidistat never catches up.