De-Humidifier iced up

[mikenda - delete]

I have just been down to the boat and found my De-Humidifier looking like the inside of our kitchen freezer. It has not happened before in four season’s use and the De-Humidifier has a “auto-defrost” facility. Has anybody else had the same problem?

 

[drawp]

I had the same problem several years ago but the unit I had then didn't have an auto de-frost capability. I had to 'donate' that de-humidifier to the wife to help with drying clothes indoors and acquire a unit with controls which allowed me to set the level of humidity. With the new unit, I set it about mid range and have not had a problem with it freezing. Perhaps you need to look at the settings. It could be trying to dry the air too much and runs all the time. Alternatively there could be a fault with the machine.

Hope it warms up soon anyway!

 

[Shanty]

The "auto-defrost" on smaller de-humidifiers tends to be a "hot air" defrost. This just reverses the direction of airflow through the unit, and uses the residual heat in the unit to remove any light coating of frost. In conditions of low temperature and high humidity, this may not be enough to completely remove any coating, and the coating will build up over time.

The solution - try putting a tubular heater in the boat near the dehumidifier - works for me.

BTW - dehumidifiers don't tend to do much below 5deg C anyway, so the heater will help keep the unit actually doing something.

 

[bedouin]

I had this problem with the Dehumidifier in an outbuilding a couple of weeks ago. I think that the cold-snap at new year meant that it was just too cold for the defrost to work - I switched it off and let it defrost completely and now it's working fine again (including the de-frost).