Nina Rosli
4 hours ago
The rain has started arriving most afternoons again, and the northeast monsoon window in Malaysia usually runs from early November through to about March, so this is the pattern for the next few months and not just a bad week. We are in a mid-floor condo with a small service balcony that gets no direct sun, and by day three the towels already smell like nothing good. The drying rack plus wall fan routine is not keeping up with four people. I keep going back and forth between a compressor unit with a laundry mode and one of the smaller desiccant types that people say work better in a cool room. The compressor ones are heavy and seem to warm the room slightly, the desiccant ones pull more power per litre but apparently behave better when it is not hot. The rack lives in the spare room and the wardrobe in there has started to smell musty too, which is the part I actually want to solve. So I would like to hear from people who own one rather than from the shop floor. Does a unit really get a full rack of towels dry overnight, or do you still finish them off on the rack? How many litres is yours and how often are you emptying the tank? And has anyone noticed a real difference on wardrobe smell or on a mattress that used to feel damp?
Replies (6)
Please log in to reply.
I run a 20 litre compressor unit in a spare room and a full rack of towels is dry by morning if I keep the door shut. The people who give up are usually running it in an open living room, where it simply cannot keep up with the whole house.
The musty wardrobe smell is often the wall behind it rather than the clothes. Pull the wardrobe out a palm's width and feel whether the paint is cold to the touch before you spend anything, damp plaster will keep coming back no matter what machine you buy.
Desiccant unit here, bought for a north facing room that never warms up. It does not heat the room the way my parents' compressor one does, but it starts pulling water out within the first hour. Louder though, the fan hums all night.
Empty the tank before you go to bed, not in the morning. Mine cut out by itself around 2am in the first week and everything on the rack was damp again by the time I woke up.
Check whether the model you are looking at has a continuous drain option. Ours sits beside the bathroom, so the hose just drips into the floor trap and I have not touched the tank in about a year.
Buy from a brand with a service centre you can actually drive to. Mine needed a gas top up in year two and the shop I originally bought it from had already closed.