I Finally Got a Dehumidifier for My Kitchen — And It’s Made a Huge Difference
Living without air conditioning leads to a very, um, special kind of summer. (Read: 3 Kitchen Problems Only People Without Central Air Will Understand.) See, my husband and I bought an old stone house a few years ago (we don’t know for sure, but the two estimates we’ve heard put the construction date at either 1720 or 1750!) and it certainly does not have central air. We thought about putting in a window unit or two, but it just seemed so wrong. We decided we could suck it up and live without AC. For the most part, it’s not so bad.
The stone really does keep lots of cool air in, so we don’t feel the heat too much. We do feel the humidity, though. Or we did until this summer, when we finally broke down and got a dehumidifier. And while I’m guessing most of you live in homes that are a lot newer than mine and maybe even have AC of some sorts, I think you can benefit from a dehumidifier, too!
We got the 30-Pint Perfect Aire Electric Dehumidifier, and my only regret is that we didn’t buy it sooner. Yes, it’s a bit pricey, and I did look at less expensive models, but I needed one that would work well. And the reviews for this guy made me think the money would be well-spent. (It was!)
To give you some context: On a humid day, we have to empty it a few times a day. (We maybe could have spent a little more on the 70-pint option, but I actually get a strange sense of satisfaction out of emptying it regularly. And I like that it’s small enough to just tuck into a corner.) It’s endlessly fascinating to think about how this little machine is PULLING WATER OUT OF THIN AIR! Water which I then pour on my plants!
Buy: 30-Pint Perfect Aire Electric Dehumidifier, $195 at Walmart
How does it help in the kitchen? A bunch of ways! For starters, my kitchen feels way less damp. Cloth napkins don’t feel like they’ve been used, cookbook pages are less curled, and opened bags of chips don’t go stale as fast as before. My copper stand mixer is tarnishing at a much slower rate, and my salt is way less clumpy. And, even though it’s not an air conditioner, it does cool off the room and I’ve actually been able to use my oven — even when the temps outside are in the upper 90s.
If you deal with any of these issues, I can’t recommend a dehumidifier enough! Especially this one. It’s incredibly easy to use: You literally just turn it on and let it run. It has an automatic shutoff so that it doesn’t spill water all over your floors and, although I was worried that the collection bin looked hard to remove, it’s really not. We actually just spent the money to get a second one for the bedrooms upstairs (because I worry about mold!), but the kitchen is definitely the room where we needed this the most.
Do you have a dehumidifier?