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I work in my basement shop and my 30+ year old dehumidifier ain't what it used to be. I was looking at the combo units since the dehumidifier heats the basement way too much. The ones at the big box stores are as low as $400 and say they can be used in dehumidifying mode as well as both cooling and dehumidifying. I thought that might solve my problem, especially since they are easy to vent through an exisiting window and the price is about the same as buying them separately. I would really like to build "safely" in the summer in terms of RH.

Any one have experience with these? What to avoid, what to look for kind of stuff.
Thanks...

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Chuck Kish

I've have an Ammana dual hose portable AC/Dehumidifier in an attached garage shop for 5 summers and it does well for me. I have it vented through the wall. Cooling air for the condenser comes in from the outside through one hose and hot moist air goes out the other. It has a pump to spray condensate over the hot condenser coils which increases efficiency and decreases the draining required to the most humid, tropical storm type weather. The Dehumidifying mode cools quite a bit on it so you may want to investigate how the units you are considering deal with exhaust. Some single hose units can pull in a lot of humid outside make up air.

I have an Amana single hose unit and it's in storage. I opted for a mini-split heat pump/air conditioner, and it works great. It is a bit more expensive, but it keeps the shop warm in winter and cool in summer even with the dehumidifier running solid. The portable AC would only bring my shop from 95*+ down to about 90* with the dehumidifier running, and it ran twice as much as now.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I have one of the AC units from the big box stores. It will cool the shop but the humidity goes up as it is running even in dry mode. I have to run the AC during the day and the dehumidifier at night to get the humidity back down.

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James Howard
http://www.HowardGuitars.com

I bought a 14k btu Soleus portable ac, heater, and dehumidifier. I installed attic insulation and insulated the garage door also. It was advertised as being great for a garage shop. It didn't work as advertised, at least not here in Louisiana with it's high heat and humidity. I had to stand within 3 feet directly in front of it to get any cooling benefit. I don't know how big these unit have gotten since I bought it but at the time 14k was as big as they came in a portable.
I put it away and knocked a hole in the side of my garage and installed a window and 25k btu cooling / 16k btu electric heat Frigidaire window unit and never looked back. It works great. You may have better luck in your area, but for me, a 14000 btu portable just couldn't cut it.

There's a big difference in the performance of the double hose portable ACs and single hose units. I tried a single hose 14K BTU unit and it could not cool my shop at the height of the afternoon heat. I returned it (BJ's Warehouse is great) and got the dual hose unit. It's worked great for 5 summers and if it died tomorrow I would find another. As a matter of fact here's one I saw in my email today: http://www.hhgregg.com/ProductDetail.asp?SID=n&ProductID=72609