Colzer 30 & 70 Pint Portable Dehumidifier
Pros
- Product Comes In a Thirty Pint and a Seventy Pint Size
- These Dehumidifiers Are Light Weight and Easy to Transport
- Both Products Come With an Unheard of Two Year Warranty
- Product Comes With a Sixty Day Money Back Guarantee From Colzer
- These Products Are Relatively Quiet at Only Forty-Five Decibels
Cons
- The Four-Thousand Square Footage is Over Stated, Especially for Very Humid Rooms
- Delivery Issues - Product Should Be Shipped Upright
- Reports of Failures Out of the Box
- Mold Can Grow Inside The Dehumidifier It Not Cleaned
I bought my first home towards the end of summer in 2009. It wasn’t anything special… in fact it was a foreclosure that needed a lot of work. But hey, it was mine and that is what mattered. There was so much that needed to be done right away ranging from electrical work to installing the kitchen sink. Between all of these projects there was one thing that I noticed when walking through my basement. There was a damp, somewhat mildewy smell all throughout the basement. Well, let me back up… I didn’t notice it, my wife did. She didn’t like it.
At the time I was still young and didn’t know much about home ownership. I did some research online and found that my basement most likely had high humidity levels. You see the perfect humidity range for our homes is somewhere between forty to sixty percent. If you go lower then forty percent then you risk suffering from dry and cracking skin. In some extreme cases you can actually have your respiratory tract dry out which can lead to infections and severe colds.
The inverse of this is if your humidity is above that sixty percent mark. This is where that mildewy damp smell I mentioned earlier comes into play. You see when humidity levels rise above sixty percent your basement can become susceptible to damp smells, beading water on the windows, and in extreme cases standing water. This extra moisture in the room is prime breeding ground for a host of allergens. Some of these can include dust mites, fungus, and mold. These allergens can wreak havoc on a normal persons allergies… but imagine the damage they could do to someone who suffers from asthma or who has difficulty breathing.
If you notice a damp or must smell in your basement, or if you notice water accumulating then it is time to get a dehumidifier. A dehumidifier does just what it sounds like, it removes the excess moisture from your room and will strive to achieve the target humidity level that you set. There are dozens of dehumidifiers out there today and the amount of choices can be a bit overwhelming. In this article we are going to take an in-depth look at the Colzer thirty pint and the Colzer seventy pint models. We will review their various features, the pros, the cons, and everything else.
Sizing
Now before we get into the features of these dehumidifiers from Colzer let us first understand the sizing requirements when it comes to dehumidifiers. There are a few considerations that you need to factor in when purchasing these appliances. The first is the overall square footage of the room or area that you are trying to dehumidify. This can be found by simply measuring the overall length and width of the room and multiplying the numbers together. The combined number is your square footage. In the case of these Colzer units the thirty pint unit is rated up to fifteen-hundred square feet and the seventy pint unit is rated up to four-thousand square feet.
While these square footage numbers seem impressive there is another factor that you have to consider, that is the overall dampness/wetness of the room. Yes, how damp or wet the room is will immensely affect how well your dehumidifier works and what size of unit that you need. Let’s say for example you are trying to dehumidify a room that is twelve-hundred square feet. Now, you could go with the thirty pint… but only if the room is just damp or musty. If you have standing water or even water beading on the windows then I am going to recommend the larger seventy pint unit.
The only downside of going up a size with dehumidifiers is the price. The larger sized units obviously cost more, but you get more power. What that means is that you will remove the moisture from the room at a quicker pace and that you can handle larger rooms without an issue. If you are unsure exactly what size unit to purchase then I’m going to steer you towards the seventy pint.
Product Features
Alright so now that we’ve got the sizing requirements out of the way let’s take a look at the main reason you’re reading this article! The product features. The first, and most important, feature of these units are the dehumidifier settings. When you turn the machine on you will be greeted with the actual humidity percentage in the room. (Within a five percentage range.) You can then set a target humidity percentage by using the controls. The range on these units is between thirty and eighty percent. Remember though, the best range for our homes is between forty to sixty. Most folks end up doing high forty’s or low fifty’s.
These dehumidifiers will operate within temperatures ranging from forty-one to ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. That’s five to thirty-five degrees Celsius for you non-Americans out there. Something unique about these units is that they come with two different modes. The first is your standard dehumidifier, but the other mode is unique. That is your laundry dry mode. Yes folks, you can actually hang wet laundry near your dehumidifier and then turn on the laundry dry mode to hang dry your clothes. Now, I’m not really sure how many people would use this feature… but it is there if you want it!
These Colzer products come with a few other adjustable features. The first is the fan speed. There are two settings here a standard and high. The higher the fan speed the faster your room will see its humidity drop. I typically recommend running the fan at a higher speed to start but as your room’s humidity drops you can lower the fan speed as well. Along with the fan there is a twenty-four hour sleep timer. This timer allows you to program a time for your dehumidifier to turn off or on. This timer can be set in one hour increments all the way up to twenty-four hours. This can be useful if you want to run your unit at night and have it turn off during the day, or if you’d like to run it while you are at work during the day.
If your power ends up going out due to a spring or summer storm then your dehumidifier is one less thing you have to worry about restarting once your power comes back on. These products come with an automated restart once power has been restored. This restart will get the dehumidifier right back to where you had it set previously.
These appliances also come with what’s known as an auto-defrost feature. For those of you who aren’t aware of what this is let me elaborate. First, you should understand that dehumidifiers are in fact just like air conditioners. They both use refrigerant and go through a cooling cycle. The only key difference is that a dehumidifier has a heater at the end of the cycle that warms the air back up to your room temperature. Just like with air conditioners, the coils on your dehumidifier can eventually accumulate frost or ice. If enough ice is accumulated the unit will not work properly. The auto-defrost feature will sense this and turn off the dehumidifier process but leave on the heater and the fan. So, you get warm air blowing over the coils which will in turn melt the ice and frost. Your problem is then fixed without you having to do a thing.
Remember folks, that your appliance is removing water from the room. It needs a place to store that water. In the case of these dehumidifiers from Colzer they are stored in a 1.2 gallon, or 4.5 liter, water tank. When the tank is full the product will shut-off and alert you of the full tank via an indicator on the control panel. The auto shut-off is very helpful as you do not have to worry about the unit continuously running and overflowing water around the unit. To empty the tank simply pull it out and dump it in a nearby sink or drain. If you are not a fan of emptying the tank again and again then you can use the continuous drain option. When purchasing the unit you will also receive a water pipe that is just over three feet. This can be attached to your water tank and it can then feed the water to a nearby drain or sink. Note that this pipe is gravity fed and the water cannot flow up. The drain or sink will have to be lower then the dehumidifier.
The filter on these products need to be cleaned once a month. Cleaning it is relatively easy though. All you have to do is pull the filter out and then either wash it with warm water or use a vacuum hose attachment. If you use water please ensure that the filter is dry before you put it back into the dehumidifier. Also, make sure that you have the unit completely turned off and unplugged before removing the filter.
The last few features I’ll mention before our Pro section is that these units come with a standard 110 volt plug-in. They are also very easy to transport as they have four wheels at the base of the unit and the largest model only comes in at about thirty pounds.
Pros
I have a habit of doing this when I write product reviews. I tell myself every time that I won’t do it this time and lo-and-behold I did it again. What I am talking about here is that I detail everything that I can in our ‘Product Features’ section and then end up leaving very little for the Pros section. A lot of the points that I make in the ‘Product Features’ can easily be seen as pros as well.
That being said, I do have a few other points that I can fit into our pros section. The first is the overall operating volume of these units from Colzer. Most dehumidifiers operate in a range between fifty to sixty decibels. That is about the equivalent of a normal conversation. These products from Colzer come in between forty to forty-five decibels. That is about the volume of a hushed conversation in a library. To some that is a big difference, but to others they won’t even notice. To each their own I guess.
The big selling point here is the warranty on these products. When I visited Colzer’s site on these products I saw that they offered a two year warranty. Yes, two years. Now I have been reviewing dehumidifiers for the past four months now and I have to say that is one of the best warranties that I have seen on the marketplace. There isn’t much out there that can match it. And, on top of their warranty, Colzer offers a sixty day money back guarantee. So, if something goes wrong during delivery or if the product fails after the first month you can get your money back. I have heard nothing but good talk about their customer service. If you need to get a hold of them you can e-mail them at service@colzer.com .
Cons
This is a pretty solid product so I won’t have too much to say here in the cons section. That being said, there are two main cons that I want to mention. The first is that the seventy pint mentions that it is rated for four-thousand square feet. I am very skeptical of this number. Most seventy pint units claim about two-thousand square feet capacity. The four-thousand square foot number we see on this one is most likely in the most optimal of situations. In other words, the room they are trying to dehumidify is most likely already near the sixty percent target and there is not standing water in the area. The more water and humidity you add to an environment the more power that is needed to remove it… so that means the square footage capacity will shrink the wetter the room is.
The other con is the so called ‘upside down’ con. Nearly all of the complaints that I read on this dehumidifier were towards the delivery of the product. Remember before how we stated that dehumidifiers are very similar to air conditioners and refrigerators? Well, just like with refrigerators you cannot turn or ship a dehumidifier upside down.
Earlier this year I was helping my father move a refrigerator and we were very careful not to tilt it too far. The reason for this is if the refrigerator or dehumidifier is upside down or tilted too far then the oil can drain out of the compressor. Without proper lubrication your compressor will fail and the compressor is by far one of the most important components of your air conditioner, refrigerator, or dehumidifier. Many folks have reported premature failures of their dehumidifiers… but this is most likely due to them turning on the product right away after it being upside down. If the product did arrive upside down then turn it right side up and then wait for quite a while, maybe even a day. Then, start your dehumidifier up and you shouldn’t have any issues.
It also may be best practice to wait a day or two before turning on your new dehumidifier. The product may come to your home right side up, but who is to know if it was like that earlier that day. Always better to be safe then sorry. The good news here though is that if your dehumidifier does end up not working after a few weeks or months Frigidaire offers a one year warranty. Through my research I had found cases where Colzer offered a complete replacement product. It’s good to know you’ll be protected here.
Conclusion
Well folks I think we have about covered everything there is to cover on these dehumidifiers from Colzer. We’ve gone through the product features, pros, cons, and even a bit more. Overall, I would say that it is a great product and I really like the two year warranty. You just don’t see that on competing units. But, if you don’t want to take my word for it then you can look at our Amazon partner’s product page. There are over two-hundred and fifty reviews on these units and they all have an average of four and a half out of five stars. That equates to a ninety percent approval rating. That’s pretty damn good if you ask me.
If you’d like to purchase this unit then check out the Amazon product page (affiliate link). Otherwise, if you find that you need to do additional reading or need a different dehumidifier entirely please check out our dehumidifier buyer’s guide. This guide will take you through everything you would ever need to know about dehumidifiers. We go into sizing requirements, what features to look for, and many other topics.