AprilAire E080 Pro 80-Pint Whole-House Dehumidifier, Energy Star Certified, Commercial-Grade Whole-Home Dehumidifier for Basement, Crawlspace, or Whole House up to 4,400 sq. ft.

I bought this after my 6 year old Honeywell TruDry 90 developed a refrigerant leak and spewed oil into the condensate tray and drain. Shame on Honeywell. They should know better and be able to build something that lasts longer than 6 years for that kind of money. My house's A/C system lasted 20 years! Since the reviews were even worse than I expected for a new similar replacement Honeywell unit, I did a hard pass and started looking at Aprilaire.The Aprilaire E080 I chose is a nicely built unit and kudos for being a USA manufacturer. They took the time to really insulate it with tons of Styrofoam panels inside with this particular model. Apparently, the E080 is their only really well insulated unit at this moment out of their product lineup. They also had a beast of a support shipping bracket for the compressor strapped to the backside, which saved my unit from damage since the people who load boxes onto the trucks at Amazon's warehouses can't seem to understand what those large "THIS END UP" warnings printed on the boxes mean. Mine was sitting in the truck on it's backside, compressor on the bottom. I kept the box, support bracket and straps (even though they say to throw them out) if I ever have to ship this unit back for repairs/replacement in the future. A note to buyers. DO NOT THROW OUT those Styrofoam inserts that are placed inside the plastic duct collars for this unit. They are for noise reduction, not prevention of shipping damage, so keep them inside the collars when installing. I also moved the control panel to the front to keep it from getting dusty in my basement and thus scratching the clear display panel when being cleaned.Once the unit had sat for a couple of days, I put it up on my leveling pallet that keeps it off the basement floor, swapped the rear collar to the top of my unit and attached it to my overhead duct to distribute the exhaust away from the unit and out into the room and hooked it up to my drain. It fired right up when I turned it on. Soon it starting dumping water into the drain like crazy. This unit has an interesting method of operation. It doesn't work like my old Honeywell unit did, although I suspect that if I had an external humidity controller like my Honeywell unit did, it would probably be similar. But since this unit has the controller/humidistat mounted on the front, what it does is first turn on the fan for 3 minutes to sample the air humidity. After that 3 minutes, if it detects that the humidity in the room is higher than the set point on the control panel, it then turns on the compressor to dehumidify. Even though my basement was already at 48% (according to my probably inaccurate little hygrometer), this was a test and it ran until it hit 3% below my set point of 53% and turned off. Since the room was already dry enough, it did not need to dehumidify again. What this unit does is sample the air every hour, so you'll hear the fan turn on for 3 minutes during those times. If the humidity is below the set point, the fan then turns off and the compressor stays off until the next cycle. I'm hoping this run procedure works when my basement starts getting really humid in the spring and fall. Winter, it's generally not needed and only sometimes in the summer. If once an hour doesn't work out, I'll purchase the add-on external Aprilaire controller, but I suspect it will work great as currently set up. Now if it lasts longer than 6 years, I'll be a happy camper.Given that my local HVAC company does not know much about dehumidifiers in my area, I probably know more about them than they do at this point. They sold me the original Honeywell unit and weren't even sure how to set it up. THEY had to read the manual just to figure it out. They certainly couldn't fix it when the coils finally sprung a leak a few months ago. It's now deemed non-repairable and has to be discarded or recycled. I've also repaired it on my own at least once, when the defrost thermostat failed, which was a known issue at the time. Research saved me a big call charge, even under warranty, and getting a repair person who probably knew nothing about the unit to even diagnose it in the first place.

Using this to handle humidity in a 3300 sq./ft. home. 50% of the house was built in 1918 and the other in 2006. We recently installed hardwood flooring on the entire first floor. This unit was needed to maintain a very specific relative humidity so the floor doesn’t swell and contract with moisture variations that were not manageable with the furnace and AC alone. This unit sit in our basement and drains directly to a floor drain. This can be installing directly into the duct work but I did not use that option.Within 24 hours of installing, the relative humidity was pulled down to our target 52-55%.Runs quiet and efficiently. My new floor will be trouble free from now on.

I got this unit (after performing a lot of research) because I was so sick of buying a dehumidifier from a big box store, or online, only to have it die within 1-2 years. This seems to be a common problem. My last unit (midea) died after 45 days.When I researched the issue it seems most dehumidifiers sold today, under different brand names, are actually made by one or two factories. So, changing 'brands' does not help as it is the same unit under the covers.I am using it as a 'stand alone' unit in my unfished basement (not tied into HVAC ductwork).initial reactions for this unit:made in USA.well packaged.heavy duty metal construction.good documentation.got it up and running in a couple of minutes.Relatively quiet. In fact, quieter than any of the big box units I have previously purchased.Looks like it would be relatively easy to take apart and service.digital display and controls.unit fan turns off once the desired humidity level is reached - unlike most big box units where the fan runs constantly even if the dehumidifier compressor is not running.I will update this review if anything changes for the worse.warranty notes:As stated above, I am using this as a 'stand alone' dehumidifier (NOT as a unit tied into an HVAC system/ductwork). I contacted AprilAire about warranty coverage for my situation as they mention 'professional installation' on their website. . They said that such a 'stand alone' use setup by a customer (and NOT as a unit tied into an HVAC system/ductwork by the customer) IS covered under warranty.

The media could not be loaded. Heavy and difficult to move without another person. Easy and straightforward to unbox and setup. My purchase was only the dehumidifier so I had to purchase PVC tubing and plumbers tape for drainage.Pulls the humidity down from 48% to 43% in about thirty minutes. Kicks on once an hour with this setup which isn’t bad. Unfortunately without ducting this unit will produce 55dB or more of sound. I had expected the noise to be less noticeable but I can hear the high-pitched hum from the crawlspace throughout the house. Sent a video to Aprilaire who confirmed this is normal operation.Build quality appears excellent, even if one of the logos was slightly diagonal. Time will tell if this unit holds up or gets louder. Hoping to find a way to reduce the noise.