Review: Frigidaire 35 Pint Dehumidifier

When's the last time you paid attention to the humidity inside your home and not just outdoors? “What?” you may think, “Isn't it the same in here as out there?” Not always. It can differ quite a bit, depending on the season and your home's heating system. If you have a basement, then you're likely familiar with how swampy they can feel. Condensation can form on the walls, and water can even seep into your home. This mid-sized Frigidaire dehumidifier may be just what you need to make your basement (or the rest of your home) feel a bit more habitable.

The ideal indoor humidity is between 30 and 50 percent, if you want to deter mold and pests, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. If the humidity is too high, you'll feel like you're swimming in hot soup, and mildew could form in your home. Too low and your skin will begin to dry out, and your wood furniture can develop cracks and splits. The thing you may notice the most when it's too humid indoors, though, is that it feels hot. Way hotter than the thermostat says it is. Whether you're ready to try out your first dehumidifier or you're already using one and just need to replace it, check out this Frigidaire 35-pint model. You may be just as pleasantly surprised as I was. While you're upgrading your home, take a look at our guides to the Best Air Purifiers, Best Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products, and Best Dyson Vacuums.

More humid air feels hotter. Seventy percent humidity at 70 degrees will feel a lot worse than 40 percent humidity at 70 degrees. I was eager to address the swampy East Coast humidity when I unboxed my Frigidaire. Once I plugged it in, it took only 15 minutes to bring the indoor humidity of my two-bedroom apartment from a life-sapping 75 percent down to a comfortable 40 percent. With its smart settings, you set the humidity in five-percent increments from 35 to 85 percent, and the machine shuts off when the indoor humidity reaches that level.

Photograph: Frigidaire

It won't run all the time. Rather, it'll monitor the actual humidity and turn the fan on and vary its speed as needed. The Frigidaire didn't let the humidity climb more than a couple of percentage points higher than my chosen setting before it turned on again to bring the humidity back. Using a ThermoPro TP49 digital thermometer and hygrometer to measure the humidity level, the Frigidaire had a good read on the actual humidity level of my apartment. When I set it to 45 percent, it stayed at 45 percent, plus or minus no more than a couple of percentage points.

Its automatic function of turning off, on, or very occasionally to a medium or high fan setting was smooth and intelligent. When I opened a window to let in the breeze (and that swampy, humid outdoor air), the machine would soon kick into a higher fan speed to suck up the moist air that'd entered my home.

As far as noise, I'd say it's not overly noisy for a dehumidifier, but neither is it unnoticeable or "whisper-soft." Even on its lowest fan speed (of three), you'll hear it. That's why I put mine at the end of my apartment, rather than in the middle, even though it should be more centrally located. I like white noise, and I never needed to put it on a speed faster than low, even during sweltering East Coast summers. Using the NIOSH Sound Level Meter app on an iPhone 15 Pro, I measured 50-60 decibels, depending on whether the dehumidifier was humming along on low fan speed or blasting away on high. If you can't stand the sound of even a floor fan, then, well, the Frigidaire is going to bother you, because it's louder than that.

Dehumidifiers take a fair bit of energy to run, so expect to see using one show up on your energy bills. The 35-pint Frigidaire I tested used 380 watts. That's markedly better than the 590 watts the GE 35-pint dehumidifier and a fair bit better than the LG 30-pint dehumidifier's 420 watts. Comparing dehumidifiers as a whole to perhaps a more familiar home appliance, Anker says the average 55-inch TV will use 77 watts while on and 2.1 watts in standby mode.

Aside from potentially saving a bit of money on the electricity bill, you won't see much of a difference on the price tag among models. At $239, the Frigidaire is just slightly more than the $200 Hisense, $219 GE, and $200 LG dehumidifiers, all comparable 35-pint models. The

I went for a middle-of-the-road 35-pint model. It seemed right for my two-bedroom New York City apartment. That said, a dehumidifier of this size doesn't exactly tuck into a small nook or cranny. The 35-pint model is about 25 inches high, 16 inches wide, and about 12 inches deep, on par with most dehumidifiers of a similar volume, such as those from GE and Hisense. That meant having to find a heavy chunk of real estate in my small apartment for it to live. If your home is already near capacity, you may not have the room for one.

How often I need to empty the water bucket, where moisture sucked from the air is deposited, depends on how humid it was during the day, but I generally empty it once a day when the weather has been very humid and every day-and-a-half when the weather is just normal-East-Coast humid.

There are also 22-, 50- and 60-pint models. If you hate the idea of emptying the water bucket, you can hook up a hose and have the unit continuously drain into a nearby floor drain. Models are available with or without a pump. If you plan to drain downward into a floor drain, you don't need the pump, but you'll need it if you plan to drain upward into a sink. My unit didn't have a pump, so I needed to elevate it on a folding table to get the water to drain into a sink. If I were to use the continuous draining feature more consistently, I'd spring for a model with a pump without hesitation.

The hose attachment on the Frigidaire, being placed in an easily accessible spot on the rear of the machine, is easy to operate. By comparison, it was a little harder to hook up the hose to the GE and Hisense dehumidifiers because I had to get my fingers into a narrower spot. None of the dehumidifiers' draining functions clogged, leaked, or failed during my use, including the Frigidaire. Water seeping out all over my floor and down into the apartment space below me was a worry I had initially, but the Frigidaire proved to be as watertight as a sailing yacht. After living with emptying the bucket for a while, it was nice to just have it empty itself and not need any babysitting.

The bucket has a little plastic window in the front. A floating water level meter lets you look from across the room to see how full the bucket is getting. Bright red and broad, the floating water level gauge is easy to spot. I never had to actually walk over to the unit to check how full it was. Lots of other dehumidifiers have water level gauges harder to see from far away or lack one entirely.

When the bucket is completely full, the machine will send out several beeps loud enough to hear a few rooms away. Lucky for neighbors and pets, it won't beep for long. A red LED on the top of the control panel will continuously flash until you empty it, though, upon which the machine will automatically go back to work as soon as you slide in the empty bucket.

Photograph: Frigidaire

Frigidaire did its homework with the ergonomics. Thirty-five pints of water isn't light. Full, the water inside weighs about 35 pounds, plus the weight of the dehumidifier's bucket itself. It'd be easy for removing it to be clumsy. Two wide divots in the sides provide solid handholds to slide the bucket out for you to grab the fold-down handle on top. I had initial doubts about the durability of the plastic handle, but with two years of use it's held up without complaint.

Even without any wheels, the bucket itself slides in and out very smoothly, and the tactility of sliding it in is spot on. There's a reassuringly solid clunk into place when you push the bucket all the way in. It's like snapping together two LEGOs made of butter.

There's a funky clear, plastic lid over the top of the water bucket to minimize splashing as you waddle across the apartment, past coffee tables and overstimulated golden retrievers. Some customer reviews wish the entire top were open to make emptying easier, but I disagree. I empty this thing nearly every day, and I almost never get any splashing during carrying or emptying, thanks to the plastic lid. There's an opening in one corner for you to tilt and pour, and that's enough. I'm right-handed, but I emptied the bucket left-handed, too, and it's just as easy.

Four swiveling wheels roll easily, so the Frigidaire can be maneuvered to a new spot, and there's a retractable carry handle so well hidden in the top of the unit that you might not even know it's there. Like the water bucket handle, I doubted its strength initially, but I've used it from time to time and it's never broken or jammed up. Just to be sure, if I were you I wouldn't try to pick up the dehumidifier unless the water bucket were emptied first, for the sake of both that handle and your back.

There's an air filter that traps dust and dirt particles. It's no air purifier, though. It also wants me to clean the washable all the time. With as frequently as the “clean air filter” light comes on, I just don't want to that often. And while we're up there focusing on the control panel, the transparent film (which isn't meant to be removable) that goes over it began to peel slightly away at one edge by its second year, although it's so minor as to be unnoticeable to a passer-by who isn't looking closely.

I cleaned the bucket monthly with a kitchen sponge, a gentle cleaning brush, and Dawn dish detergent. At first, I cleaned it weekly, in fear of mold buildup, but as I pushed my cleaning intervals further and further, I noticed that the bucket just didn't get that gross. Even after a month, it'd have no more than a bit of white, cloudy build-up toward the top of the bucket, if at all. There are quite a few edges and nooks in the bucket design, though, which is why I brought the brush along on cleaning duty. It was nothing too hard; it just took me about 10 minutes to satisfactorily scrub it clean.

When you remove the bucket while the machine is running, it'll stop automatically. There's a slight delay, though, and it always ends up dripping for a couple of seconds after you slide the bucket out. It's something I'd like to see Frigidaire eliminate, even though the water drops onto the plastic housing and doesn't end up on the floor, and I've never noticed it leading to any mold. I'm nitpicking, but hey, it's my job.

Dehumidifiers are objects that should be almost unnoticeable if they're doing their job correctly. You tune them out when they're running, and you occasionally empty the bucket (if you're not using the continuous drain feature). On that the Frigidaire nails nearly every aspect. It simply worked to the point that I didn't have to babysit it, and it never got in my way. The only time I thought about it (better bucket emptying) was when I stopped to notice how much more pleasant it felt inside my home with the humidity just right.