bit-tech Shopping: Delonghi 50-Pint Dehumidifier with Pump - DE500P

Rating: 8

Time with product: 1

Strengths: Pump, fairly quiet, inexpensive from some sources

Weaknesses: Could prove unreliable, doesn't restart after power failure

Summary: So far so good despite the abysmal reviews elsewhere. The pump does work as advertised. I wish it would automatically come back on after a power failure but most electronics these days do not do the electronic boards and lack of manual switches. I like the electronic display although I have no way of knowing if it is accurate. I'll be looking to see my electric bill despite the energy star rating.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 3 Months

Strengths: Pump, two drain options (hoses included), Energy star rating, Dehumidification capacity, backlit LCD display

Weaknesses: No auto-start, possible quality control issues

Summary: I'm surprised to be writing the first review for this dehumidifier here at pricegrabber. If you look around there are lots of bad reviews elsewhere for the DE500P.I took a chance, however, mainly because I bought it at Costco for a great price, and Costco offers a very generous return policy, so I felt safe purchasing it there, knowing that if it broke in a reasonable amount of time I could simply return it for a refund.I hope I am not jinxing myself after three months, but so far it has been working great in my moderately humid (during the summer months) basement. I've never owned (nor needed) a dehumidifer before buying a house with a basement, so this year I went around looking for a good one. From the research I did, almost all makes and models get mixed reviews--seems dehumidifiers in general are just prone to having problems. The one that seems to get the best reviews online (Soleus) was not available locally to me, so I went with the Delonghi instead since I could buy it at Costco (and could return it there also, if needed). Anyway, the unit itself is fairly compact for its capacity, much taller than it is wide. It comes with casters preinstalled so it's easy to roll from room to room. It is fairly heavy (50 lbs.) but I don't really have any need to carry it around (it stays in the basement).It's energy star rated, which was important to me (and should be important to everyone in this day and age). I have only noticed about a $5-10 increase in my monthly electric bill with the unit set to maintain 55 percent relative humidity in my basement. It will also function with ambient temperatures down to 44 degrees F, so should work even on humid days in the fall. Its intake/outake is situated such that you can place the unit against a wall if desired.It has a nice LCD readout which tells you the mode its in, the current RH of the room and the RH the unit is set to achieve and maintain. It can also tell you the current temperature of the room, if desired. There is a timer function to turn it off after a certain number of hours but I found that useless for my purposes (I keep it on 24 hours a day).Due to its digital controls, it has an unfortunate side effect of not turning back on after a power failure. There's no practical way around that either... so if you live in an area prone to frequent outages you will want to look for a different model (or use a backup generator). The reason many people choose this model is due to the condensate pump. Most any other dehumidifer will offer only two options to get rid of the water removed from the air--either dump it into a bucket (which must be emptied manually at least once a day) or allow it to drain out via gravity--which isn't always practical. The DE500P offers both of those options--although the hose it includes for the latter option is only about three feet long.The third way offered by the Delonghi units is to actually pump the water (in defiance of gravity) to any location you'd like. The pump hose it ships with is nice and long (16 feet) so you can run it up through a basement window or into a sink or toilet and not have to worry about physically locating the dehumidifer above the drain. I use it to pump into a sink in my basement. It's great not having to constantly empty a bucket (which I did rely on with this unit before hooking up the pump hose one day a couple of months ago).So, if you look at other reviews you'll see many complaints of the pump going out. I don't know if that will eventually happen to all DE500P units or if only some lesser percentage fail. Time will tell. Like I said, I have Costco's return policy to fall back on if necessary. So far so good though.I'll update this review if I experience any problems with this unit. But for this summer anyway it has performed very well for me.