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It performs really well and I am glad to have bought it. Having never owned a dehumidifier before, I was apprehensive about buying one that costs £300, however, it collects a great deal of water when run overnight. Now that we are getting into winter it’s also useful for speeding up the drying of clothes on the clothes airer too. I have other videos on the Meaco Arete One but if there is anything you wish to see specifically do let me know

What I can do is put the sensor at the same level as the dehumidifier when it’s next running to see what the difference is

That’s great to hear a positive review. The one in my son’s bedroom has collected even more water since the video was released - perhaps it’s the weather turning wet again or something to do with them ‘getting going’ as such?

I’ve thought upstairs works best as humid air rises, however, so does warm air. Perhaps my house has a warmer upstairs than downstairs as when I’ve trialled the dehumidifier in the downstairs hall it seems to capture more.

I agree it’s not free, however, you can minimise cost depending on when you do it. In the video I mention after dinner but if you do it before leaving for work, providing you have a south facing property the solar gain may offset some or all of the heat losses - depending on where you are and the makes up of your property.

you are only dumping the heat in the air . The majority of the buildings heat is in the walls. To raise 100m3 air by 10c needs 0.33Kwh of heat ... so a normal house heating outside air 1-3Kwh depending on temp etc ( is my maths right ?

@brackcycle9056 we must also add the lost latent heat of the moisture to the calculation. But an additional advantage is that dehumidifying is continuous and more comfortable. It also makes good battery top-up water.

What’s your opinion on Air-to-Air heat pumps? Since they should bring the humidity down. Aware of the downsides about not included in heat pump grants and you need a less efficient means of heating water but then that issue depends on lifestyle.

I've uploaded the follow up and would appreciate your thoughts given your success with them!

I totally agree with you there. The inspiration for this video came from the energy support forums I frequent that sees posts by those on low incomes where the cost of a dehumidifier is too large of an initial outlay or with older, perhaps unmaintained properties that are dealing with condensation and mould issues. In future videos it might do me well to mention that, however, I wonder if I’d receive such informative responses had I done so!

That means so much, thank you too!

Part two will be filmed this week 👍

I'd say using a dehumidifier is cheaper overall, but what do you do when you can't afford the upfront cost of a dehumidifier but suffer with condensation and mould?

Can you give me an example of one of those simple units with in/out built into the wall extractor please.

Except it's the same temperature! Maybe you mean to say humid air has more specific heat capacity and higher thermal conductivity so can transfer heat away from something warmer more effectively.

This sounds like a great idea! I have a few questions if you don’t mind answering them: Is it cost prohibitive? Can it be self installed? Do you recommend any specific product / manufacturer?

​@@GreenWhereItSuits I have installed HRVs myself in two houses which I have owned. One was a bungalow which is the easiest to install and a house I live in now which is a 4-bed detached. This was a bit more problematic as you have to get ducting downstairs, in this case I fed the 100 mm ducting down through fitted wardbrobes to the living and dining rooms for fresh air in; kitchen and utility for stale air out. So yes, they can be installed as DIY and very easy in a bungalow. A house requires a bit more thought. HRVs are designed to run continuously replacing the entire air of the house every couple of hours. To make them efficient the house needs to be fairly air tight. During the summer we leave the HRV off as the windows are left open. The HRV draws about 15 to 20 watts depending on setting. Costs vary on size of house but mine was around £400. It's been running faultlessly for 13 years now. It is made by Vent-Axia. www.vent-axia.com/mechanical-ventilation-heat-recovery-mvhr

Wow, seems like this is perfect for me, I got a house in Devon, sold brick, cement render, it keeps getting black mould everywhere from the dampness. Would this work for me? I was going to add some ventilation bricks. But now that you said house should be sealed I'm thinking not hmm 🤔

When ghostbusters said ‘don’t cross the streams!’- they were right.

We’ve had it on the landing with doors open but not directly in the room and myself my wife and two young children have had no issues

Ours was so loud, sent it back. Measuring between 49-67dbs... what a racket.

It’s great! Would you like me to perform any specific test? I have posted a quick video on overnight collection as well as a Short that covers a 1 hour test in a small room with a moderately high temperature.

Can you use a smart plug to use in cheap electric window? (You can’t on my present one)

Very well explained. I bought this. Last year, and I am pleased with it. Would you happen to know the running cost of this machine? I have a damp kitchen and have kept the machine running on automatic for the last ten days. Also, do you know the best number to run it at? Thanks.

If you check out my other videos I demonstrate how you can get the dehumidifier to turn on using a timer or smart plug. The dehumidifier cannot be operated remotely, however, if you power it off at the wall rather than using the button on the control panel it will resume dehumidifying once power is restored. Using a smart plug you might be able to operate it remotely. Alternatively, laundry mode runs for a max of 6 hours and no more - again there’s another video on operating it on my channel too 👍

Try looking for the Meaco arête two - you can control remotely and set routines in the app 👍🏻

The dehumidifier had been ran overnight downstairs instead of upstairs and I was attempting to measure how much moisture had been captured compared to running it upstairs 🤦‍♂️

Great question to ask! Humidity is a funny thing and works in different ways when you are feeling hot or cold. In this instance we had a mini heat wave and so we were feeling hot and bothered. By lowering the humidity the room is more easily able to wick away sweat from your body which leaves you feeling cooler - increasing the humidity when you already feel warm will make the same temperature feel hotter. The opposite happens when you are cold. A humid room with the moisture touching your skin will feel colder, and removing humidity will make it feel warmer. Does that help? In the winter months the lack of humidity will make you feel warmer.

@@GreenWhereItSuits thank you for your informative reply. So in your video, how did you find the room after running the dehumidifier for one hour? Was it warmer or more cold than that before running the dehumidifier? Thank you so much. Your feedback is really helpful

In this instance, the room was uncomfortably hot to be in and running the dehumidifier made the room feel more comfortable / cooler. I must stress though that if you have high humidity in a room that feels cold, removing the moisture will make it feel warmer. The reason being is that a high humidity level exacerbates how hot or cold the room feels.

Having had the washing machine overflow this year due to poor plumbing, and being concerned about the fire risk of leaving the tumble dryer on I don't think we would like to run either overnight but I do believe that would save money as those are typically the cheapest rates.

How are you checking your humidity levels? In the description there are links to the hygrometers I use in each of my bedrooms and living rooms including kitchen. Cooking, especially with gas adds to the moisture in the air, but so does breathing in general. My son has the smallest room and the humidity climbs throughout the night. Another thing to bear in mind is that you are likely looking at relative humidity which given the same amount of moisture in the air will read higher in colder rooms and lower in warmer rooms. Relative humidity is like a sponge that grows with air temperature and shrinks in cold temperature, when the room gets too cold the sponge can be squeezed to the point water comes out - which is what happens with condensation. Is your flat getting cold overnight?

No problem at all I’ll post a link to them below. They do come with an app that syncs to them via Bluetooth which means you refresh the monitors manually or you buy a hub and then it syncs for you and allows you to view the data outside the house - perhaps I should make a dedicated video SwitchBot Hygrometers : amzn.to/4e6OFrl

@@GreenWhereItSuits Thank you so much. It is very kind kind of you. I will check them.. best regards...

Thank you - if there is anything else you specifically would like to see do let me know - I have an update relating the small pump I had fitted. To to fit the outlet we cut the hole and then tied a washer onto some string and hung it inside the waterbutt and then titled the waterbutt until the washer came out of the hole - trying to hook it with whatever we had on us. Once through the hole we dropped the fitting down the string which led it to the hole, which allowed us to stick a finger in the fitting pull it through the hole 🙂 We did buy a low pressure inlet for the cistern but it was cheap and worked with the mains pressure inlet too. Check valves aren’t sufficient for preventing contamination, you need to have an air gap such as a type AB airgap. That was the intention for mine but the plumber forgot and installed them at the same level. The water lard signed ours off as there is an automatic overflow and with the float pressed down (to let mains water in) the overflow was more than sufficient to let water overflow without rising up and submerging the mains. I personally would avoid removing the mains as come summer you’ll be annoyed at filling the waterbutt and also, my Mrs wasn’t best pleased as to how slowly the toilet filled up on rainwater alone, so I have the toilet fed by mains at a slow rate to supplement the refill speed. I now have a small 12V pump that plug in which aids in the refill time, but I still won’t turn the mains completely off as it means that with the waterbutt dry the toilet cistern can still fill up. I recently came across my documents that were submitted when getting the toilet signed off so I can discuss that process and the types of airgap if that would help?

Thanks for all that helpful info! At present our cistern is exposed, made of ceramic and has a float to to shut off the water flow as it is filled. On your video there are 2 water inputs to your cistern. I suppose I would have to change the toilet to one with a concealed plastic cistern. In my case, to avoid changing toilet and cistern perhaps I would have to go the route of disconnecting the wholesome water (a compression fitting end stop) and simply connect the original input to the water butt supply. But as you say, tedious if I keep having to fill the butt by hose!

Our original toilet had a ceramic cistern which I had planned to keep before we decided to redo the overall room. That had an overflow that went out the wall. I was going to repurpose that overflow as an inter and fit an overflow that drains directing into the toilet bowl. Perhaps you have something similar?

I have it on the landing if our 4 bed house and it does a good job - see my other video to see it in action. If there’s anything specific you’d like to see I can record another test for you. I ran it overnight last night and it reached the target humidity of 50% that I set and maintained it. The tank was 3/5th full come morning.

I'm afraid I'm not sure what was meant by this comment - the Agile pricing or perhaps the power being drawn from the dehumidifier?

How did you get on? I ran mine overnight with a target humidity of 50% and it was 3/5 full this morning. I’m aware it kicked in and out as it reached it target.

@@GreenWhereItSuits I have set mine on 50 as well and last night went to the toilet it was off showing 48%, no idea what time it was tho. Now I had to empty out the tank full. So far very happy with it! House feels dry as it was 72% and now keeps around 50.

That's a great question and something that was a concern ahead of the project as I have seen peoples waterbutts in allotments burst after the water has expanded whilst freezing. In short - I'm not aware of it having frozen. The waterbutt backs on to the house which must help it get some heat, its also a large volume of water which freezes top down so it wouldn't interfere with my supply immediately. I can only speculate that its assisted by being connected to our downstairs toilet which gets a good amount of general use, and water being topped up frequently enough from the wet weather at that time of year. I did contemplate adding in a floating ball to help break up any forming ice but opted not to in the end.

Thank you very much for your reply and detailed explanation.

If you check out this video I provide a link to it in Amazon and the keywords I search for it in the description - I’ll have a look to see where I actually bought it from for you Rainwater Toilet Installation: A Sustainable Solution for Eco-Friendly Plumbing ruclips.net/video/-9g2QYC3ogI/видео.html And yes I did find a pump that’s working great, however, I haven’t set up a dedicated power supply to it yet so I run an extension lead on dry days at the moment!

You’ve got it spot on 👍 To avoid the waterbutt from overflowing the rainwater needs to be able to drain down the main drain before the waterbutt is completely filled. It was a task conveying this to the guys that installed it for me as part of the toilet renovation but it all worked out in the end. The small inclined pipe does also fill with water and I need to be mindful of when I clean the J spout/bend as I don’t want to do it after the waterbutt has been completely filled - I should be doing it regularly anyway, but preferably before rain is due. The waterbutt only drains down to about half way via gravity alone but I’ve been powering a small 12v pump in dry days to drain the bottom half which has been going pretty well!

Pears are a great shout. My local ASDA often has fruit reduced so I’ll keep an eye out, thanks!

In my experience the more a banana ripens the more it sweetens but I don’t believe smaller bananas are less sweet?

Merry Berry suggests a wooden spoon or an electric mixer to mix the batter so I thought I may have under mixed it! The mixture filmed was the light enough but do you think I should try another batter with less mixing?

@GreenWhereItSuits Well, I would still keep this recipe. I think that any banana bread recipe, or even pancake batter, cake and cookie recipes, are supposed to be *only* mixed just until everything is incorporated. I would not mix everything all at once. It's easier to just assemble and mix the wet ingredients first, then add the dry ingredients mixing just until all is incorporated; about a minute or two by hand. I like 2 bowl recipes to seperate wet from dry. Use a large bowl for mixing wet ingredients first. Then add dry ingredients to fold in. You can look up differences between common hand mixing terms. I saved your recipe only because it's so straight forward and I know these things and would not overmix. Personally, I prefer light and fluffy banana bread. Also, I would use a spatula to scrape all of the batter out of the bowl into the loaf pan 🙂

I've made this a few times since your comment and have determined that as long as the banana is sufficiently squished up and the butter soft enough to mix through it will turn out just fine. If you don't you get clumps of banana which isn't an issue for me, but having people in the house who do not like bananas 'raw' does become an issue. If the butter isn't sufficiently mixed you can get a greasier outside as the lumps of butter on the outside just baste the bread! Adding the wet ingredients first followed by the dry really does help to avoid the issues mentioned above. Thanks again for your constructive comments :)

Some were pulling off the stem with ease whilst others would ‘ping’ off - is that what you mean by mushy or do you mean by giving them a little squish?

A float switch would work to fill the waterbutt/tank but the question I’d ask is what problem does it solve?

​To automatically switch to main water if rain water is out.

If you're willing to use mains water as a backup, a cheaper solution with less maintenance would be the option I have gone with which is to have two inlets into your cistern (at appropriate heights above water). The mains is restricted and fills up alongside your rainwater. If he waterbutt is dry it still fills up from the mains - slower rate you have specified. This approach allows you to better track your rainwater consumption (if you intend to) as topping the waterbutt up means you would need to meter the mains going in to determine what consumption was mains and what was rain.

The stand would need to hold 650kg, and not have the waterbutt look like an eyesore :D

It will depend on your cistern. I will upload a video eventually but we had a porcelain cistern that had an overflow I felt we could use to plumb in the rainwater feed and overflow into the toilet. If you have a plastic cistern like we now have, you could have an additional inlet added by someone competent - just be sure its at the correct height for the flow rate!

I had originally thought about having wall mounted tanks high up on the wall, but soon realised the capacity just wouldn't be there and it would sit empty for long periods of time. As you mention, if the tank was any higher it would foul the cladding and possibly look bad (or worse than it is for those thank aren't to keen on it haha). Thank you for your kind comments. I enjoy doing my part for the environment especially if I think it may help the bottom line of running the house, and even if it doesn't its a relatively cheap hobby/experiment and allows us to be somewhat self sufficient. I hadn't actually thought about how it might be reducing the amount of rainwater being carried off, and therefore reducing spillages of which affects us quite a lot living so close to the coast!