Abysmal GE Dehumidifier...
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Originally recorded August 13, 2023.
My dad's neighbor gave this dehumdifier to him to take a look at. It's pretty new so it was somehow under warranty, at least at the time. Everything as far as the Chinamatronics controls works, the compressor runs, the fan runs, but makes no condensation, what gives? If you said "low on charge", you're right! That's right, in just a few short years, GE turned this abysmal machine into landfill fodder. And that's how they ALL are made now! Abysmal!
Thanks for this video. I became a "conissouer" of dehumidifiers years ago growing up in the humid midwest. Like you said, purchase vintage. Up until recently, if you wanted a dehumidifier built like they were years ago, the Oasis D-165HG was a beast. Morrill cast iron watt fan motor, Tecumseh made in Brazil reciprocating compressor, and last but not least, an all aluminum evaporator coil.
They were pricey, but long lasting, no circuit boards either. Mechanical humidistat. Another is EBAC. Also, the Aprilaire whole house dehumidifiers made in late 2019 to current. Now, i know a lot of people will disagree with me on this, and that is fine, but in my experience, the longest lasting dehumidifiers have an all aluminum evaporator coil. Even ones built in the 1960s had these coils. Now, that being said, i did have some Whirlpool and Fedders/Emerson Quiet Kool dehumidifiers that had a copper tube/aluminum fin evaporator, they both lasted over ten years, but eventually the refrigerant would leak out. No, i don’t have air freshners or sulphur gases in my basement, or bad indoor iaq, it is is just the quality and thickness of tubing material is not that good anymore. Lots of recycled copper with ferrous metals mixed in that will corrode and cause a leak.
Where i work in the HVAC/R sector, the newer all aluminum evaporator coils (tube and fin, not microchannel) tend to be a lot more reliable than the last generation of copper tube/aluminum fin evaporator coils. Not to say the all aluminum ones don’t ever leak, but you hardly ever see it in the fin pack, it is generally where the u-bends are brazed or bonded to the straight tubing, and the factory may have missed a filling of the joint.
Thanks again for the great videos!
I don't get that deep into it myself. If I ever need a dehumidifier, it will be vintage for sure, But I already have a somewhat vintage one (along with a spare or two), they will probably last a really long time, so nothing to worry about.
A friend gave me a failed dehumidifier recently that belonged to one of his relatives. Similar story to this one. It too, puked the charge. It also experienced some kind of capacitor drift and was unable to start the compressor. The compressor was previously sitting there with no refrigerant, likely running at scorching hot temperatures because the cooling mechanism is no longer present. Then it sat there stalled, likely also scorching hot, just coming on and off overload while in locked-rotor state. To make matters even worse, that scorching hot compressor was enclosed in cheap, flammable China-plastic!
Further investigation revealed the unit was recalled--along with some odd 18 million dehumidifiers made over the last 2 decades or so. Dehumidifiers catching on fire never used to be an issue with the old metal housing units from years past. The danger of these plastic units is so wide-spread I will not run them unattended. There's not a lot of information available on these recalls in regards to what the actual faulty component is, but I'd be willing to bet it has something to do with the compressor overheating due to low or no refrigerant in the system.
I have a GE dehumidifier very similar to the one in this video, I bought it a few years ago to use at work, I believe in 2021. I used it at work for one summer, then I used it in my house last summer. It ran whenever I was home for that year. By some miracle, it still worked this Spring, so I put it back in service, again only when I'm home. Somehow, it's still working to this day. It's ran so many hours that it needs to be cleaned, which I thought was something it would never achieve.
It's loud, beeps, the bucket is annoyingly small, etc., but it does serve it's purpose. I agree with you in terms of service life--mine is an exception. I think you're lucky if you get 2 seasons out of these things. Back at my parents' house, there exists another GE dehumidifier, similar to this one but larger (I think 50-pint). That dehumidifier worked exceptionally well, when it worked. I think the second year it was in service, it started to defrost constantly, which of course is a tell tale sign of low refrigerant. By the 3rd year, there was not an ounce of charge left. I'm pretty sure I did a video on it after the failure. Last time I was at that house, the unit was still in the basement, still plugged in and still operating, doing absolutely nothing.
I tend to think these units aren't abysmal as a whole. It's really just one component--the coils. The coils are made too thin to handle the extremely high pressures of these newer refrigerants, R-410a and R-32. The fan motors are usually ball-bearing, which have an incredibly long service life. The compressors almost always seem to still run when the units no longer dehumidify. The controls, while I have seen them fail, are also pretty reliable. It's almost always the coils, failure after failure.
Next Spring, I will be replacing the GE unit I have like this with a vintage unit. The vintage unit will probably not only do a better job, but do it for decades. I'll replace the newer Frigidaire unit I use in the garage with the vintage one you gave me, which will also do a better job and do it for longer. I'll clean and service those two newer units on video as well, since they're cheap modern junk and that's all that seems to get views anymore these days. They won't go back into service, but I'll probably keep them around in case I need extra humidification if there's a flood or something. Even that may not be worth the storage space, chances are the refrigerant will be gone by the time I need them!
Yes, I had seen your video on your friend's dehumidifier. I am well aware of the recalls on many dehumidifiers as well, it's absolutely unfathomable that these can be made so cheap and so poorly. What I mean to say is that it's unfathomable we'd ever get to this point.
I definitely agree, the units are generally reliable as long as they hold a charge. But holding that charge is the thing. Most of the ones I have seen have had some sort of corrosion on the coils which rots them out and allows the charge to leak out. There are, of course, always exceptions to the rule, such as the one you have.
More and more products have recalls these days than ever before. It's not just limited to dehumidifiers; we hear of major car manufacturer recalls all the time. This kind of thing never used to happen back in the day. And if it did, it was some rather minor thing such as a cover needing to be installed over something to protect it, or perhaps a turn signal lens leaks, letting water in, corroding the socket. Nowadays were hear of many being recalled due to risk of FIRE. We've lost all of the good engineers. But then again, when you tell the engineer they can no longer use metal and have to fashion the entire unit out of Play-Doh, perhaps this is the best quality we can achieve.
Yep, just like those Hisense ones I made the videos on! Meanwhile there's the 1987 Kenmore in my basement just chugging along!
Beg my pard!
I've got several vintage dehumidifiers and a friend of mine mentioned that his brother just bought a new one. I told him I didn't think it would last long and it died within 2 years. He's pissed off since it wasn't cheap. My 1957 Inglis (made in Canada) dehumidifier is still working fine and looks like mint condition. No humidistat, no full bucket switch, no on/off switch. Just the basics. :-)
And just the basics is pretty much all anybody needs! My father always said the more complicated something was, the more likely it was to break. Time and again that has proven correct.
Ha ha you’re hilarious. They’re good casters to roll it out to the garbage.! And then as I watch, I see you throw the tub also not sure there’s gonna be anything left by the end of the video but great content good job!
And I agree with you those old metal brown simulated wood humidifiers were the best in the world they run forever !!!
Thanks very much.
I have found the new cheap junk lasts about 1 month past the 1 year warranty. I have one that still works, but the water pump stopped working, I put a new hose on it, the old hose was clogged with sediment. I am guessing the pump burned out trying to pump through clogged hose instead of shutting down
and showing an error code.
They're all junk these days, every single one of them.
Everything is throw away nowadays
This way you're forced to buy new, which is also throw away, and the cycle repeats. I will hear NOTHING about clogging up landfills until we fix THIS problem in society.
@@jaykay18 i agree 100 percent
Companies made stuff cheaper because they were scared that consumers weren't buying a new model every year because the older ones were still working. And as such, made up some lies to get us to buy the latest model (I'm guilty of that, and it'll be a future Story).
Also, GE appliances are owned by Haier (or Harrier as we call it in the vintage A/C community), so that is already cheapness times 100.
I remember when they started giving away Haier prizes on The Price Is Right. Man, back in the 50's with Bill Cullen, one prize they gave away was a brand new home, with a turn-key coin-up laundromat right next door. You could be set for life! How far we've regressed.
But! But! It's better for the environment! SMDH
Great, now explain the landfill dilemma! They can't think anything through an inch in front of them.
@@jaykay18 While my 40 year old Wards dehumidifier is still running like a champ!
@@ESDI80Of course, especially with all of that "earth-shattering" refrigerant encapsulated safely inside! I've said many times, the population has gotten dumber and dumber and dumber over the years.
That could be refilled with LPG (Propane Butane mix) and made work again for a bit as long as the compressor isn't fried. Still would need to find out where the leak is tho (if it's really just a low pressure issue). Commercially that's not viable to fix up.
My DeLonghi dehumidifier is still working even though it's a couple of years old now - only time will tell how long it'll last. I also mostly only run it on medium fan speed and have it set to not cycle on and off all the time to hopefully not put too much stress on the compressor.
Let's not forget that LPG is flammable, and we all know what happens with Whirlpool refrigerators with flammable refrigerant...
@@jaykay18 True, but what about "safety third" - and LPG is dirt cheap too 😁
@@nerdywolfiMost of the safety third stuff I do happens to be outside. Got to protect my assets!
I see newer window units that look like new and are out of gas already no matter if it’s 410a or the new r32. The older window units that have r22 in them most likely still have a charge and run. No matter who makes it it’s all junk and only have a one year warranty on them. Nowadays if you want something that is going to last you’ll have to pay for it.
The problem is, there's not much to buy that WILL actually last. Nor could you probably afford it.
It has a 5 minute time delay for the compressor after it lost power or turned off and turned back on fast. After 5 minutes it turns back on but it's definitely garbage. I always fear the new dehumidifier losing freon too early.
I'm well aware of the time delay, but even after waiting the requisite amount of time, it didn't want to start up until IT was good and ready. Any new one will lose refrigerant too early, that's the name of the game to make them disposable in the hopes you will buy another from the same brand, or another under the same conglomerate umbrella, so they get your money anyway.
you can add refrigerant to it, there is another video showing r135 being used to refill with a special part you screw on to the copper pipe
If the refrigerant leaked out, the system is no longer hermetically sealed. That means that if refrigerant is added, it too will leak out in time. You could keep putting gas in a car that has a leaky fuel tank---until it goes BOOM.
@@jaykay18 weird cause I had an ac unit in Fl and occasionally it needed to be filled, same thing with the vehicles
I have the same basic one that is a 20 instead of a 30. The fan runs but the compressor doesn’t. The square compressor switch will not activate the compressor but I can do so manually.
Now you know why the word "abysmal" is in the title.
Hey, I got one of them!!! And it’s garbage!
Between mine and yours, we might be able to make one good one!!!
Mine has a big burnt spot corroded spot on the circuit board so if I can buy that circuit board off for you, it really help me out, buddy !!
I do still have it. On my channel page you can read more about my channel and get my email address. Email me, we'll discuss it.
Nobody builds quality appliances anymore. We can’t find a dehumidifier that lasts more than 3 years.
You are 100% correct. Buy a vintage one, and you won't need to replace it.
@@jaykay18 Unfortunately on Maui its hard enough finding new stuff so I'm stuck with buying a new dehumidifier every two years.
I thought you can just simply replace the refrigerant in those and give it a recharge. Is that possible on this one or is it not?
Sure you can, with the proper equipment. But until you find and fix the leak, there's absolutely no point. Once you fix the first leak, another is bound to happen anyway, so it's a lost cause.
Recharge it and add sealer?
Do you know how high the pressure in the system is? The only way to seal that system is to re-braze the affected area. And also, "recharge" isn't as easy as just going to a store and buying some refrigerant.
So i went against my rule of never buying GE electronics and picked up a similar 30pint model dehumidifier at best buy.
120 days later…. It gets nonstop errors, all designed for throwaway.
I forgot my rule and therefore i will NEVER buy GE ever again. I should tattoo that.
Oh it has nothing to do with GE appliances, it's all of them today. They're all junk no matter what you buy. Find yourself a nice vintage unit and it will probably run for the rest of your life. Though I'd still be a bit weary of GE stuff, they were always a bit dicey.
Everything with the "Energy Star" logo is the cheapest rubbish of all.
Correct, never buy it. That mans you have to buy used.
It's poop!
It always was.
It is junk…
I said that in the very title.