This Meaco dehumidifier has changed my flat for the better

Dehumidifiers have been a part of my life ever since I was a kid. My mum used to have one running all night long outside my bedroom to lower the humidity levels in the house. She said it would help with my asthma. Why? Because dust mites enjoy warmer, more humid environments.

While her motherly claims are unfounded (sorry, Mum), with no consensus being reached about a dehumidifier’s effectiveness in the control of asthma from previous studies, this humble appliance has been more helpful to me than I would’ve ever thought, though not necessarily for my asthma.

When I moved into my flat a couple of years ago, I realised that the humidity levels were off the chart. The mirror in my bathroom would stay fogged up for hours after I showered, and my clothes would have that awful musty damp smell after hanging them up on the airer.

I would later find out that it was because I had a broken whole home ventilation system, leaving my flat a haven for moisture, damp and condensation. But before I figured that out and paid £1,000 to have it fixed, I thought that a dehumidifier might solve my problems.

Meaco is the leading dehumidifier manufacturer in the UK. The company’s arete one was named The Independent’s best dehumidifier, but its arete appliances aren’t the cheapest. That’s where Meaco’s line of ABC dehumidifiers comes in. They’re the company’s most affordable products, and also its quietest. Extremely simple to use, there are only five buttons. There’s the power button, a laundry button for drying your clothes, which makes the dehumidifier run at full speed for six hours, a timer button. a fan button, which doubles up as a child lock button, and a humidistat button.

When you turn on the dehumidifier, it will continuously suck up any moisture in your room until the water tank is full. When the tank can’t hold any more water, it will turn off automatically, stopping overspills. The timer is really easy to set up, and the LED panel is nice and bright. I rarely use the timer function, though, preferring the dehumidifier to run in the background, but if you’re concerned about electricity costs, setting a timer can help. Meaco says that the ABC dehumidifier costs just 4p an hour to run.

It’s a really diminutive, lightweight machine, so I’m able to easily move it around to different rooms. With general everyday use, I only have to empty the tank once every 24 to 48 hours (depending on whether I have my laundry out). While I’ve got the 10l model, Meaco also sells a 12l model for slightly bigger homes and is a tad more expensive, but the smaller model has been perfect for my two-bed flat.

The MeacoDry ABC is easy to use, too – I just turn it on and forget about it. It’s also just quiet enough to not disturb me during the night. But did it work? As soon as I turned it on for the first time, the impact was noticeable.

I’m about to get a bit graphic here, so skip a paragraph forward if you’re squeamish. The condensation and moisture in my bathroom had gotten so bad that mould spores had started growing at the bottom of my toilet bowl. But when I set up the dehumidifier outside my bathroom, turning it on after showering, the mirror would defog within an hour instead of six hours previously. Within a month, there was a significant decrease in the amount of mould growing at the bottom of my toilet, and the bathroom no longer had that damp post-shower stench.

I’d eventually get my whole home ventilation system fixed in the summer when the heat and lack of air in my flat became unbearable, but the MeacoDry was still useful even then. We get such humid summers in the UK, and the little appliance was helping to lower the humidity by pulling out the warm moisture in the air. Of course, I still sweltered, but it helped to have a drier indoor climate.

When the autumn and winter months rolled around, I could no longer dry my clothes by keeping the balcony doors and windows open. While I used to hang my clothes on the radiator, everyone knows this is an absolute no-no. It helps condensation develop in your house, leading to mould growth. Not to mention they dry with that damp smell embedded in the fabric.

But now equipped with the MeacoDry, which has its own laundry mode, I decided to hang my clothes up on an ordinary airer and turn on the dehumidifier. Amazingly, not only did my clothes dry faster than they did when I had them on the radiator (drying within three to six hours), but they smelt fresh and clean, and there was no condensation on the windows afterwards. I’ve been drying everything this way ever since, and it’s been an absolute game-changer.

Then, earlier this year, Storm Isha hit the UK, and it also hit my roof. I woke up one morning to the sound of water leaking through my ceiling. While the leak only lasted an hour or so, my bedroom ceiling developed a long water line and the whole room smelt like damp.

Now, I had no idea if the tiny MeacoDry would be able to suck up the moisture and remove the damp and the smell, but I gave it a shot. Over the next couple of days, with just the dehumidifier running at full power, the water on the ceiling had completely dried up and the smell had disappeared.

I’ve never experienced such versatility with an appliance before. The tiny, quiet MeacoDry ABC dehumidifier has genuinely made my flat a more habitable place to live.