Ivation 30 Pint Energy Star Dehumidifier Reviews 2024

Is there an area inside your home beset by constant moisture? Perhaps a bathroom, crawlspace, or a part of your basement? Do you have an indoor grow space that sees you wrestling with moisture control? If you answered yes to either of those questions, then you’re going to like what you see in this review of the Ivation 30 pint Energy Star dehumidifier.

Ivation is a Denver-based company that imports their product from China for resale here in the US. As such, their products tend to be made with lower-end components that don’t last quite as long as products manufactured in the West, but the quality of Chinese products has been steadily increasing in recent years, and the gap is closing.

In any case, the products Ivation sells are a cut above what you normally see from Chinese imports, and we were pleasantly surprised. That’s not to say that it’s the ideal dehumidifier. It has its share of limitations, and in the sections that follow, we’ll cover every aspect of this unit, both the good and the bad, so you’ll have all the information you need at your fingertips and will be able to decide for yourself if this is the model you’ve been looking for. Let’s take a closer look and see what the Ivation 30 Pint has to offer.

An Overview of the Ivation 30 Pint Dehumidifier

The first thing you’ll note about the Ivation 30 pint Energy Star dehumidifier is that it has a delightfully small footprint. It’s not designed to be flashy or showy, but rather, to blend into the background of whatever room you place it in so it can more or less quietly do its job.

Note the phrase ‘more or less quietly.’ It’s not an obnoxiously loud unit, and in fact, with the fan on the lowest setting, you’ll barely notice it at all. On the high setting, it does make a bit of noise, but not so much that you’ll find it difficult to sleep, and once you’ve become accustomed to it running, the sound will fade into the general background noise of your home.

Before we go any further, this is a good time to do a quick review of the basic stats that define the model. Here they are:

Several things of note jump out at us when we look at these numbers. First, it’s heavier than it looks, which is no great surprise and mostly due to the weight of the compressor. Second, this model sports a larger reservoir than many of its peers but in a high humidity environment, and if you decide not to make use of the gravity-driven drainage system, you’ll still find yourself having to empty the water collection bucket more often than you’d probably care to.

Third, although this unit is Energy Star rated and sips power when you have it on the low setting, it actually uses more power than many of its peers.

Finally, the length of both the power cord and the drainage hose that come with the machine are on the short side, and you’ll probably need to use an extension cord and invest in a longer drainage hose to use it the way you want to. Those aren’t insurmountable issues, of course, but they are things to be mindful of when evaluating this machine against its close competitors.

Features

There’s a lot to say in this section of our Ivation 30 pint dehumidifier review, and we were impressed by both the number of features on offer in this model and by the general strength of the feature implementations.

Moisture Extraction Capacity

The logical place to start is, of course, the extraction capacity. At 30 pints a day, this unit pulls enough moisture from the air to be useful in a variety of settings and on its own can easily solve your humidity problems in a bathroom or a damp basement or crawlspace.

If you’re a grower and you have a medium-sized grow tent or a small indoor grow room or greenhouse, it’s adequate, but bear in mind that this is largely a function of how many plants you have and how much water you’re feeding them daily.

While this model would be sufficient for a 4’ x 4’ and possibly even a 5’ x 5’ grow tent (depending on what you’re growing), much larger than that, and it’s probably either going to run constantly or struggle to keep pace. Placing this unit in an area with too much moisture for it to handle won’t really hurt the machine, but also it won’t bring the relative humidity level down like you’re hoping (and needing).

Filter & Extras

The Ivation 30 pint Energy Star dehumidifier manual states that the unit does come with a basic, washable filter, so, in addition to extracting moisture, it will also help remove dust, pollen, pet dander, and the like from the air. How often you need to clean the filter is largely a function of how much of that kind of stuff you’ve got in the air in the area you’re using it.

The unit also comes with a few nice finishing touches like an auto-shutoff and auto-restart in the event of a power outage, a handy carrying handle, and an auto-defrost feature. None of those, save perhaps the handle, are critical, but they are nice touches that add a bit of polish to the machine.

The interface located on the top of the unit is well designed and easy to understand. The Ivation 30 pint comes with a built-in humidistat, so it displays the relative humidity in the area you’re using it, but it’s not as accurate as we had hoped. You’ll find that it displays an RH value that can vary from 5% to 15% from what a dedicated humidistat in the same space indicates, so take the reading with a grain of salt.

That matters because, of course, the unit relies on its built-in humidistat to decide when to shut itself down if you’ve programmed in a target humidity level. In our view, this is the weakest aspect of the design. It’s not horrible, but it could be better. We’ve seen other models that report within +/- 5% of the true reading, so there’s definitely room for improvement here.

Nonetheless, from the control panel, you can opt to either set a timer that will allow the unit to run for X hours before shutting off or set a target humidity level you want the unit to achieve, in which case, it will run until it hits that value, then restart as needed when the humidity level begins to creep higher.

Drainage System

The design of the drain port on the unit is exceptional, but we do wish that the drain port had been located lower down on the reservoir.

We understand why it wasn’t, but as it stands, the reservoir has to fill substantially before you’ll start seeing any drainage, and note that the stubby little drainage hose that comes with it will almost certainly be too short for you, especially if you’re a grower.

After all, the idea is to get the water out of your growing space, and assuming you set this unit up somewhere toward the center of your growing space, the hose just won’t reach beyond it. It’s a common issue with most of the units in this class and price range, but it is something to be mindful of.

We’d like to note here in our Ivation 30 pint Energy Star dehumidifier review that the drainage system relies on gravity alone. There’s no pump involved, so you’ll need to set the unit on a shelf or engineer some other solution to give it some elevation. Unfortunately, there are hard limits to how high you can place it because the control panel is on top of the unit, so you’ll need to be sure you can still read and access the controls, which limits how high you can place it.

Casters

Also, note that the casters don’t lock, so if you’re setting it on a shelf or bench, you’ll need to manually rig something to keep the wheels still, so it doesn’t fall off if the unit gets jostled, or just take the casters off altogether.

Pros and Cons of Ivation 30 Pint Dehumidifier

In our view, the Ivation 30-pint dehumidifier is a very good model that falls just short of greatness. Here, in no particular order, are the things we think you’ll like best about it:

On the other hand, there are some weaknesses in the design, including:

None of the negative aspects of the design are deal-breakers. Even at its peak, the amount of energy used won’t break the bank, although, in a small, confined growing space, it may add enough heat to the equation that you’ll need to take steps to counter it.

As for the other negatives, those can be negated by the use of a simple extension cord and spending an extra twenty bucks or so to get a longer drainage hose and a decent hygrometer. Even so, you should know going in that you’ll probably want to add those items, so you’re not disappointed and underwhelmed when the machine arrives at your doorstep.

Ivation 30 pint Energy Star Dehumidifier Review Conclusion

Overall, we like the Ivation 30 pint Energy Star dehumidifier, but we don’t love it. It’s decent at what it does, but not stellar.  Ivation is a good company with a solid reputation and a good track record for customer service and support, so it’s certainly not a bad choice, but if you want to get the absolute most bang for your buck, there are a few better options out there. On that basis, we provisionally recommend it.

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Official Manufacturer Support

Sources and Official Brand Websites

• Ivation, Official Brand Website.
• Ivation 30 Pint Energy Star Dehumidifier User Manual.
• Maintaining Your Dehumidifier: What to Look For, Danby.
• A DIY Dehumidifier and Dealing With Indoor Humidity, DIYNatural.
• How to Choose the Right Dehumidifier For Your Home, Restoration Master.