In a Nutshell:
The Honeywell 70 Pint Dehumidifier with Pump is a masterfully designed and capable dehumidifier capable of solving moisture problems in medium-sized rooms, basements, large grow tents, or small grow rooms. Recommended for anyone. It’s a little more expensive than most of its peers, but you’re paying for quality and performance.
Feature Set
Ease of Use
Value for the Money
Brand Reliability*
Overall Rating
4.6/5
Benefits
Drawbacks
Recommended For: Anyone. It’s a little more expensive than most of its peers, but you’re paying for quality and performance.
Are you faced with a moisture problem somewhere in your home that’s setting up prime conditions for a mold colony to take root? Are you an indoor grower looking for a means of precisely controlling the humidity level of your grow space?
If you answered yes to either of those questions, then you’re going to be delighted with what you read in this review of Honeywell 70 pint dehumidifier with pump.
Honeywell is a legendary company with a long history of making world-class products, and this sturdy, reliable 70-pint dehumidifier is an excellent example of their work.
While we’ve yet to run across an absolutely perfect machine, this one comes pretty close. You’ll find a lot to like here, and the unit has very few shortcomings.
In the sections that follow, we’ll outline everything it can do and how it can help solve for whatever moisture problems you might be facing. Even if you opt to go in some other direction, we think you’ll agree; this is a great machine! Let’s take a closer look and see what it can do.
An Overview of the Honeywell 70 Pint Dehumidifier
Like most dehumidifiers, the Honeywell design team put the vast bulk of their efforts into function, rather than form. It’s not an ugly machine by any means; it’s merely designed to be functional. It’s unobtrusive and blends easily into the background, where it will work steadily to draw the excess moisture from whatever space you decide to put it in.
It’s not a whisper-quiet machine, but it’s not obnoxiously loud, either. Once you’ve become accustomed to the sound it makes, it will fade into the background of the normal household sounds, and you will barely notice it.
Specifications
Before we start talking about the specific features the Honeywell Energy Star 70-pint dehumidifier brings to the table, let’s take a moment to review the basic stats that define this model. Here they are:
Taking these in order, as you can see, this is not a terribly big unit, so it won’t be difficult to find a permanent home for it. Don’t let its smallish size fool you though, at nearly fifty pounds; it’s a lot heavier than it looks, mostly owing to the presence of both a compressor and a dedicated pump lurking inside its unassuming case.
Reservoir
Its reservoir is only one fifth the size of its maximum daily extraction capacity, so if for some reason you opt not to use the pump, you’ll need to do a fair amount of babysitting, and you’ll wind up emptying the unit 4-5 times a day in a high moisture environment.
Why you’d buy a unit that comes with a dedicated pump and then intentionally not use it, we’re not quite sure, but if you find yourself in that situation, just be mindful of the fact that the machine will fill the reservoir relatively quickly and plan for that.
Power Cord
The power cord isn’t what we’d describe as generously long, but that’s true of most products in this class. It’s an easy thing to work around but know that depending on where you plan to set it up, you’ll probably need a heavy-duty extension cord.
Drain Hose
Kudos to Honeywell for including a drain hose with their machine, but honestly, the stubby little length of hose they provide just isn’t going to work for most people. You’ll almost certainly need to invest in a longer one to make effective use of the built-in pump, especially if you’re a grower, and you put the unit in the center of your grow tent or grow room.
The idea, after all, is to move the water out of the growing space and a hose that’s less than two feet long just doesn’t get that done. The good news here, though, is that you can use a standard garden hose. Just attach one end to the drain port, feed the other end to wherever you’re directing the water, and you’re all set.
Pump
Be mindful of the fact that the pump in the Honeywell Dehumidifier TP70PWK is strong enough to move the water up to sixteen feet from the unit, which sets hard limits on how long a hose you can attach to it.
Power Usage
In terms of power consumption, the Honeywell 70 pint with built-in pump dehumidifier is Energy Star rated, but note that because it contains both a compressor and a dedicated pump, it’s maximum power draw is 759 watts, which is significant.
If you’re a grower, it’s going to add heat to your growing space, and you’ll need to work out a strategy for combating it to keep the temperature in your target range. After all, it doesn’t do you or your plants any good to solve the humidity issue only to create a temperature problem!
Features of Honeywell Energy Star 70-pint Dehumidifier
The first thing to draw your attention to where this model is concerned is, of course, its water-extracting capabilities. 70-pints per day works out to about 3 pints an hour, which is an impressive rate indeed and useful for most applications.
Granted, if you have a larger growing space, 70-pints per day almost certainly won’t be sufficient, but then, if that’s your situation, you wouldn’t be looking at this segment of the market anyway.
Reservoir Size
Given the presence of the dedicated pump, the reservoir size won’t matter the vast majority of the time. It’s only in situations where you can’t use the pump (or don’t want to) that it becomes important, and here, Honeywell has you covered as well. The unit has a fill sensor that automatically shuts itself down when the reservoir is nearly full.
Smart Functions
In addition to that, this model features both an auto-defrost and an auto-restart function, with the former of value when frost starts building up on the coils, and the latter of use when there’s a power outage. When the lights come back on, the unit will restart and continue where it left off.
You can choose to operate the dehumidifier in one of two ways. You can set a designated amount of time (in hours) for the unit to run before automatically shutting off, or you can choose a target humidity level in 5% increments, allowing the unit to run until it hits the target you specify.
Humidistat
The built-in humidistat is fairly accurate, and you’ll find that it tracks pretty closely to the relative humidity level shown on your hygrometer, assuming you have one (and if you’re a grower, you almost certainly do!).
User Friendly
All of the features described above are controlled from the panel that resides on the top of the unit. The panel itself is well designed and intuitive, and you won’t have any problems mastering the machine’s operation.
Pump
Then, of course, there’s the pump, which is, in our view, the reason to buy this unit. With a dedicated pump, using the dehumidifier becomes an essentially hands-free operation. Other than checking on it every once in a while, to make sure everything’s running smoothly, there’s really not much to do. We like tech like that.
Filter
Also note that this unit comes with a basic, washable filter. It’s nothing fancy or overly advanced, but it will capture pet dander, dust, pollen, and other indoor pollutants, returning cleaner air than went into the unit, and that’s a very good thing, no matter who you are.
The filter is washable and reusable, but bear in mind that you’ll need to pause the machine’s operation every couple of weeks to give the filter a good rinse.
Quality & Support
Finally, there’s the matter of quality. As we said at the start, Honeywell is a legendary company with a long history of making great products and an equally long track record of providing world-class customer support. It should come as no surprise then, that this machine is backed by an impressive five-year warranty, which is among the best you’ll find anywhere.
Pros and Cons of Honeywell 70 pint dehumidifier with pump
In no particular order, here are the things we think you’ll like best about this model:
The only real negatives are:
The first negative really isn’t because if you need to extract more than 70 pints of water a day, you won’t even give this unit a second glance. The second issue comes down to whether you’d rather pay extra for quality or buy something on the cheap with a plan to replace it in a couple of years when it wears out.
In our view, quality wins in that contest, but we recognize that not everyone will feel the same.
Final Thoughts on Honeywell 70 Pint Dehumidifier Reviews
This is a fantastic dehumidifier. It’s well-sized, capable, and offered by one of the finest companies in the industry. Unless you’re specifically looking for a dehumidifier with a gravity drain, we highly recommend it.
Sources and Official Brand Websites:
- Honeywell, Official Brand Website.
- Honeywell TP70PWK Dehumidifier Manual.