Just realized a cheap dehumidifier trick for my crawlspace

Honestly, I was getting tired of dumping my crawlspace dehumidifier bucket every single day during Atlanta summers. It was a 50-pint unit from Home Depot and I was emptying it like clockwork. Then I tried hooking up a simple condensate pump hose directly to a floor drain nearby. Cost me like $30 for the pump and some tubing from Lowe's. It's been running nonstop for 2 weeks now with zero bucket duty. The humidity in my basement dropped from 70% to around 50% almost overnight. Anyone else tried this setup or got a better way to handle crawlspace moisture without the hassle?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_garcia6h ago

Has anyone else noticed how we always try to fix small annoying problems with bigger more complicated solutions that just create new problems? It's like when I tried to automate my lawn watering with a cheap timer and ended up flooding my neighbor's yard.

miles_robinson2023m ago

Those cheap timers are a total gamble with your sanity (and your neighbor's property). Had the exact same thing happen with a drip irrigation kit I bought off Amazon - worked great for two weeks, then the solenoid stuck open and my tomato plants basically drowned. Ended up having to rip out half the system and just use a simple hose timer with a mechanical dial. The mechanical ones are way more reliable because there's no electronics to fail, just a spring and some gears. Sometimes the old school solution is the best one, even if it feels less fancy.

harperp247h ago

My buddy Mike tried this same thing last summer and his pump failed after 3 days. Water EVERYWHERE in his crawlspace. He went back to dumping the bucket.