Are Dehumidifiers Supposed to Blow Hot Air?
The short and simple answer is yes, dehumidifiers are designed to blow air into your home that can be slightly warmer than your room’s ambient temperature, which may somewhat increase the overall temperature and make it feel warmer. A dehumidifier works by pulling moist air over its evaporator coils and cooling it into water droplets. These water droplets are then collected in a bucket that you empty or that drain automatically through a hose. The leftover air is then pulled over the condenser coils, which reheat it and release it back into the room. Dehumidifiers also partly produce heat as a result of their normal operation, but if your dehumidifier is blowing air that’s too hot into your home, that’s when there’s an issue.
Within most dehumidifiers are four key parts that allow it to function, each as important for its operation as the next. These four parts are:
- Compressor: The compressor is the heart of a dehumidifier, as it is what circulates and compresses a liquid and gas called ‘refrigerant’ throughout the entire system, including the evaporator and condenser coils. Without a compressor, there is no moisture removal or proper heat exchange.
- Evaporator Coils: The evaporator coils are what initially absorb the hot air from your home and cool it down, so the moisture it carries condensates and turns into water droplets that are collected or drained away.
- Condenser Coils: The condenser coils release the heat absorbed by the refrigerant in the evaporator coils, and condense the refrigerant back into a fluid so it can cycle back to the evaporator coils and absorb more heat.
- Fan: The fan in a dehumidifier is responsible for moving air throughout it, which is essential to the air being pulled in, cooled over the evaporator coils, and pushed back out into your home.
