Dehumidifiers

Don't let your garage get damp over winter - use a dehumidifier. Here's our pick of the best...

Auto Express Car Reviews

November 2005

If nothing but the best will do for your car or tools, then leaving them in a cold, damp garage over the winter is a seriously bad idea. Rust starts eating into metal, mildew grows on seats, and carpets and cardboard storage boxes go soggy.

Workshops or garages with large gaps around the windows and doors are the worst affected. Yet even well sealed buildings can be a problem - and the moisture on a wet car can hang around for days. But not if you use a dehumidifier. These dry the air and help ensure your car and kit survive the wet winter unscathed. Buying can be tricky, though, as quoted outputs are not based on cold UK weather. So we headed for the workshop with a bunch of best-sellers to find out which is the winter winner.

No matter how convenient or compact a dehumidifier is, above all it has to dry the air. So, to find the best moisture muncher, we ran our samples for 24 hours and measured how much water they collected. Freezing can be a problem, so we also checked working times at low temperatures, plus took into account the units' ease of use, noise and value for money to find our winner.

Verdict

The Ruby Dry is our pick of the crop. Its moisture-extraction abilities are ideally suited to most garages, and it works effectively right down to 1oC.

Screwfix's 10370 is bigger and noisier, but it is ideal where there are more serious damp problems, as you would expect for the price. The built-in heater is a genuine bonus.

Finally, third place goes to Draper's huge 64324. Again, a solid extraction rate guarantees excellent winter performance.