Dehumidifying

I am not an expert on this but I would think that if the room were damp there must be a reason for it, ie poor ventilation.

The dehumidifier may help a wee bit but wont fix the long term problem. We have a dehumidifier as we have really bad condensation issues (a down side of living in a stainless steel box) and we keep it running most days in winter to keep the room dry.

I think most palmy houses have a dampness problem (I've lived in about 6 different houses there) although some worse than others.
We used to run a dehumidifier constantly. We'd just leave it in the hallway. I think it was 1L capacity and we'd empty it morning and night (probably could have emptied it more often too). We'd leave the doors open to the bedrooms so that it was hopefully working on all 3 at once. It was a warehouse one, not too expensive. I did notice that the house was easier to heat if we'd been remembering to empty it regularly because there was less water to heat.
Since moving through the gorge to a house with a big fireplace, dampness has hardly been a problem, although we did run it for a few weeks in august/sept last year. Better than all day everyday though!

We use a dehumidifier, it actually makes it easier to heat the room where it is as well, and helps with drying out any clothes on a clothes horse.

We have bene running ours for a few days now and its filled up once or twice a day, best to use it especially when its raining.

Liz - we didn't up getting the HRV in the end, cost issues mostly but it's also going to require some work to install in a two-storey home . Second comment is exactly what my plan was.... did you use it for long or just over winter?

We got a 2L capacity dehumidifier for when we lived under my parent's in law's place which was cinder block and really damp. The bedroom was so damp that the sheets felt wet when you got into bed at night.

We had about a week of running the thing constantly during the day and emptying it about twice a day if we could and after that it did get heaps dryer and we found that even if we left it on continuously it took a couple of days to fill.

I think they do work but I don't think you could just borrow one short term - it would have to be an ongoing thing as you really do need them running fairly often to keep the place dry. However once the initial issue is dealt with you should be able to rotate around the rooms without an issue.

We have condensation issues too. I have a thermometer thing in our bedroom it was reading 73% this morning before i left for work. We have had so much rain lately that i'm not surprised its reading so high ironically it isn't as high in the hallway the barometer there is a little higher but not that much. I try to have a window open evryday even if it is only the toilet one. I've never run a dehunidifier in our house i have run the dry function on the heatpump though but it needs to be warm in the house for that. Also just a note warm air holds more water then cold air so you will proberly need to warm the air before getting rid of the moisture. we have a fire too which helps.

T you can borrow ours if you want, we haven't used it since we got DVS installed. Its mostly used now for drying our clothes. Depends on the size of the space you are wanting to make dry.

A lot of Palmy homes are built right on to the soil, the other option is underfloor insulation to combat the rising damp.

We our dehumidifier.
We are emptying it twice a day. We have it in Janaya's room during the day and Jacksons overnight. Room is much warmer and drier.

The lady from energysmart was here the other day and said running the dehumifier all day was better than running a heater for 4 hours, or something like that. They only cost 4c an hour to run.