I like the ideal air 180 pint units....truly an industrial unit....
Oh hell nah!!! I got one, and it SUCKS!! (money out of my wallet). I got it because my 70pt and 45pt soleus usa dehuys weren't keeping up with my 12x10 5500w room at NIGHT (was ok 40-45 when lights on) - but struggling to keep it under 60 at night - maxing at like 63. SO I look for a 100pt+ dehuy for under a grand... Well I decide Ideal air 100pt will work, 725 shipped.... well then I see the 180 and say DAYUM that thing looks tough, and another 80pts for only 275 more, including shipping? DONE!! I pulled the trigger... now I want to pull the real one, because it pulls LESS Water out of the room (higher RH) than the 70+45 were (115 pt/day total)... AND for 5 more watts to run the Ideal.
I really thought I was 'stepping up' when I was going to drop 725 on the 100pt ideal, and I thought that would be sufficent for my 5500w in the desert, considering most of the year my 19seer 18000btu mini split is working and pulling out a good bit of moisture, and then to think I reached even further to get a 180pint rated (at what? AHAM? they don't actually say, anywhere. for all I know it could be their saturation rate, or even a guess/lie) because this thing barely competes to collect enough water in the bucket overnight compared to the 70pt soelusa air - nor does it keep the RH much better when comparing the 2.
I turned the unit on about 2 hours into my light cycle last night and it had a hard time getting from 60, down to 55RH. Tonight I gave it a boost and let the 70 run with it overnight, and carry a 50-52rh at night. I let the 70 run 1hr continuous into the light cycle and the room reached 42RH, perfect for me, so I cut off the 70 to let the 180 work alone (as it should be able to handle what I have going on, based on ratings, within 15minutes it raises to 45RH, then 15 more up to 52, then I let it run for 2 hours straight and it kept me at around 49-51 the whole time. I decide to swap back to the 70+45 for 2 horus and it drops my average readings every 10 minutes, by 5-7RH, outperforming the Dumb-Ideal-Air 180fake pt dehuy.
I then swapped back to the 180 only, the room went up to 61rh until the thing went into full compression mode, and has since settled at 51-53 rh with the lights on. and I'm now going to run the thing for 24hours and measure how much water it collects, if it doesn't come close to 100pints its going back and I'm getting the SantaFe dry max XT. Actually I've decided to spend the 2k to get it anyways and quit fn around. I've got a real good relationship with the guy at the hydro shop and he said at minimum I can get store credit, if not full cash back, but he's going to try and shove the thing down sunlight supplys throat if they can't troubleshoot the thing to peform within 10-15% of their quoted specs (or at least outperform my 115pts of portable dehuy power).
Moral of the story if you skipped to the end.... DO NOT BUY IDEAL AIR DEHUMIDIFIER, total dumb-ideal, looks good, but not good. And I can't find a single review saying so online - I did a day of searching to look for them before hand, not a one. I saw the restoration style, but wasn't prepared mentally to spend $2000 on a dehuy, but now I am - and you should do.