Wow, it has been hot here lately.

Temps at or just below 100. Humidity so high I start sweating as soon as I step foot outside.

I was using my log splitter the other day, just trying to get a pile of wood to deliver to a lady who had paid me for it, and I thought I was going to melt.

I grew up hunting and fishing. In some cases, we shot things that were pests or threats. In other cases we shot things for food.

To me, firearms aren’t about politics. They are about safety and security. Even food security, in the sense that I can be sure I can put food on the table if times get tough/weird.

So if firearms bother you, and you just want to stick to chainsaws, you may want to skip this post.

Here where I live, humidity is a real problem, and can lead to corrosion and rust on firearms. My dad always used a “damp chaser” in his gun cabinet. During the stickiest summer months, I have typically been hanging Damp-Rid packets to help control moisture in my gun cabinet.

But depending on how often you have to replace them, that can get expensive.

I decided to try a different approach.

I bought a small dehumidifier. This is my review.

Bedred SemiConductor Dehumidifier Review

I bought a 95 oz dehumidifier from Bedred.

It uses semiconductor technology. The big benefit there is it’s not the big, bulky, noisy thing like the crawlspace dehumidifier I installed a while back.

The Bedred unit is about the size of a shoebox. It plugs into a normal 110v outlet, and uses very little power.

When you turn it on, it’s so quiety you can barely hear it running.

Now the drawback to this type of technology is it is not super-effective. Something this small is really only effective for about 600-1,000 square feet.

My gun safe is actually in a closet. It gets very little ventilation unless I leave the closet door open.

But this little unit is perfect for that. I ran the cord to the existing outlet (you could run it underneath a door, or wire it in to an existing light bulb with an adapter if you had to). And the small footprint of the space is ideal.

It drips the moisture it pulls out of the air into a small tank. The tank is easy to remove. In my case, I dump it into a nearby bathroom sink. It takes me about 30 seconds.

It has an auto-shutoff feature. That’s a nice piece of mind. Even if you forget to check and empty its tank, it won’t overflow and cause a problem.

Reliability is not a huge concern here.

Number one, there are very few moving parts. And number two, these are relatively inexpensive. So even if it only lasts 2 or 3 years, it’s no big deal.

This thing only weigs around 5 lbs, so it’s easy to move as-needed.

It has various soft lighting options, and even has a function where you can turn it off at night (if you were using it in a bedroom or something).

I have small thermometer that also measures humidity that I keep on top of the gun cabinet. It now consistently measures below 50%, which is where I want to keep it.

I am happy with my purchase, and I give it two thumbs up!

Over the last few years, I have branched out from doing only arborist, tree trimming, and wood splitting duties and began including general handyman work.

Part of that has just been demand. Yes, there is still plenty of work coming my way that keeps my chainsaw running. But as word has gotten around, people increasingly were asking me to do additional duties.

It varies wildly. I might hang a ceiling fan, pour a concrete pad, install a new mail box, or build a shed.

Recently, a customer asked me to take down an old rotten, leaning pine tree. While I was cleaning up that mess and hauling away the debris, he and his wife mentioned they hadn’t had any water for two days because a water line from their well pump sprang a leak and they were still waiting for a visit from a plumber.

I scoped this out, told them I could replace the entire 100 ft run of black roll pipe with 0.75 in PEX, and get started on it that day. We shook on it, and had his water turned back on by 1 AM!

In the process of replacing his water line, I was in and out of his crawlspace quite a bit. Some sections had some moisture damage and signs of mold. I’m far from a crawlspace expert, but I told them at a bare minimum:
1. they might want to consider laying down some plastic sheeting for moisture control
2. they might want to install a dehumidifier for long-term piece of mind

Before you know it, they had hired me to install a dehumidifier!

Why I Chose an Alorair 70 PPD Dehumidifier

When I started shopping around, Alorair stood out as one of the premium, high-quality dehumidifier brands.

They have been around since 2012, and claim to have sold more than 2 million units! Their customer base seems very loyal.

All of their products carry a 5 year warranty. I think it means something when a company stands behind their products. I didn’t want to sell this elderly couple some kind of cheap piece of junk that would only last a year or two.

Their products are Energy Star Certified. A dehumidifier can use 300-500 watts. Do you want to pay a high power bill to run a sloppy, inefficient unit in your crawlspace? Most people don’t. The Energy Star Certification gives some reassurance towards efficiency and minimal impact on power bills.

They ship from the US, so minimal wait times once purchased.

Because of the crawlspace layout, with a light bulb and an outlet roughly in the middle of the area, I couldn’t count on a gravity feed to get the water collected to flow out. Alorair offers a pump option for most of their models, and include a 19 foot hose to improve mounting and location flexibility.

The area of this particular crawlspace was around 30 feet by 30 feet, so roughly 900 square feet. The Alorair 70 PPD says it’s suitable for up to 1,000 square feet.

AlorAir Sentinel HD35P Specs and Features

For ease of reference, I’ve included the HD35 user manual HERE.

And also the HD35 spec sheet HERE.

The Sentinel HD35P is one of AlorAir’s smallest and most basic models, but this is a semi-commercial piece of equipment packed with performance and durability enhancing features.

It can remove 70 PPD (pints per day) of moisture at saturation temperatures, and 35 PPD at standard AHRAM (this is at 80F and 60% relative humidity).

It weighs 39.7 lbs, but lugging it around is reasonably easy due to the beefy handle integrated into it’s top side.

Its fan flows 115 CFM of air, and manages to do this fairly quietly at under 50 dBA.

It has an auto defrost mode, which is handy because nobody wants to climb down into their crawlspace and defrost a humidifier. Along those lines, it also has a an auto/memory restart. That means if your power goes out or blinks off, once power is restored it starts right back up like it was before, again preventing you from having to climb into the crawlspace to restart it.

It has a Merv-1 filter to keep dust, pollen, and debris out of its sensitive bits. That’s important in a crawlspace, as it can be a grimy environment. Yes, the filter has to be cleaned or replaced every so often, but that’s a lot cheaper than replacing a dehumidifier!

And I guess I should mention the HD35P is set up for a 120V outlet. I saw some big monster dehumidifiers that required 240V, and I did not want to go through that trouble.

My Installation Process and Tips

I guess this is sort of mislabeled, since installing the AloAir unit is so easy that it doesn’t really require any tips.

I put the unit on two concrete blocks. You need it to be reasonably level, so that the pump and drain can work properly.

I ran the (thankfully long) drain hose to a crawlspace vent and poked it through so that accumulated water could be pumped outside.

I plugged the (again, thankfully long) power cord into an existing 120v outlet near the only light bulb in the crawlspace.

And then I followed the directions to turn it on and set the humidity level.

My Opinion

In my opinion, you are not going to find a higher quality, more durable crawlspace dehumidifier at this price point.

This unit was very easy to install, and I fully expect it to last my customer for many years without any trouble.

If you want to look over the AloAir lineup, you can click here…

Sometimes I do my best thinking while I’m driving.

The other day I was on a somewhat long trip, and I was thinking about what kind of product I should talk about next here on my website. I know you guys love chainsaw reviews, but I also enjoy offering up my experience with other outdoor power equipment.

It occurred to me there is one piece of equipment that I use way more than chainsaws but I have never posted about: an electric pressure washer!

I tend to get a lot of satisfaction from cleaning things up. It’s not that I’m a neat-freak. Half the time my truck is a muddy mess. My clothes might be sweaty and dirty from working all day. If you looked at some of the tools in my garage you would think I’ve never wiped them down.

But I really enjoy washing a car, making it look sparkly clean. I love the look of freshly pressure washed concrete sidewalks. It makes me feel good inside to take the dingy, mildewy siding on a house and make it look practically brand new. In that way, pressure washing is a labor of love.

I bought a new pressure washer the other day, so here’s my story.

As you guys know, I tend to work for myself as a bit of a handyman. I guess my specialty is tree cutting and removal, but over the years I’ve done everything from installing sprinkler systems to brake jobs. If you need it done, often times I’m the guy.

For pressure washing, for several years I’ve been using a big gnarly beast of a unit. It is a Simpson Powershot 3228. It is a really good unit.

It has a Honda engine that never gives up. It can get up to 3300 psi, flow 2.5 gallons of solution per minute, came with a 25 foot hose, and is more or less indestructible.

Why in the world would I consider buying a different unit?

Well, the weight. That Simpson weighs 77 lbs. That might be fine if you are just using it at home, wheeling it out of your storage shed over to the corner of the house. But trying to get it into the bed of the truck (or worse yet the cab) is a back-breaking affair.

Like many gas powered pressure washers, the Simpson is big, heavy, loud, and stinky. I have been eye-balling a plug-in electric unit for a while now.

Gas vs Electric

Traditionally, you would pick a gas PW over an electric PW in cases where you needed more power. But pump and motor technology have improved over the years, and at this point you can buy plug-in electric versions that are basically as powerful as petrol.

And of course the electric versions are lighter, smaller, and more convenient. I toss an extension cord in the truck along with the PW, and don’t have to worry about a gas tank.

Pressure washing can be a noisy affair, but without the gas engine added to the mix, the electric versions are much quieter.

The emissions isn’t a huge deal for me, but I guess if you spend several hours washing stuff you end up getting tired of smelling all that exhaust, and it’s honestly probably not healthy anyway.

So at the end of the day, for probably 90% of the jobs out there, I feel like an electric pressure washer is the better fit.

Westinghouse ePX3500 Specs

Here are the basics for the Westinghouse that I bought.

2500 PSI max pressure
1.76 gallons per minute max flow rate
16.5″ tall
19 lbs total weight (are you kidding me!!)
25 foot hose
35 foot power cord
5x nozzles included (turbo, 0 degree jet, 15 degree blast, 25 degree wash, soap)
lockable wheels
built-in soap/solution tank

A pdf of the ePX3500 owner’s manual is HERE.

My Review

When I first took this thing out if its box, I was shocked by how light it was. It only weighs 19 lbs. Compare that to the Simpson that I had been using, which is 77 lbs. This a gamechanger.

I was actually a little worried. I was thinking how can this thing be durable, it feels so light it’s like a toy. But it does come with a 3 year warranty, and Westinghouse is a pretty famous name brand.

Setup was easy, and all of the attachments were well packaged.

I immediately put this thing to work.

The 25 foot hose is plenty long enough to walk all the way around a vehicle, or a driveway etc. And the small unit is on 4 lockable wheels, so rolling it along is no trouble.

The casters at the base are spread pretty wide to help keep it from tipping over. That’s a good thing, since it’s so light it can be easy to accidentally pull it off balance.

The 35 foot extension cord is nice and beefy. It stores on a little loop on the top of the washer. Of course a longer cord may always be needed, but I keep a 100 foot extension cord handy for this very reason.

Without the hum of a gas engine, this thing runs much quieter. It actually turns its pump off when you aren’t squeezing the trigger. It is almost eerily quiet compared to that big gas-powered Simpson.

It has plenty of power. It took the grime off vinyl siding with no sweat. I then tackled a big section of a concrete driveway. Even though I used it on the driveway continuously for over an hour, it did not overheat or flinch. It really seems to have as much power as the 80 lb behemoth I have traditionally used.

I took this Westinghouse unit with me to a job last week. An elderly lady had asked me to cut down a big pine tree in her back yard, and I had casually asked her if she needed any pressure washing done while I was there. Apparently her son had pressure washed her driveway the previous year, but her two-story house was a bit too tall for him and she agreed to pay me to do the whole exterior of her house.

I brought some soap solution with me, as well as a 100 foot garden hose and a 100 foot extension cord. The Westinghouse powered right through all of it, and must’ve saved my back quite a bit of ouch since hauling the little 20 lb thing around was child’s play.

Really the only two negatives I can think of-
1 You have to be careful not to pull on the hose or it will tip over. This is just a function of how light it is, and I don’t really mind it.
2 The on-board soap tank is a little on the small side. It is easy to re-fill, so it’s no big deal.

If this tells you anything, know that after owning the Westinghouse for two weeks, I sold that Simpson pressure washer and I haven’t looked back since!

So I will give this thing two enthusiastic thumbs up.

Here in North America, it’s spring and temperatures are warming up.  It’s the time of year where we know summertime is just around the corner.

My house has central AC, handled by a big heat pump. The unit is only about 4 years old, and is relatively efficient.

It’s great that with a heat pump you can buy one device and it can then provide you with warmth in the winter and cool air in the summer. But that also means it takes a beating, working hard essentially all year long.

I like it to be cold in my bedroom when I sleep. Like around 65 or 68F.

That means during the height of summer, I work my heat pump pretty hard. Ignoring the electricity costs, which can be pretty high during really cold or really hot months, I hate beating on this big expensive heat pump, knowing that it will cost a fortune to replace or repair once it wears out.

A few years ago, I started dabbling with solar power as a hobby.

I’m no expert, but I’ve learned lots of tricks and tips and secrets. I’m pretty frugal by nature, so one of the things I’ve learned is how to get the most solar bang for my buck.

The last couple of years, I’ve been air conditioning my house almost exclusively with solar. That makes it essentially free. And it takes a huge load/burden off my heat pump.

My Setup

I have 3 main parts to my setup. I will go into detail for each element separately a bit later. But at a high level…

Solar panels – these generate the free power I use to power my AC
Portable power station – this takes the power from the solar panels, converts it to AC to run my AC, and also stores it
Air conditioner – this keeps me cool!

Although there’s a certain amount of flexibility, you have to coordinate these 3 things in a way that ensures they work well together.

So I’ll guide you through my specifics, but understand that there are a million different ways to skin this cat, and no single way will be ideal for everybody.

Air Conditioner

I started this experiment out a couple of years ago with a el-cheapo used air conditioner I bought off Facebook Marketplace.

Since then, I have upgraded to a new unit I bought off Amazon.

You will be limited in size to more or less 5,000 BTU’s. The reason for this is a larger air conditioner will use more power, driving up the cost of the other equipment (the solar panels and the power station).

Generally, 5k BTU’s will cool about 150 square feet. But I use it to cool my bedroom, which is more like 300 square feet.

How well-insulated your space is, how hot your location gets, all these will factor into how effective this will be.

I run my little AC unit wide open pretty much all day/night, so this helps keep things frosty! And for the most part I’ll keep my bedroom, bathroom, and even closet door shut to maximize performance.

I’ve had good luck with this Midea unit. It’s reasonably efficient, with a CEER of 11.0. You can assume it will use about 450 watts. I will do a bit of math later on where this will be important.

Here’s the Midea MAW05M1BWT owner’s manual…

Solar Panels

I purchased 8 used solar panels off Facebook Marketplace. They are Trina 230 watt panels.

I wired 4 in series, creating two different groups that I then wired in parallel.

The total installed wattage of 8x 230 watt panels should be 1,840 watts. But of course they don’t output to their maximum all the time.

I have plenty of property, and zero interest in bolting/screwing anything to my roof. So my panels are ground mounted.

You can spend a lot or a little on mounts. In my case, I used some free pallets and pallet wood to create a base and adjustable kickstands. This is very basic, and free. I have had zero issues with wind or weather. There is a bit of inconvenience related to trimming and mowing since the panels are fairly close to the ground.

Portable Power Station

I use a Bluetti AC200L.

It has an extremely safe, quite durable lithium iron phosphate battery, with a 2,048 watt-hour capacity.

Its inverter can supply 2,400 watts continuous, or 3,600 watts intermittently which is more than enough for my AC unit.

And it can take up to 1,200 watts of solar power.

So let’s do a little math.

If my AC unit uses about 450 watts running wide open, and the Bluetti has a 2,048 watt-hour battery, that means the Bluetti could run my AC unit for 4.5 hours continuously (or 2,048 divided by 450).

In reality, after the sun goes down, the AC unit doesn’t have to work as hard to keep my bedroom at 68 degrees, so it tends to cycle on and off. Depending on time of year and temps, that reduces its power usage and means the battery stretches out to more like 6 or 7 hours.

But the Bluetti also has a pass through function that I can easily set/adjust with their app. This is really nice, as it allows me to set up my system to run off battery for as long as it can and then simply switch over to powering it from the all outlet (when or if that even becomes necessary).

Because the Bluetti unit can take 1200 watts of solar, and the AC unit is only using 450 watts, on a sunny day the system can both recharge the battery and run the AC at the same time.

The solar panel setup I mentioned above is able to more or less max out the Bluetti’s input capacity starting mid to early morning and keep it there until the evening as the sun starts setting.

I have used one of Bluetti’s AC200P units in the past. There was nothing wrong with it, but the AC200L is a giant step forward.

There are two big reasons I so strongly prefer the 200L.

The first is the upgraded solar capacity. The 200P has 700 watt solar capacity, while the 200L has 1200W. This is a huge improvement, and a big deal.

If my load is 450 watts (from the window AC unit), and the power station can only take in 700 watts from solar, that means at times it can only charge the battery with the 250 watt surplus. This can take a long time, and during periods when it’s cloudy might mean it’s not charging at all.

But with a 1200 watt input vs the 450 watt load, now it has a 750 watt surplus, which gives me a lot more extra capacity and peace of mind.

The other big thing is the integration of the 200L with Bluetti’s app, which unlocks a lot of different abilities. Not only can I remotely monitor and control it, but I can also use a “pass through” power option that allows me to maximize the savings of a solar/battery setup without risking interruption once battery power is exhausted.

I run the power cables from the solar panels to the Bluetti using a fairly simple setup with cable entry glands not unlike what you might find on a boat.

I use connectors on both the inside and the outside of the wall to make this very modular. Because I also use the setup in the wintertime to provide some extra (free) heat, I have one of these glands plumbed into my downstairs, and also one upstairs in my bedroom.

Free AC

Considering the capacity of this system, and the cost of electricity in this area running around $0.13 per KWh, it can offset around $2 or $3 per day from my power bill. Considering I spent around $1k or $1,500 for the system, that’s not a bad pay back. $1500 divided by $3 per day would be 500 days, or 1.3 years.

But it also saves wear and tear on my heat pump. And just as importantly, it allows me to get it nice and cool in my bedroom during the summer months for optimal/comfortable sleep without really abusing my central AC unit.

And in that way, it’s also “guilt-free”!

If you have a question about my setup or want to tell me about yours, please feel free to leave a comment below.