Meaco 10L Review

The Meaco Small Home 10L is their entry-level refrigerant dehumidifier designed for a small home (which Meaco describe as 3 beds or less) or flat. The model is Meaco’s second most popular behind the DD8L, which is aimed more towards leisure users, but could also be used in the home. This section of the market is fiercely competitive, with the ever-present DeLonghi DEM10 and dependable EcoAir DC12, so the Meaco 10L has its work cut out.

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Review Snapshot

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Features

The 10L is quite spartan when it comes to features, but being at the bottom of the Meaco range you’d expect that.

The soft-touch control panel is very simple to operate with just two buttons and seven LED indicators to understand. On one side there’s your on/ off switch, a ‘tank full’ indicator (the machine auto-stops when the collection bucket is full) and a light that illuminates when the machine goes into auto-defrost mode. The dehumidifier works through refrigeration, so occasionally it will switch itself in to this mode (and stop dehumidifying) while the ice that can build up on the refrigeration coils is removed.

On the other side of the control panel is the ‘laundry’ mode, which essentially works like a ‘turbo’ setting you’d see on other models. This is useful if you need to deal with sudden influxes of humidity from things in addition to laundry drying, like long showers for example. Then there are three standard dehumidifying settings of ‘low’, ‘medium’ and ‘high’, which using the inbuilt humidistat will maintain the humidity at a steady level. The ‘low’ setting isn’t really worth using as it would maintain the relative humidity outside of the ideal range. The ‘medium’ setting will target 60%RH and the ‘high’ setting will maintain the relative humidity further below this. Thankfully with all these three settings the machine will switch off when the set humidity is reached, saving electricity.

The 2 litre water collection bucket, which is standard for this size of small home dehumidifier, is removed from the reverse of the machine and is easy to take in and out. However, as the water bucket is on the reverse of the machine, this means you need to turn the unit around to access it. Another problem with this placement is that while the bucket is transparent, you aren’t able to see the current water level unless it is rotated and so rely on the ‘tank full’ light on the control panel to judge when it needs emptying. The bucket itself is a different design to normal with it being very tall and thin. This reduces the need for a lid to be fitted, which normally we’d mark a machine down for not having. However it still doesn’t have a handle, so be careful when removing a full bucket from the machine as it is easy to spill at this stage.

As mentioned, the machine is fitted with an auto-stop function when the bucket is full. Of course if you’re able to site the 10L near a drain you could do without the need for a bucket entirely if you utilise the auto-drain feature with the pipe Meaco supply with every 10L. Our only gripe here is that you have to remove the collection bucket to find and use the fixture and I know if this was our house we’d then very likely lose the collection bucket in the attic or god knows where.

With the Meaco 10L being an entry-level model you wouldn’t expect much of an air purification system and there isn’t. Although thankfully there is an easily removable dust filter, which you can clean by giving it a hoover roughly once per week if used a lot.

We think it’s a shame that the Meaco 10L only comes with one fan speed. A two-speed fan with a ‘tick-over’ speed would be a great addition to reduce noise and energy consumption.

Portability

For a refrigerant dehumidifier the Meaco 10L is remarkably light at only 8.75kg, which makes it one of the lightest, if not the lightest available.

The light weight coupled with a ergonomically designed top-mounted carry handle and narrow dimensions make it easy to move over short distances around the home. The 10L doesn’t come with any wheels, so you will be needing to carry it.

The dimensions of 19cm x 30cm x 48cm make it narrow, but of roughly standard size for this type of machine.

Design

Design is obviously a very personal thing, but we feel Meaco’s preference for large amounts of white plastic on the front of their machines could be improved.

I don’t think it’s a case of the design of the machine being function over form, as we have already questioned why the water collection bucket is on the back and not the side or front of the machine. Additionally, a rear mounted intake doesn’t provide the best air circulation.

Quietness

Some refrigerant dehumidifiers can sound like eighties fridges, however the Meaco 10L uses a rotary compressor that is surprisingly quiet.

Nearly all of the noise (quoted to be 43-46dB by Meaco) clearly originates from the large fan and it sounds as such. The good news about this is it is a very ‘white’ noise versus the noise of a compressor, which makes it easier to blend into the background. It’s a shame there’s only one fan speed as it means the noise never decreases, it’s simply on or off.

Overall the unit is quiet, however with it lacking a second fan speed it sounds just as loud on minimum as it does on maximum and is slightly, only slightly, louder than some competing, albeit more expensive models.

Effectiveness

The Meaco 10L is quite a powerful unit for its small size. The ’10L’ per day extraction rate applies to the standard conditions most manufacturers rate their units to, which is around 30°C and 80% humidity. The great news about this unit is that it keeps extracting at a good rate at the lower room temperatures we experience here in the UK. Meaco say that at 15°C and 60% humidity the unit will extract 2.5L per day, which is impressive for a small unit.

For a flat/ apartment and up to a small three bedroom house we have no doubt that this Meaco will be up to the task.

Meaco 10L Review – Value for Money

Overall the unit is a good entry-level dehumidifier for a small family home. It doesn’t come with many bells and whistles but it will do a good, efficient and relatively quiet job.

Whether or not it’s a good buy then depends on whether you can find it at a decent price. At the time of writing we found a great deal with free delivery at this store, so it may be worth checking that out.