I tried the Wood's MDK26 dehumidifier in my damp cellar and it's a game-changer

Wood's dehumidifiers have quickly established themselves as some of the best in the market. The Swedish brand offers solutions for specialised damp problems and the MDK26 is designed to be a laundry-drying dream.

We have a sibling of this model in our buying guide for the best dehumidifiers. It’s brilliant, so when I read that they'd launched a 'powerful and compact dehumidifier that fits bathrooms and bedrooms', I thought my birthday had come early (yes, I do love dehumidifiers that much). 

Dehumidifiers are generally accepted to be a cheap, efficient way to dry clothes at home, so when they specialise in laundry drying, it has to be a cut above the rest. I tested this on some tough loads of laundry, as well as in my condensation-filled bathroom and damp-riddled bedroom. Here are the results.

Specifications

First impressions

I've tested other Wood's dehumidifiers before, but I was surprised with the aesthetics of the MDK26. It's glossy, sleek, and slim. As far as dehumidifiers go, this is an attractive option that steps away from Wood's slightly more functional, boxy aesthetics. 

The Wood's MDK26 was easy to slot into different spaces around my home and I could see it being an inobtrusive addition to even small rooms. Wood's recommends using this in bedrooms, bathrooms, home offices, and other living spaces. The build quality feels good (as you might expect considering the nearly £300 price tag) and the wheels and handle make it easy to move the Wood's around. As far as first impressions go, this has made a good one.

Who would it suit?

The Wood's MDK26 has broad appeal. It's well-built (with an impressive three-year warranty) and has lots of considerate and conscious features. For example, the cooling media, R-290, is recognised as being more energy efficient and better for the environment than HFC gasses, which are more common in dehumidifiers. This saves on your utilities since the Wood's MDK26 is the most efficient of all the dehumidifiers on the market, and it's better for the environment — both worthwhile investments

Wood’s recommends this dehumidifier for living rooms and laundry rooms. It makes sense. This has a good capacity and it doesn't make much noise. As I mentioned, it's easy to slot away and set running and when it's running, it's quiet enough for you to forget about.

You can extract up to 25 litres of water from your room in a day with this, making it an easy, breezy option for even big houses. There are plenty of intuitive pre-sets that mean that the machine takes care of itself, stopping when the water tank is full or the humidity levels are optimal.

I’ll go into more details in the different review tests, but if you want a summary, this was only bettered by an industrial dehumidifier (also from Wood’s) in its capacity to collect and reduce the humidity in each room. 

The high efficiency and low energy credentials make this incredibly competitive, You'll need to invest more than you might in similar models, such as Pro Breeze and Meaco, but it feels more premium and, arguably, does a better job of it too.

What is it like to use?

The Wood's MDK26 is delightfully simple. When you plug it in, the top LCD screen of the MDK26 lights up. This displays the current humidity level in your home, lets you choose between two fan settings, whilst also offering use of the air filter, laundry mode, a timer, auto defrost, and sleep mode. The screen is one of the most sensitive I've experienced on a dehumidifier, which makes this even easier to use.

If you want to, you can use a hose to maximise drainage, but the water reservoir collects enough water that you won't be constantly racing to empty it. 

Test 1: humidity and condensation

I like to start dehumidifiers out on a light and simple, but nonetheless essential task. We all struggle with condensation on our windows, whether that’s in the bedroom in the mornings, in the bathroom after a shower, or in the kitchen when you’re cooking. If this persists, you can end up with mould on your windowsills and other damp issues, so a dehumidifier that can quickly clear condensation and take the moisture out of any room is crucial.

Normally, my bathroom takes a morning to clear of condensation, if I have the doors closed. I placed the Wood's in the bathroom and checked on it at five-minute intervals. After the first five minutes of quiet operation, I could see some difference in the windows and mirror, but there was definitely some way to go. 

When I checked back in at nine minutes, the room was on the edge of clear. Two minutes later, the windows were completely clear.  For its size, this is one of the best times for a test. Combined with the close-to-silent operation, the Wood’s delivered some impressive results. 

Test 2: laundry

The next test I give all dehumidifiers is on laundry. Given that this is advertised as a dehumidifier that specialises in laundry, I had high hopes for the Wood’s. I did a load of laundry with a range of different materials. There was a thick blanket, cotton napkins, sportswear, pillowcases, and normal clothes. This range of materials means that I can get a good sense of how Wood's MDK26 will handle any laundry tasks.

Without any drying aids, this load of laundry would take 24 hours. However, with the Wood’s industrious system, my laundry was cupboard dry in one hour. I had another dehumidifier (unsurprisingly from Wood’s) achieve the same result, but this time all of my laundry was cupboard-dry. It was incredible. 

Even better, the Wood’s is marketed as an efficient model, so it guarantees less of a drain on your utilities than a tumble dryer and yet a much quicker drying time than simple air drying. I calculated that it costs just under 10p to run for an hour (if the cost of electricity is taken as the average 27p per kWh). That's not as cheap as Meaco, but it's quicker to complete tasks, making it cheaper overall.

The Wood’s makes some noise, about as much as an extractor fan, so whilst it might not be the best dehumidifier for a bedroom, it’s perfect in almost every other way.

Test 3: cellar

The final, toughest test I put all dehumidifiers through is in my cellar. This is a perpetually damp space that seems impossible to dry. I left the Wood's MDK26 running from 9 pm to 9 am, setting it to reduce my humidity levels from 67% to 40%. I thought this was ambitious because the Wood's recommended working area is 80 m², which is about the size of my cellar. 

However, all my doubts were chased away when, at 9 am the next day, I came down to see the hydrostat reading 41%. For such a compact dehumidifier, that's an incredible result. I could tell that the Wood's MDK26 had been working hard because the reservoir was two-thirds full. Having collected over three litres in one night, the Wood's collected more than any of our dehumidifiers on test. That's from just one night of energy-efficient work.

Over my tests, other dehumidifiers suggested that they had brought the humidity to a lower level, but given that this was one of the biggest yields that I collected in the 12 hours, I'd say that the Wood's is one of the best I've tested. It's a testament to the power of the petite Wood's MDK26.

How does it compare?

The Wood's MDK26 is in a highly competitive part of the dehumidifier market. Both the MeacoDry Arete One 20L dehumidifier and the Pro Breeze 20L dehumidifier claim to have similar extraction capacities to the Wood's MDK26 — and they're half the price. 

Both the Meaco and the Pro Breeze performed really well in my tests, but the Wood's MDK26 had equally good results, if not better when it came to the laundry and cellar test. Moreover, the Wood's MDK26 is more energy efficient. Even though the upfront cost is greater, it costs half as much as the Meaco and just 25% of the Pro Breeze to run. Over time, you'll slowly make your money back.

If you're sold on Wood's, but want something more heavy-duty, the Wood's 22 has an even more effective extraction rate. It's much more industrial-looking, but if you're after a dehumidifier to dry out your damp cellar (me too), this is worth investing in. If you're after a general helper for around the house, the Wood's MDK26 is a better (much quieter) bet.

Keep an eye out for the best dehumidifier deals to get these models at more affordable prices.

Should you buy it?

As far as home dehumidifiers go, this is one of my favourites. The Wood's MDK26 is billed as a compact dehumidifier that's useful for laundry tasks. What the packaging doesn't tell you (but you need to know before buying a dehumidifier) is that this is one of the most premium, energy-efficient, speedy dehumidifiers on the market. It might be a little more expensive than the average model, but it is worth every penny.

How we test

At woman&home, we put a lot of thought into how we test dehumidifiers. If we find a model that we think you'll love, we want to test it for ourselves, so that we can give you our word that it's genuinely good. We look through all the specifications so that we know where we should apply some extra rigorous tests. For example, if a dehumidifier claims to be a laundry specialist, we'll test it for weeks in our laundry rooms with bedding, towels, jeans, and more.

We make notes on the performance of the dehumidifier in three key contexts. The first is on condensation in a bathroom because that gives us a good indicator of how the dehumidifier would be able to tackle humidity in the bedroom and kitchen. We also test dehumidifiers with a load of laundry and in a damp cellar. That way, we have a representative test for how these dehumidifiers will work in different contexts.

We'll tell you everything you need to know about the aesthetics, cleaning, and versatility of all the best dehumidifiers on the market. That way, you can choose the perfect one for your home with complete certainty.