I'm happy to tell you about something that isn't cheaply-made Chinese junk
! About a year ago, I bought a dehumidifier for my basement, an Aprilaire model E070. I was designed to stand alone (as I use it) or go into the duct work of an HVAC system. And it has adequate capacity for my basement. It works well. So, this is the opposite of my usual RANT – it's a NOT-RANT.
My wife has been bugging me to clean it's air filter. I dreaded that because 1) Removing the filter is probably a nightmare, and 2) Since getting lung cancer, I'm a lot more feeble than I used to be.
I did it the job this morning … easy peasy!
The dehumidifier looks & feels like most American-made products used to be. It might have been made in China, but it was easy to open the filter access panel, pull out the filter, rinse it off, and put it back in.
The screw that held the access panel wasn't impossibly tiny & short, it took either Phillips head or flat blade screwdrivers, and the panel opened without fully removing (and loosing) the screw itself. The filter itself easily slid out because it was sturdily mounted inside an aluminum frame that was held in place with bracket rails, allowing easy slid-in or -out. That frame included a large, easily seen arrow indicating air flow direction.
I have to point all this out only because too often I've encountered things like those that were made so cheap that they easily jammed, failed, or were a nightmare to use. We've all probably run into battery compartments that were difficult to open or close, and were so poorly marked that battery polarity couldn't be easily seen without bright daylight.
I had feared this would be like so many cheap Chinese-made stuff I've encountered before. The maker knew how to make a product that looks like the real thing, but they scrimped way too much on such things as screw sizes or access panels meant for routine maintenance. Those screws are often so tiny that only a 5-year old child could hold them.
Even the power switch was a properly sized rocker switch. It probably won't fail after half a dozen uses.
I may be old, feeble, and have poor vision. But I do remember the days when all things were better designed and built. Doing this simple air filter job today made me feel young again
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