Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is the first de-humidifier I've ever used, so take that for what it's worth. First, this unit is installed in the basement of a vacation home in TN. I didn't think I'd have a moisture issue given where the house is built, but after several months of no occupancy, there was visible green dust-like mold on everything in the basement, and there was a very musty smell. After installing and running this unit for 4 straight days, I dumped about 25 gallons of water (bucket by bucket), and the musty smell completely went away. The air is noticeably drier (to the point I think I need chapstick). Knowing that the unit would be running unattended for months at a time, I installed the drain hose and verified that it was working just fine. I also ran the power cord through a z-wave appliance switch so I could remotely turn the unit on and off. As an added benefit, the appliance switch also has a power meter (think Kill-a-watt) feature that reports real-time power consumption. After the initial continuous operation, I switched to 50% on the humidstat. Feeling is was overly dry, I incrementally worked my way to 70%. I did not notice any significant difference in the cycling frequency or duration on any of the settings. It seems to run (fan and compressor) for about 3 minutes. Then fan only for about 3 more minutes. Then completely off for about 10 minutes... At which point it repeats. It'll do this whether it has been running for a week, or it's been off for 5 days. So, I set up my z-wave script to have the unit come on for 24 hours every Monday. I would have thought that after being off for a week, it would run continuously for several hours to dry out the air, but no, it's still only running for 3-minute intervals. Ultimately, I don't really care about the accuracy, precision or repeatability of the humidistat since I can remotely schedule the run time. As for power consumption, I've attached a couple of graphs that show actual consumption and run time. Since the house is vacant, it's baseline load is about 9kWH per day. When the unit is on for 24 hours (cycling as described above), the additional consumption is about 2.5kWH per day. My electricity cost is about 10 cents per kWH. Thus, 30 cents per day. Leaving it running 24/7 controlled only by its internal humidistat would run about $91 annually ($0.25 x 7 days/week x 52 weeks). With only one day per week, that comes out to $13/year - or just over a dollar per month. Obviously running it only one day a week might not be enough. Perhaps running it 4 hours per day would be better? I just don't know yet. Further, I'm sure certain times of the year will see higher/lower moisture levels. Still a lot of learning to do.