Guide

Where the water goes: gravity, pump, or bucket

A unit removing 50 pints a day fills a two gallon bucket in eight hours. Decide the drain before you decide the unit, because it rules some units out entirely.

Gravity drain

A hose from the unit to a floor drain or through the wall to daylight. No moving parts and nothing to fail, but it needs continuous fall the whole way, and it needs somewhere lower than the unit to go. In a crawl space with no floor drain that often means a wall penetration, which needs to be sealed and screened so you do not trade water for pests.

Condensate pump

A small reservoir with a float switch that lifts the water up and out. This is what most crawl space installations end up using because there is nowhere lower to drain to. It is one more thing that can clog, so it wants an annual look.

See AlorAir crawl space and basement units

Bucket

Fine for a small room where you are already going in every day. Not fine for a crawl space, because the unit stops when the bucket is full and you find out weeks later. If a unit only offers a bucket, it is not a crawl space unit.

Freeze protection

Any hose that runs to the outside can freeze, and a frozen drain backs water up into the unit. In a cold climate, run the drain to an interior point or heat trace the run.