Waykar 34 Pint ENERGY STAR

The 30 percent setting, and when it earns its keep

Almost every household dehumidifier has a humidistat floor of 40% relative humidity. That is a sensible floor for living space - the EPA's recommended band runs 30 to 50%, and below 40 a room starts to feel dry without any benefit, because the mold threshold is 60 and you are already well clear of it.

So for ordinary running, the 30% capability does nothing for you and you should not use it. Where it matters is drying something out:

• After a leak or a flood. Getting materials to give up their moisture means pulling the air drier than you would ever hold it. A 40% floor makes that slower.
• A storage room with paper, cardboard or fabric. Those materials equilibrate with the air around them, and 35% stores better than 50%.
• A workshop with tools. Surface corrosion slows markedly as humidity falls.
• A space you are about to close up - a boat, a seasonal property, a store room nobody will visit.

For a basement you simply want to keep comfortable, this is a specification you will set once to 50% and never think about. Ideal humidity settings.

The wattage, which is now a single number

Waykar still publishes no power figure for this unit, which is normal in this category - of 32 units we track, two print a wattage on their listing, and neither is a compressor unit. What changed is the model number.

The listing this page used to describe is gone, and Waykar's current 34-pint listing carries the model number PD160B-PRO - which appears in the ENERGY STAR certified file under exactly that string, at 10.16 pt/day and IEF 1.91. That computes to 105 W, with a certified annual use of 144 kWh. An exact model match replaces the band this page previously had to publish.

That certified capacity also corrects something this page previously got wrong. It recorded 34 pints as a DOE figure. It is not one - the current listing states the 34 is measured at 95F and 90% relative humidity, and the certified DOE rating behind it is 10.16. We have fixed the specification rather than quietly dropping it, because the gap is the single most useful thing on this page. How the wattages are computed and what the pint number means.

Quick picks

#	Product	Best for	Draw	Price
1	Waykar 34 Pint ENERGY STAR Most Efficient DehumidifierAn ENERGY STAR Most Efficient unit that still sets to 30% RH - and a 34-pint headline that the listing itself attributes to 95F and 90% humidity, against a certified 10.16.	Drying a small space below 40% relative humidity	105 W	$165.97/View on Amazon $185.99 11% off #ad Price as of October 21, 2026. How we are funded
2	hOmeLabs 32 Pint DehumidifierThe one hOmeLabs unit with a named entry in the ENERGY STAR list, so it is the one where the running cost is a published figure rather than a class estimate.	A bedroom that is damp but not wet	318 W	$234.99/View on Amazon Listing withdrawn - this searches the model. #ad Price as of October 21, 2026. How we are funded

1

Waykar

Waykar 34 Pint ENERGY STAR Most Efficient Dehumidifier

Best for: Drying a small space below 40% relative humidity

An ENERGY STAR Most Efficient unit that still sets to 30% RH - and a 34-pint headline that the listing itself attributes to 95F and 90% humidity, against a certified 10.16.

Average draw

105 W

Computed from the ENERGY STAR certified entry Waykar PD160B-PRO: 10.16 pt/day at IEF 1.91 L/kWh, 144 kWh a year, certified 14 October 2025 and flagged ENERGY STAR Most Efficient. This is an exact model-number match - the string on the listing and the string in the certified file are the same - which is why this unit now carries a figure where the previous listing could only carry a class band.

What is good

• +ENERGY STAR Most Efficient, which only a small minority of certified models carry
• +An exact certified model match, so the 105 W and the 144 kWh/yr describe this machine
• +Still sets to 30% RH where most humidistats stop at 40
• +Publishes a noise figure - 38 dB minimum - which almost nothing in this category does
• +Drain hose in the box, plus a washable filter and a child lock

What is not

• -The 34-pint headline is a saturation figure; the certified DOE rating is 10.16, a third of it
• -A 2,000 sq ft coverage claim on a 10-pint machine is not credible
• -The listing claims it saves 'approximately $1,000 annually' on electricity. At 144 kWh a year it costs about $26 a year to run in total, so there is no $1,000 to save
• -0.62 gallon tank and gravity drainage only

Who it is for

A bedroom, a closet, a boat or a store room you want genuinely dry rather than merely comfortable - and where 10 certified pints a day is enough.

Skip it if

Skip it for a basement. Ten certified pints is a small-room machine whatever the box says, and a damp below-grade room wants a certified 50.

2

hOmeLabs

hOmeLabs 32 Pint Dehumidifier

Best for: A bedroom that is damp but not wet

The one hOmeLabs unit with a named entry in the ENERGY STAR list, so it is the one where the running cost is a published figure rather than a class estimate.

Average draw

318 W

Computed from the ENERGY STAR certified entry hOmeLabs HME0089: 32.46 pt/day at IEF 2.01 L/kWh. This is the only hOmeLabs capacity in this registry with a named certified entry, which is why it is the only one carrying a number rather than a band.

What is good

• +318 W against the 50-pint class median of 488 W - about 35% less to run, hour for hour
• +Named in the ENERGY STAR certified list, so its IEF is public
• +Quiet enough for a bedroom in a way that a 50-pint compressor generally is not
• +Wi-Fi and auto shut-off at a small-unit price

What is not

• -32 DOE pints is genuinely less water than 50 - undersizing a wet basement costs more than the machine saved
• -Gravity drainage only
• -4,500 sq ft coverage for 32 pints is another claim to ignore

Who it is for

A bedroom, a home office, or a small basement that is humid rather than actively wet.

Skip it if

Skip it if the floor is ever damp to the touch or the walls sweat. That is a 50-pint problem, and a 32-pint machine will run continuously and still lose.

The tank is the real compromise

0.62 gallons. At the certified 10.16 pints a day - which is about 1.3 gallons - a full tank is roughly twelve hours of work in a genuinely damp room. Against the 34-pint headline it would be four, which is one practical reason the distinction matters.

That is not a defect so much as a design decision: this unit expects to be plumbed. Waykar includes a 3.3 ft drain hose in the box rather than selling it separately, which is a fair signal of intent. Run it on gravity to a floor drain and the tank never fills. Capacity versus tank size.

The coverage claim no longer survives the capacity

2,000 square feet for 10.16 certified DOE pints. When this page was first written we called that claim restrained, on the understanding that the machine was a 34-pint unit. On the certified figure it is not restrained at all - it is 2,000 square feet from a machine that removes about 1.3 gallons of water a day, and we were wrong to praise it.

It is still not a specification, because no coverage claim is. There is no test procedure behind any of them. Why the square footage is not a spec.

Who should buy something else

• Anyone with no drain. Gravity only, and a small tank. This is the wrong machine for a room where the bucket is the only outlet.
• Anyone whose drain is above the machine. No pump. Pump versus gravity.
• Anyone with a genuinely wet basement. Ten certified pints is a small-room machine whatever the box says; a wet below-grade room wants a certified 50. The basement roundup.
• Anyone buying on the 34. That figure is measured at 95F and 90% humidity. The number that compares against every other machine on this site is 10.16.

What we did not do

We have not run this unit. No noise measurement, no extraction test, no check of whether the humidistat actually reaches 30% in a real room rather than on a spec sheet - that last one would be genuinely worth knowing and we cannot tell you. This page was corrected on 3 October 2026: the listing it originally described was withdrawn, and the figures here now come from Waykar's current listing and from the certified entry for PD160B-PRO.