How to disassemble to clean? - Comfort-Aire BHD-501 Dehumidifier

Can you disassemble it?

a change in tone of the noise from a working unit indicates to me that a bit of dust/dirt has built up on the internal fans blades and has caused a imbalance in the fan now , this usually requires a complete disassembly and cleaning out to remedy

The cap should just screw off the hose connector. You may have to carefully drill a 1/4" hose in the center of the threaded hose connector, once the cap is unscrewed. Some models require that, others don't.

Rather than have you disassemble the cabinet to get to the coils, I want you to do an "At Home Test".

Move the dehumidifier to a bathroom that has a shower. Plug it in, Turn it ON and set the humidity level at 30%. Turn the shower on to medium hot (enough to generate some steam. Do Not turn On the bathroom exhaust fan. As you leave the bathroom close the door. Wait 15 minutes and return to the bathroom. Turn the shower OFF and inspect the unit's water collection bucket for water. If you find any, the unit is working as it should. If you don't find any water, it may be that the humidity sensor has failed or the air intake filter is clogged. In which case, remove the filter and clean it. If it's the sensor, unless you are really DIY savy, I'd recommend buying a new dehumidifier. As finding the part (your unit was made by Fedders), the cost of the part and the labor involved, to me, out ways repairing it.

Now, on the positive side ... If you saw water in the bucket after the bathroom test. It may simply be, that at this time, there is not enough humidity in the room air (even at 30%) to trigger the sensor. If the unit is in a basement, the air temp (60 degrees or lower) will affect it. As the temperature at floor level (where the unit is) is 5 to 8 degrees colder than the air temperature. Dehumidifiers don't work well in cold temperatures.

Hope this helped you to troubleshoot and solve the problem. Please let me know. Thanks.

Definitely check the air filter, it has a sensor and will stop working if it's dirty. Easy to clean by running water through it.

your humdistat os bad. it should shut off by turning it down. google make and model look for a humidistat appliancepartspro.com is very helpful you can also call them. i replaced mine on a crosley had to disassemble it to get old controller out then it was just two wires and reassemble

I have a Whirlpool dehumidifier model AD50LJ0: the compressor starts but then appears to trip out. The fan keeps running. It does not condense and water. Can you help?

It sounds like you need to check the drain under the cooling section. It can fill with dust, lint, cat hair, spiders, etc. and prevent water from draining into the bucket. First, unplug the unit. Don't do anything with AC power present. Then, remove the 2 screws under the front panel where the air filter slides up in and pull off the control panel. There are "snap" latches in the plastic near the top that can be (are) hard to undo, so be careful. You might want to have work gloves on because of sharp edges. Prying with a screw driver will cause permanent dents in the plastic. Also, there is a small, sleeved bunch of wires that goes up the left side to the operator buttons and display. Be careful not to damage it and the circuit board it goes to. Set the front panel aside, wire attached. There is no need to disassemble any of that. The drain is a small 3/8" hole in the black plastic floor of the cooling area at the front, right side. It seems to have a fitting for a hose that feeds through to the back of the unit. Clean any foreign material from it and everything else. Test it, with the bucket in place, by pouring some water in, if you want to. Then clean the dust off of everything so it looks new. Don't get the circuit board wet. Re-assemble, being careful with the front panel wire so it is not pinched and does not prevent easy removal/installation of the filter, and it should be OK.

I had a similar problem with the pump not working and the water flowing into the main drainage bucket instead. I had to disassemble the housing...not an easy project to reassemble...and found that the pump has its own smaller drainage tank with a float device, a pump pre-filter, the actual pump, then of course, more drainage tubes. The entire pump drainage system of components needed cleaned of accumulated, mucoid, slime! I cleaned the channel in which water flows into the pump's tank...located on the screen filter side of the dehumidifier. Then I moved to the other side of the dehumidifier and cleaned-out the entire pump drainage tank. Note that the pump's drainage tank only empties about 1/2 inch of water each time the pump activates. Thus, there is always alot of water in the pump's drainage tank. Thus, alot of time for slime to accumulate. Next, I cleaned off the float mechanism. I then cleaned-out the pump's pre-filter. Cleaning out the pump's pre-filter was paramount to the pump functioning properly and quietly! I checked that my pump was properly installed and NOT rubbing against its mounting so that it operated quietly. I added fresh water to the pump's tank several times to insure that the pump was working properly and that all slime was eliminated. Finally, I reassembled the housing...not an easy task! My pump now functions like new. All this work had to be done to insure proper function of the dehumidifier's pump system. My dehumidifier is only 11 months old. It is still covered by the one year warranty, but it is too expensive to ship the entire unit, as Delonghi requires you to do at your expense for them to fix it under warranty. You can be assured that I will check for future slime build-up to keep my dehumidifier functioning properly. The dehumidifier works great, it's just that it's high maintenance.