Prices and specs last checked by Look Into on 5 November 2026 · next check 7 January 2027 · how we picked
The short answer
- In a heated room, buy a compressor. Meaco's Arete One 12L removes a litre of water for 18.2p. Meaco's DD8L desiccant costs 54.7p a litre in the same room, three times as much.
- In a cold room, a compressor still wins on Meaco's figures. At 10°C and 60% humidity the Arete One 12L costs 42.1p a litre; Meaco's figures for its DD8L Zambezi desiccant put a litre at 56.9p on low.
- Buy a desiccant only for somewhere that gets close to freezing, like a garage, a boat or an unheated outbuilding. Meaco rates the DD8L down to 1°C.
A compressor dehumidifier works like a small fridge: air passes over a cold coil, water condenses on it and drips into the tank. A desiccant dehumidifier pulls water out of the air with an absorbent wheel, then heats the wheel to dry it again. That heater is why a desiccant draws more power, and why it keeps working when the room is too cold for a coil to collect water.
The fair way to compare them is not the litres in the name, which are measured in tropical test conditions, but what each litre of water costs to remove in a British room. Meaco is the one maker in our best dehumidifiers UK guide that publishes extraction and power at stated temperatures for both types, so the comparison below uses its machines.
What a litre costs to remove
| Machine | Type | Room | Maker's power figure | Maker's extraction | Cost per litre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meaco Arete One 12L | Compressor | 20°C, 60% RH | 151W | 5.23 litres a day | 18.2p |
| Meaco Arete One 25L | Compressor | 20°C, 60% RH | 267W | 10.73 litres a day | 15.7p |
| Meaco DD8L | Desiccant | 20°C, 60% RH | 650W, speed 2 | 7.5 litres a day | 54.7p |
| Meaco Arete One 12L | Compressor | 10°C, 60% RH | Meaco table | Meaco table | 42.1p |
| Meaco DD8L Zambezi | Desiccant | 10°C, low setting | Meaco table | Meaco table | 56.9p |
The working for the first row: 151 watts for 24 hours is 3.624 kWh, which costs 95.4p at 26.32p per kWh. Divide by the 5.23 litres Meaco says it removes in that room and a litre costs 18.2p. The DD8L at 650 watts uses 15.6 kWh a day, £4.11, for 7.5 litres: 54.7p a litre.
What a night costs
Over an eight-hour night the Arete One 12L costs 31.8p to run. The DD8L costs 69.5p on its low setting and £1.37 on laundry mode. Per night the gap is a little over two to one; per litre of water removed it is three to one, because the compressor also removes more water in a warm room.
When a desiccant is the right choice
Compressor machines lose extraction as a room cools, because the coil can ice up and the air holds less water. Meaco's own table shows the Arete One 12L costing 2.3 times as much per litre at 10°C as at 20°C. Even so, on Meaco's figures it stays cheaper per litre than the desiccant at 10°C. The desiccant earns its place below that, in a space that drops towards freezing, where a compressor stops collecting water at all.
- Heated bedroom, living room or flat: compressor.
- Drying washing indoors in a heated room: compressor, ideally one with a laundry mode.
- Unheated garage, boat, caravan in winter or a cold outbuilding: desiccant.
- A cold but not freezing spare room: compressor on Meaco's figures, and the room will cost less to run if you can keep it above 10°C.
For sizing, our guide to what size dehumidifier you need works through capacity by room and problem, and our Meaco vs Pro Breeze head-to-head prices two compressor machines night against night.
What this page could not check
Every power and extraction figure is Meaco's own; we have not run these machines. Other makers' compressor and desiccant models will sit at different points, and most publish no extraction figure at a stated temperature, so their cost per litre cannot be worked out. The 10°C desiccant figure is for the DD8L Zambezi, the DD8L's sister model, because Meaco publishes the cold-room figure for that one.
Sources
- Meaco, Arete One 12L and 25L performance tables, read 3 September 2026
- Meaco, DD8L and DD8L Zambezi product pages, read 18 September 2026
- Ofgem, energy price cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026 (electricity 26.32p per kWh), confirmed 26 August 2026