Summary
Can dehumidifiers dry out your house - and your clothes?
Greg Foot gathers the experts, dives into the data and crunches the numbers to get answers for listener Rhys.
Each episode Greg investigates the latest ad-hyped products and trending fads promising to make us healthier, happier and greener. Are they really 'the best thing since sliced bread' and should you spend your money on them?
All of our episodes start with YOUR suggestions. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or wonder product promising to make you happier, healthier or greener, email us at [email protected] OR send a voice note to our WhatsApp number, 07543 306807.
RESEARCHER: PHIL SANSOM PRODUCERS: SIMON HOBAN AND GREG FOOT
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.1 | Hello, I'm Greg Foote and welcome to Slice Bread, the BBC Radio 4 show that investigates the Wonder Products, promising to make you happier, healthier or greener. |
| 0:15.4 | Each episode, we follow the crumbs of evidence to find out if one of your suggested wonder products is indeed the best thing since sliced bread or marketing BS. |
| 0:24.8 | And today's suggestion comes from Reese Davies in Manchester. |
| 0:28.2 | Welcome to the studio, Reese. |
| 0:29.5 | Thank you. |
| 0:30.3 | What product do you want us to investigate today? |
| 0:32.8 | So I wanted to talk about dehumidifiers. |
| 0:36.5 | I bought one about 18 months ago and used it to dry laundry |
| 0:41.3 | and I wondered whether it was cheaper to be using it for that purpose or whether it would be |
| 0:47.3 | cheaper to use a tumble dryer or put the central heating on. And I also wondered if there's any health benefits |
| 0:53.3 | because I know a lot of them are marketed |
| 0:54.3 | as helping with things like black mould. Is that the thing that you struggle with in your house? |
| 1:00.0 | I tend to keep the windows open as much as I can to try and prevent it, but I have had to |
| 1:03.5 | bleach the shower out to get rid of some of it. I got my dehumidifier because a couple of people |
| 1:08.2 | at work had bought them and were raving about them. And since I bought one, my brother and my mom both bought them as well for the same reasons, blackmould and laundry drying. So I wondered whether there was some sort of snowballing effect and everybody's getting them there. Are they the new air friar? Yeah. Well, you're not the only one wanting to know if dehumidifiers are indeed SB or BS. |
| 1:30.2 | Listener Eddie sent over an email to slister.bred at BBC.co.com. |
| 1:33.8 | asking whether he should use a dehumidifier or, quote, just open a window. |
| 1:38.5 | Leesner Erbe also asked on email, would it be cheaper and more practical to heat your house with the dehumidifier than using |
| 1:45.0 | your boiler? Here's another email from listener Claire, who says, we've recently graduated |
| 1:50.0 | from those non-electronic damp-absorving devices that use damp absorbing crystals or |
| 1:55.2 | discs to a small electric dehumidifier. Our middle-aged joy is running to see how much |
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