Best Aprilaire Dehumidifier 2026: E070, E080, E100 & E130 Compared

Quick Answer: The best Aprilaire dehumidifier in 2026 is the E100 — 100 pints per day, rated for up to 5,500 sq ft, ENERGY STAR Most Efficient, and $2,145.00 at Home Depot. Drop to the E080 (80 pints, 4,400 sq ft, $1,793.99) for a mid-sized house, take the E130 (130 pints, 7,400 sq ft, $2,495.99) only if the home is genuinely large or wet, and buy the E070 when the job is a sealed crawl space rather than a whole house. Before you order any of them, understand the catch: every Aprilaire E-Series unit is bucketless. There is no tank at all, so the machine only works if you can drain it — to a floor drain by gravity, or through a condensate pump you have to budget separately.

Aprilaire sells professional-grade equipment through a consumer storefront, and that mismatch is where buyers get caught. The E-Series is not a bigger version of the Midea Cube or a Frigidaire; it is HVAC hardware with a five-year warranty, a $1,700-to-$2,500 price ladder and an installation requirement. Below we rank the four E-Series models, decode the W and Pro suffixes that make the listings confusing, and say plainly who should close this page and buy a portable from our best dehumidifier pillar instead.

Aprilaire dehumidifiers at a glance

Prices are Home Depot and Aprilaire listings at the time of writing and move with HVAC supply pricing — check the current figure before buying.

Aprilaire dehumidifiers by the numbers

• 0 pints of tank capacity, on every model. Aprilaire describes the E-Series as bucketless with “no messy trays to empty.” That is a feature in a crawl space you never visit and a hard requirement everywhere else: no drain, no dehumidifier.
• 70 / 80 / 100 / 130 pints per day — the four E-Series capacities, which Aprilaire also publishes as 9, 10, 12.5 and 16 gallons per day respectively. The model number is the pint rating, which makes this the clearest naming scheme of any brand we cover.
• 23% annual energy savings. ENERGY STAR’s stated advantage of a Most Efficient dehumidifier over a conventional one — the efficiency case for the E080, E100 and E130 over cheaper ducted units.
• 5-year warranty on all four models, per Aprilaire. A Midea Cube and a hOmeLabs both ship one year, the latter extendable to two on registration.
• 56 lb and 12.5” × 12.5” × 25” for the E070 — small and light enough to pass through a crawl-space access hatch, which is exactly why it is the crawl-space pick and the E100 is not.
• 2,200 sq ft vs 2,800 sq ft: Aprilaire’s own product page rates the E070 at 2,200 sq ft while the Amazon Pro-bundle listing for the identical unit claims up to 2,800. Size on the lower number.
• 40–60% relative humidity: the range Aprilaire targets for its whole-home units. The EPA’s guidance for keeping mold in check is tighter — 30–50% — and mold can begin growing on damp materials within 24 to 48 hours, which is the argument for a permanently drained unit over a bucket somebody has to remember.

1. Aprilaire E100 — Best Overall Aprilaire

The E100 is the model to buy if you want to decide once. It is the middle of the range in capacity but the sweet spot in value: it carries the Most Efficient badge the E070 lacks, and it covers 5,500 sq ft — more house than most buyers actually have — without the E130’s extra $350. Get your dehumidifier running in two days — try Amazon Prime free for 30 days.

The honest caveat is that this is a two-thousand-dollar machine that arrives needing a home, a drain and usually ducting. If you have not yet decided between a ducted unit and a large portable, read our whole house dehumidifier guide before you spend anything.

2. Aprilaire E080 — Best for Mid-Sized Homes

Oversizing is the most expensive mistake in this category and it costs you twice — once at checkout and again every month on the meter. If your conditioned space is under roughly 2,500 finished square feet and the problem is persistent damp rather than a wet basement with standing water, the E080 is the right unit and the E100 is you paying $350 for headroom. The exception is a house that also has an unsealed crawl space feeding it moisture; there, size up or fix the crawl space first.

3. Aprilaire E070 — Best for Crawl Spaces

Crawl spaces are the application Aprilaire is best at, because the bucketless design that annoys everyone else is exactly right somewhere you never want to go. Encapsulate first, then drain the E070 to daylight or a pump, and the space maintains itself. The catch to price in: the E070 is the only model without the Most Efficient rating, and a crawl-space unit typically runs more hours per year than a whole-house one — so the efficiency you skipped is the efficiency you needed. See how it stacks against AlorAir and Santa Fe in our crawl space dehumidifier guide.

4. Aprilaire E130 — Best for Large Homes

Buy the E130 for one of two reasons: the house is genuinely large, or it is genuinely wet. Square footage alone rarely justifies the step up from the E100, because a dehumidifier is sized on moisture load rather than floor area — a 4,000 sq ft house on a sealed slab in a dry climate asks less of a machine than a 2,500 sq ft house over a damp dirt crawl space. If your reason is “it was only $350 more,” that is the oversizing trap again.

5. Aprilaire E070W — Best Wi-Fi Model

Connectivity is worth more on an Aprilaire than on a portable, and for one specific reason: you cannot see this machine. A crawl-space or attic unit that silently stops draining will not announce itself until something smells, and the app alert is the only early warning you get. If the unit lives in a mechanical room you walk past daily, save the $130.

6. AlorAir Sentinel HDi90 — The Cheaper Alternative

We would not run a brand guide that pretends the brand always wins. On raw pints per dollar, AlorAir beats Aprilaire outright — an HDi90 does roughly E080 work for around half the price. What Aprilaire sells at that premium is the five-year warranty, the ENERGY STAR Most Efficient rating and a contractor network that has installed thousands of them. On a machine hidden in a crawl space for a decade, those are not nothing. Both are compared head to head in our whole house dehumidifier guide.

How to read an Aprilaire listing

The catalogue looks complicated and isn’t, once you know the three parts:

• The number is the capacity. E070, E080, E100 and E130 remove 70, 80, 100 and 130 pints per day. No other brand in this category names its models this honestly.
• “W” means Wi-Fi, nothing else. E070W, E080W, E100W and E130W are the same dehumidifiers with a connected controller and colour display, for roughly $130–150 more. Identical coils, identical capacity.
• “Pro” means accessories, not performance. An Aprilaire Pro Bundle is the same unit boxed with a drain hose, duct collars, a spare filter and risers. You need most of that anyway, so the bundle is usually the cheaper path — but a Pro does not dry harder than a bare SKU.
• Two coverage numbers can describe one machine. Aprilaire lists the E070 at 2,200 sq ft; the Amazon Pro bundle for the same unit says 2,800. Always size on the manufacturer’s lower figure.
• Every model is bucketless. There is no tank option anywhere in the range. Drainage is a purchase decision, not an afterthought.

How to choose an Aprilaire dehumidifier

• Answer the drainage question before the capacity question. Gravity to a floor drain is free; below the drain means a condensate pump such as Aprilaire’s 4856, which fits the E070, E080, E100 and E130. Budget it up front.
• Size on moisture load, not deed square footage. A damp dirt crawl space under a small house asks more of a dehumidifier than a big house on a sealed slab.
• Take the Most Efficient models where you can. The E080, E100 and E130 carry the badge and about 23% in annual savings per ENERGY STAR; the E070 does not.
• Measure the access hatch first. The E070 is 12.5” × 12.5” × 25” and 56 lb. The larger units are not crawl-space-portable, and discovering that on install day is expensive.
• Skip Aprilaire entirely if you are drying one room. A 50-pint portable costs $250–350 and needs no install. Start with our best dehumidifier pillar or the basement picks instead.

The bottom line

The Aprilaire E100 is the best Aprilaire dehumidifier for most homes — 100 pints per day, 5,500 sq ft, ENERGY STAR Most Efficient and $2,145.00. The E080 at $1,793.99 is the smarter buy under roughly 2,500 finished square feet, the E130 at $2,495.99 earns its place only in large or genuinely wet houses, and the E070 is the crawl-space unit because it is the one that fits through the hatch. Whichever you choose, plan the drain first: every E-Series model is bucketless, so a unit sitting below your nearest drain needs a condensate pump before it needs anything else. And if the real job is one damp basement rather than a whole house, an AlorAir or a good portable with a pump will do it for a quarter of the money. Compare the full field in our best dehumidifier pillar, check the commercial picks if the space is bigger still, and see whether Amazon Prime is worth it for dehumidifier shoppers before you order.

Check the Aprilaire E100 price on Amazon →