we finally made it back by 1pm. my mother made some wonton soup for lunch.
my sister brought esmei over around 2pm. because she hadn't peed yet, we were afraid of keeping her inside the house (where she'd already peed twice in the past), so we stayed with her outside until she went to the bathroom. but there seemed to be too many backyard distractions for a puppy, so she completely forgot to pee. instead she went on a rampage picking up anything she could fit in her mouth, from diseased grapes, to leaves, to an astringent quince fruit. we also had to stop her from chewing through solar panel charging wires a few times. exhausted, we finally brought her inside where there was less stuff she could cause mischief. my sister and mother kept taking her outside when it seemed like she might want to go to the bathroom but she never did. maybe she already peed outside but just nobody saw it. while my father and i were down in the basement, we heard this loud deep barking sound coming from upstairs. we found esmei in the sunroom, reacting to the sound of contractors sanding the neighbor's house, making a high pitched squeaking noise like a dog crying. not only was esmei barking, but she wanted to investigate where the sound was coming from. from such a small dog she has a really loud and deep bark. esmei also really likes looking outside though, and would calmly sit by the glass storm door, silently watching people walk by. she eventually grew tired and few asleep by the door. my sister took her home soon after that.
our new midea 50-pint cube smart dehumidifier (with built-in pump) arrived today from costco ($240). it's probably the most expensive dehumidifier we've ever bought. i did a lot of research beforehand and various sources gave it good reviews. i liked that it had a different design from all the dehumidifiers we'd ever owned (a typical tall upright appliance with a catch bin and a built-in pump). it's simpler cubic construction might offer it increased longevity, compared to all the dehumidifiers we'd ever bought that failed after a few years.
the first thing we noticed was how heavy it was - around 40 lbs. while it's true that dehumidifiers are typically quite heavy (they're essentially just an indoor air conditioner, minus the cooling), we weren't expecting the cube to be so heavy because it was so small in comparison.
we moved it down in the basement so we could set it up. the main unit lifts out then rests on a cubic bucket. we were originally going to put it all on a wooden dolly so it'd be more maneuverable, until we found it came with caster wheels (not mentioned in the product description). the bucket seems a little chintzy and i was afraid it'd crack under the weight of the much heavier main unit, but i put my faith in the manufacturer that they wouldn't design something that would break so easily. the instructions for installing the input and output tubes for the built-in pump were kind of lacking. midea also has some instruction videos (accessed via a QR code link) but i didn't bother watching them, figured out where the tubes went intuitively. the pump inlet hose attached to the inlet hose connection, with a larger filtered knob sitting at the bottom of the bucket. the longer drain hose connected to the pump hose outlet.
powering it on, the midea smart cube seems like a glorified upright-pointing box fan with a built-in condenser to pull moisture out of the air. the unit said humidity was currently at 70%, so we set it to 50% (later increasing it to 55%) and left it running in the basement. the fan speed has two options - high or low - we set it on low speed, as the high speed was louder.
later i downloaded the midea app ("midea air") and set up an account before connecting the app to the dehumidifier. the app can control all the functions of the midea cube, along with additional features like creating an automatic schedule to turn on and off the dehumidifier. the app showed me that the basement humidity had already decreased down to 69% after just turning it on for a few minutes.
an hour later i went down to the basement with my mother to show her the new dehumidifier (it was her idea after all to replace our old broken unit). she wanted proof it was working, and we couldn't quite tell if any water was coming out of the drain hose, despite the cellar sink being wet. i lifted up the main unit and saw there was about an inch or two of water already in the bucket. it seemed like it was definitely doing something. when and how it pumps the water out i'm not sure, but the bucket itself has a 4 gallon capacity, much larger than any of our house dehumidifiers.
i also installed a smart plug so we could see how much electricity the midea cube uses. dehumidifiers are notorious for being power drains. with the fan on low speed, it uses 36W of power. i'm not sure how much electricity it uses when the condenser turns on. this dehumidifier is listed as one of the most energy efficient units in its weight class. we'll run it a few days to see what the total energy draw is.
for dinner we had some cured pork belly (腊肉) with zucchini, tofu with garlic chives, and leftover bitter melon.
i checked the dehumidifier one last time before i left. the humidity was down to 56%, but seemed to have a hard time getting any lower than that.
i made it back home by 7:30pm. li wasn't home yet. his stanley thermos was waiting on the doorstep. he got back around 8:30pm, having gone out to some korean barbecue (gyu-kaku) in harvard square with some coworkers. we tested out his new thermos by filling it up with boiling water to see how long it can insulated. he paid me back the final amount of money he owed me, but added some extra, saying he wanted to treat me to dim sum but i grabbed the check before he could.