Those huge commercial ones would be pretty cool for somebody like jeff... who's planning on making a relatively large kiln.
I bought a 50 pt/day basement dehumidifier from sLowes a year ago and had it running in the basement/shop before the previous owners even moved out.
Up until about April, everything was cool. It took about a week to fill the 5 gallon bucket that I had it emptying into. Then as the temp/humidity started to rise, I got tired of emptying the 5 gallon bucket every day. I moved it over by our heat pump/AC unit and piped the dumidifier to empty into the condensate pump for the AC unit. It's got it's own little float switch that kicks on and pumps the water out. It's been running like that since.
My basement says about 70°/50% RH even on the hottest summer day. During the winter, it has been about 20-30% RH.
I'd highly recommend a dehumidifier to anyone with a basement shop. But make sure you buy one designed to operate at lower temperatures associated with a basement.
