Before you begin. This procedure is general reference information, not professional advice. Equipment varies by manufacturer, model, and year. Always follow the documentation supplied with your equipment — where it differs from this page, follow the manufacturer. Verify that you have the tools, the working conditions, and the ability to do this task safely. If anything is unclear, if the equipment is damaged, or if the task exceeds your experience, stop and use a qualified professional. You are responsible for your own safety and for the outcome. This site accepts no liability for any loss, damage, or injury arising from the use of this information.
Specifications marked unverified could not be traced to a manufacturer source. Do not rely on them — obtain the value from your equipment documentation.
A dehumidifier with two letters on the display is either telling you something you can fix in a minute or telling you it needs a technician, and there is no way to tell which without knowing the brand. This page is a lookup table rather than a procedure. It carries the codes that four manufacturers publish for their own machines, each attributed to the manufacturer that published it.
The reason it is organised by brand is that the codes are not a standard. P2 is a full bucket on a Danby. P1 is a drain-pump fault on a GE — but only on the 50-pint models with a built-in pump, because the 70-pint ones use E01 for the same fault, and Frigidaire calls its pump fault PU. Even the reset differs: GE says pull the plug for 30 seconds, LG says 20 seconds for some codes and three minutes for others, and Danby says five to ten minutes. A generic dehumidifier code table is therefore a table of somebody else's machine.
If your brand is not one of the four here, the honest answer is your own manual, and this page says so rather than guessing. Two of the entries are not faults at all, which is worth knowing before you call anyone.
STOP THE DEHUMIDIFIER IF YOU SEE SMOKE OR IF YOU SMELL BURNED PLASTIC.
Disconnect the dehumidifier from the power supply. A recalled dehumidifier can catch fire and burn you.
| Item | Note |
|---|---|
| Owner documentation for your dehumidifier | The documentation gives the code table for your own model. |
| Pen and paper | Write the code before you disconnect the dehumidifier. |
| Flashlight optional | A flashlight shows the rating plate at the back of the dehumidifier. |
No tier-1 source was found for this value. Take it from the documentation supplied with your equipment.
Estimated 4 min to 13 min
No tier-1 source was found for this value. Take it from the documentation supplied with your equipment.
DISCONNECT THE DEHUMIDIFIER FROM THE POWER SUPPLY BEFORE YOU REMOVE THE AIR FILTER OR THE BUCKET.
The fan can start and injure your hand.
DO NOT USE A CODE TABLE FROM A DIFFERENT BRAND.
The same letters have a different meaning on a different brand.
Estimated 10 min to 20 min
No tier-1 source was found for this value. Take it from the documentation supplied with your equipment.
EMPTY THE BUCKET BEFORE YOU MOVE THE DEHUMIDIFIER.
Water from a full bucket goes onto the floor.
Estimated 3 min
Estimated 8 min
DO NOT DO WORK IN THE SEALED SYSTEM OF A DEHUMIDIFIER, because the refrigerant can injure you.
Only a certified technician must do this work.
Estimated 24 min
Estimated 2 min
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission 23-262
On 16 August 2023 the CPSC announced the recall of about 1.56 million Gree-made dehumidifiers, sold under the Kenmore, GE, SoleusAir, Norpole and Seabreeze brands and manufactured between January 2011 and February 2014. The notice states that the dehumidifiers can overheat, smoke, and catch fire, posing fire and burn hazards, and reports at least 23 fires, 688 overheating incidents and $168,000 in property damage. Consumers are told to immediately stop use, unplug the dehumidifiers, and contact Gree for a refund. This is one of several dehumidifier recalls on record; if your machine is old, check its model number against the CPSC list before you troubleshoot a code.
Recall feed checked 2026-07-29
This page uses one term for each item and holds it throughout, as ASD-STE100 requires. Equipment sellers and other guides use the names below for the same parts.
Speak to the manufacturer if a code stays after the reset that your own documentation gives.
Do not open the body of the dehumidifier. Do not do work in the sealed system, because refrigerant work needs a certified technician. Frigidaire and LG both send the owner to service for this fault.
Stop the dehumidifier if you see smoke near it. Stop the dehumidifier if you see water on the floor near it. Disconnect the dehumidifier from the power supply. Speak to the manufacturer.
Do a check of your model number against the CPSC recall list. Do this check before you do work on an old dehumidifier.
On a Danby, P2 means the bucket is full or is not sitting in the right position — empty it, seat it properly, and the code clears. That is Danby's published meaning for Danby machines and we are not going to extend it to yours if yours is a different brand. P1 on a GE, for instance, is not a bucket code at all; it is a drain-pump fault, and only on the 50-pint pump models. If your machine is not a Danby, the letters are a coincidence until your own manual says otherwise.
Frigidaire lists EC and F0 together and calls it a sealed system failure, and its instruction for both is to contact Frigidaire rather than to try anything at home. That is the sealed refrigeration circuit, which is not owner-serviceable and is not something this site will publish a procedure for. There is no reset that fixes it and no filter to clean. Note the code, note the model number, and call.
Frigidaire says H3 and E5 both indicate compressor overload protection, which is the machine protecting itself rather than a component having failed. Frigidaire's own owner steps are to check the unit has proper clearance, clean the filter if it needs it, and unplug the unit and let it cool. It also gives an operating temperature of 41F to 89F for its dehumidifiers, so a machine running in a cold garage or a hot loft is a candidate. If it comes back after cooling and cleaning, Frigidaire routes it to service.
On an LG that is not a fault. LG states plainly that CL is not an error code — it means the child lock is on, and while it is on only the power button responds. Which buttons release it depends on the year: LG gives Humidity Up held for three seconds on 2024 and newer, the Lock button on 2020 to 2023, the Ionizer button on 2017 to 2019, and Humidity Up plus high fan speed together on 2013 to 2017. It is worth checking before you book a repair on a machine that is working perfectly.
Not on a GE. GE says an 88 may appear in the display when power is connected and stays there until you set the relative humidity, and that this is normal and does not indicate a problem. Set a humidity target and it goes. If the 88 stays after you have set one, that is a different question and worth a call.
Longer than you think, and the manufacturers do not agree. GE says 30 seconds. LG says 20 seconds for CH 01, CH 02 and CH 03 but three minutes for CH 24 and CH 67 — so LG does not even have one answer for its own machines. Danby says five to ten minutes. Frigidaire tells you to unplug and reconnect without saying how long. Use your own manual's figure, and if you do not have one, err long: waiting extra costs nothing, and cutting it short is how a reset that would have worked gets written off as a failure.
Probably not. Danby notes that frost can form when the ambient temperature drops below 41F, and that the appliance defrosts itself automatically — the compressor cuts out for a while and the fan keeps running until it has cleared. That is why a dehumidifier in an unheated garage in winter can look like it has stopped working. Frigidaire's stated operating range for its machines starts at the same 41F, which is a hint that below that you are outside what a standard compressor dehumidifier is built for.
It is worth checking, because dehumidifier recalls have been unusually large. In August 2023 the CPSC announced a recall of about 1.56 million Gree-made units sold under the Kenmore, GE, SoleusAir, Norpole and Seabreeze names, built between January 2011 and February 2014, after at least 23 fires and 688 overheating reports. The instruction there was to stop using them immediately, unplug them and contact Gree for a refund. If your machine is more than about ten years old, check the model number against the CPSC list before you spend an afternoon troubleshooting a code.
Your own manual, and we would rather say that than invent a table. The codes on this page come from four manufacturers' published documentation and they contradict each other often enough that guessing a fifth brand's meanings from them would be actively harmful. If you cannot find the manual, the model number from the rating plate plus the manufacturer's support site is usually a two-minute search. Community forums can tell you a code is common; they cannot tell you what it means on your machine.
Every specification on this page is traced to one of these sources. Tier 1 is a manufacturer document, a published standard, or a government safety authority. See Standards for the full tiering rule.
Current version 1 · updated 2026-07-29 · next review due 2027-07-29
Corrections to this page are listed in the public corrections log. Reports that are credible and not yet verified are listed in the public errata register, and an open one renders above the step it concerns.
Found an error? A correction with a manufacturer source is applied and logged publicly. You can also write to corrections@fixchecklist.com.
Every step above carries its own report control, which tags the report with that step so a correction reaches the right place. For anything about the procedure as a whole — the order of the sections, a step that is missing, something that did not match your equipment — use this: report something about this whole procedure.