Duux Bora 30l review: Serious drying power for big damp spaces

Having made its reputation with great fans, Duux is now turning its attention to the dehumidifier market with the Duux Bora. Like the Whisper Flex fan and the Threesixty, an impressive compact heater, the Duux Bora bears all the hallmarks of the brand, with its stylish, minimalist design and a focus on quiet efficiency.

What’s more, it promises some strong performance, with a claimed extraction rate of 30l per day for the top-end model I’ve been testing over the last week. That’s certainly the kind of dehumidifying power that could come in handy when banishing damp patches and mould, even from bigger homes.

Duux Bora 30l review: What do you get for the money?

The Bora is available in 20l and 30l versions, with both sharing the same basic design. The 30l costs £350 at normal pricing, with the 20l costing £50 less – though both can sometimes be found significantly cheaper in seasonal sales.

The Bora 30l has a 4l removable front-facing water tank, but also comes with a continuous drainage hose for use with a drain or sink. It’s based on a compressor which operates at temperatures above 15°C, and it can be set to target humidity levels of between 30% and 80%. That should be able to cover most rooms in most UK homes, but it won’t be suitable for use in garages, sheds or other unheated spaces during the winter – for that sort of task, I’d normally steer you towards one of the desiccant dehumidifiers, such as the EcoAir DD1, in our best dehumidifier line-up.

The unit is surprisingly compact, given its capacity, and stands at 51cm tall with a 32cm by 23.5cm footprint. Membrane button controls, along with a humidity display, can be found on the top panel, while the handle at the rear makes it reasonably easy to move around the home, provided you can handle the 14.5kg weight. Along with the drainage hose, it features a replaceable carbon filter, which fits neatly behind a flap at the rear to trap any smoke, gases, or odours as the air moves through the dehumidifier.

Duux Bora 30l review: What features does it have?

The Bora’s main setting is a standard “auto” dehumidification mode, which enables you to set the target humidity level and just leave it running in the background. However, there’s also a “continuous” mode for rapid drying of seriously damp spaces, a “laundry” mode for drying clothes and a “night” mode that runs the dehumidifier quietly with the display and LEDs turned off. You can also adjust the fan speed, or set an off-timer to power down the Bora after one to 24 hours.

You get all the standard safety features, like a child lock, and the dehumidifier automatically pauses and sounds an alarm once the tank’s full. However, the Bora goes one better than many other dehumidifier models with its self-cleaning function, which cleans the machine in around an hour. This, in particular, seems like a smart idea as some dehumidifiers can get pretty stinky while packed away for summer storage.

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Duux Bora 30l review: How well does it work?

The Bora 30l has some seriously good points, but let’s start with the negative.

My main complaint is that the membrane control panel isn’t particularly intuitive. Many of the buttons have dual functions, where the second function is activated by a long press, and when there are options to select the target humidity, or activate the timer, you have to cycle through them using repeated shorter presses. It’s something you will soon get used to, but the immediate ease of use could certainly be improved.

However, you can always use Duux’s app instead. This gives you full remote control of the unit, complete with the ability to easily set the target humidity in 5% increments, and the option to create schedules, hour-by-hour for different weekdays. It even graphs your humidity levels in daily, weekly, monthly, six-monthly and yearly views.

Once you have it up and running, the Bora works a treat. Left to dehumidify my living room after a couple of days of cold and wet weather, I saw the humidity level drop from a shocking 78% to a much more comfortable 57%, reaching 61% after the first hour. That’s one of the best dehumidifier performances I’ve recorded in the last two years and slightly better than the Meaco Arete Two, though the differences in inside and outside temperature make direct performance comparisons difficult. It also did well in a smaller upstairs bedroom, taking the humidity level down from 71% to 52% over a similar two hour period. Plus, I appreciated how easy it is to remove and carry the water tank for emptying, thanks to a handle that peeks through its internal lid.

And while I had my doubts about the Bora 30l’s laundry performance given its maximum duration of just four hours, I was pleasantly surprised. After four hours, all the clothes on my rack were bone dry, including a thick cotton shirt and a heavyweight thermal top. Jeans, towels and jumpers might tell a different story, but if you’re looking for a dehumidifier that can take some of the load from your tumble dryer, this one definitely fits the bill.

Duux Bora 30l review: What could be improved?

The Bora 30l does carry Quiet Mark certification, but I wasn’t altogether happy with its noise levels or its energy consumption. At full tilt, it puts out around 44.7dB and uses just over 400W, which is a lot more than the Meaco Arete Two, at 38.7dB and 224W. Admittedly, that’s partly because it’s comparing a 30l to a 20l dehumidifier, but the compressor on the Bora 30l is still significantly louder.

Even on night mode, when Duux claims it emits just 36dB of noise, I found that the Bora was still putting out 42.3dB while the compressor was active. Once humidity levels stabilise you will see noise levels drop to between 34.6 and 36dB, with energy consumption dropping to 25.4dB; however, while the compressor is working hard, you’re not going to get the kind of sound levels you can snooze through.

Duux Bora 30l review: Should you buy it?

It’s not the ideal dehumidifier for every situation, but it’s one of the best I’ve tested for tackling large, damp spaces. It says a lot that after four hours of laundry drying and two hours of dehumidifying, the 4l water tank was nearly full. The Bora is fantastically efficient at dragging excess moisture from the air, and it’s an equally dab hand at drying laundry.

In terms of noise and energy efficiency it still lags behind Meaco’s Arete Two, but if your priority is rapid dehumidification, look no further.