Dehumidifier not working

[Shep]

I've got a Goldstar portable dehumidifier that I bought a couple years back. The unit has worked fine with no major problems, until now.

I've had the unit unplugged for the winter and now with the humidity starting to get bad, I've cleaned the filter and have it ready to go. The only problem is it is not working. When I first plug it in, or turn it on, it will run through its normal startup run for about two minutes, then stops. The unit is in my basement so it might not be as humid as I think, but I feel like it should be running based of prior years of use. Does anyone know why this could be happening, or how I could figure out what to fix? I guess I could move it to an upstairs room that is more humid to check it, but I'm not at home right now.

Also, when I remove the water bucket the light does come one, and when I replace it it cycles again, but then stops. The humidistat is aslo set on max.

[master53yoda]

To check the humidistat put it in a bathroom and run a hot shower. if it doesn't come on with that the humidistat is probably bad. If you are comfortable doing it jump out the humidistat and see if it comes on, if so replace the humidistat.

Mechanical humidistats go bad over time due to the element stretching out. The only help for this is to set them at a minimum setting when not in use, this relieves the tension on the element and that will help prevent the element from stretching.