11–20 of 302 posts
Curious what Wirecutter would have to say about this. I use them for a lot of my purchases if I don't know where to start and it does seem like some rare times they just miss the mark, though not so egregiously as this. Why stand on something that seems so widely disliked?
Curious what Wirecutter would have to say about this. I use them for a lot of my purchases if I don't know where to start and it does seem like some rare times they just miss the mark, though not so egregiously as this. Why stand on something that seems so widely disliked?
Last time I read the Wirecutter review, they only looked at the wick style of humidifier. The stated reason for this was the propensity for steam and ultrasonic humidifiers to over-humidify. It's entirely possible that the Honeywell is the easiest to clean and most quiet of this type of humidifier. [edit] Direct quotes from the Wirecutter post (emphasis added by me): > We recommend the Honeywell HCM-350 Germ Free Coo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last time I read the Wirecutter review, they only looked at the wick style of humidifier. The stated reason for this was the propensity for steam and ultrasonic humidifiers to over-humidify. It's entirely possible that the Honeywell is the easiest to clean and most quiet of this type of humidifier. [edit] Direct quotes from the Wirecutter post (emphasis added by me): > We recommend the Honeywell HCM-350 Germ Free Coo…
There are ultrasonic humidifiers, at the same price point, that have humidity meters built in so they don't over humidify. It's completely dishonest for wirecutter to claim that the entire category over-humidifies. It's just not true.
I understand there are "efficiency" gains with the evaporative style, but it's absolutely dwarfed by the horrible ownership experience. After my poor experience with this unit, I would only consider an evaporative humidifier if I had to humidify a large space.
Propane heat emits water vapor too; and if you can have a lot of plants around they add moisture and lots of other good and bad things to the air.
My issues are such that I can have happy plants and benefit from them. For about the power cost of a humidifier i can have an LED lit jungle shelf that transpires more than a gallon of water a day
Cool Mist humidifiers are just hard IMO. 1. Warm Mist humidifiers work by boiling water. This has the downside of... well... boiling hot water hanging around the area. But otherwise, these are the simplest and are only ~$20 or $30. 2. Cool Mist humidifiers try to get around the boiling water issue. Since they humidify at room-temperatures, they're a lot more efficient... but now bacteria / mold is growing constantly.…
Cool Mist humidifiers are just hard IMO. 1. Warm Mist humidifiers work by boiling water. This has the downside of... well... boiling hot water hanging around the area. But otherwise, these are the simplest and are only ~$20 or $30. 2. Cool Mist humidifiers try to get around the boiling water issue. Since they humidify at room-temperatures, they're a lot more efficient... but now bacteria / mold is growing constantly.…
Besides if you're trying to restore humidity lost by heating your room then pure energy wise there's not that much difference in evaporating the required amount of water using ambient heat or evaporating the required amount of water using a different energy source. The only thing you'll achieve by using ambient heat is that your room will cool by the amount of heat required to evaporate the water (a good thing in the summer, somewhat pointless if your aim was to make a room both warm and comfortably humid).
Fundamental thermodynamics will probably mean the 'wait and see' approach is more efficient in the end, but it makes no promises on efficacy. The difference in efficiency probably lies in the fact that you can heat a room with an efficiency >100% if done right, if you haven't managed that yet it probably doesn't really matter which way you humidify the room.
Technology Connections just recently made a really good video about humidifiers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28