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What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

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Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#191

Post by ajnin »

superseeplus wrote: post #32

As someone living on the east coast and having a very sensitive nose, I have tried different humidifiers and sadly no humidifiers have been perfect. There are three main types of humidifiers: 1. Warm mist humidifiers boil water and generate steam which humidifies the air. But, they are a burn hazard and consume a lot of energy. 2. Cool mist (non ultrasonic) work like miniature swamp coolers. They are essentially fans…

I wouldn't use an ultrasonic humidifier with non-distilled water in a living area. Those minerals will end up in your lungs and I'm not confident it won't accumulate and cause long term problems. The body can't eliminate at least some of them like silica. I don't know if you can actually end up with silicosis from that but that does not seem worth the risk.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#192

Post by kortex »

superbatfish wrote: post #152

I own this model, and use it to humidify a small room. I sympathize with the author's complaints with respect to the difficulty of cleaning it, though mine just doesn't need cleaning very often. And the wick DOES get moldy if you let it sit in wet water for weeks on end. But her other complaints puzzle me: I don't find it to be messy to refill. What is she doing wrong? It's even more baffling that she thinks it "does…

Algicide also works. Benzalkonium chloride. You can get it as a 60% solution as a pool chemical and that will last forever. I use like 0.005% iirc. I make a 1% stock and dose that in, but I haven't used a humidifier in a while (prolly should)

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#193

Post by mudkip »

fisherjeff wrote: post #187
andrewvc wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two ventas, both purchased off ebay used, and they really are the best. Simple, reliable, cleanable and no expensive wick refills. That honeywell lasted about one season. The wick refills are ridiculously expensive. It was cheaper to trash it and use anything else. I'm also upset with the wirecutter for that trash recommendation.

Do your airwashers make clicking noises? I had one that did, but was kind of old and beat up. I bought a new one and, sure enough, like 2 months later the clicking was back. I’ve tried replacing the... little walking thing that moves the discs? (not sure what to call it) that makes the noise but it didn’t help.

I had this issue too at one point. I ended up soaking that part in vinegar (to remove the gunk on it) and then rinsing it off with water, which ended up fixing it. I assume it was just grinding due to mineral build up. Seems like it's a pretty common issue, as it's even listed on their website in the FAQ.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#194

Post by magnawave »

eecc wrote: post #26

What about this comically expensive https://www.venta-air.com and it’s ripoff: https://www.xiaomitoday.com/2020/06/30/get-the-xiaomi-smartm... It blows ambient air directly onto the wetted disks; it will empty a full tank in a day and haven’t cursed anymore that usual while cleaning. I did use a disinfectant additive

It’s definitely comically expensive. But I’ve had mine 15 years and it’s still the best least fuss humidifier I’ve ever owned. Oh and I never use their additive. Little dish soap (drop of two) in each refilling keep the water “sticking” to the disks nicely, nothing else to replace. Never had a mold problem with them either.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#196

Post by notatoad »

Blackthorn wrote: post #109
gnicholas wrote: post #80

A company accused Wirecutter of being pay-for-play, based on how how heavily affiliate revenue (allegedly) factors into Wirecutter reviews. [1] The Wirecutter responded here. [2] I wonder if this was part of the reason that the Honeywell unit was recommended. 1: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to... 2: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/our-response-to-nextdesk/

I don't trust reviews on the internet at all anymore, unless they come from a single person (not a faceless group) that's known in that space. Affiliate garbage has ruined the ability to find any good information about products.

>that's known in that space

that's the most important. if you're looking for humidifier recommendations online and you find a community of people dedicated to humidifiers and there's one they recommend, then you're probably good. but there's no reason to trust any sort of general review site.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#197

Post by dstaley »

kevindong wrote: post #141

I have the same humidifier that the author does and I largely disagree with her points. It is rather ineffective at humidifying larger rooms (e.g. for the ~350 sq. ft. room I have it in, it humidifies the room +10% above what it otherwise would've been at aka 23% => 33% per my hygrometer), but it's certainly better than nothing. I usually have to refill the tank 3 times/day which is by definition a testament to how m…

As an owner of the Z27, I can confidently say that for most people, a 27in 1440p monitor is a better choice over a 4K monitor in the same size. You'd likely need to increase the render scale on a 4K monitor at that size, resulting in a lower effective resolution.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#198

Post by fisherjeff »

mudkip wrote: post #193
fisherjeff wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your airwashers make clicking noises? I had one that did, but was kind of old and beat up. I bought a new one and, sure enough, like 2 months later the clicking was back. I’ve tried replacing the... little walking thing that moves the discs? (not sure what to call it) that makes the noise but it didn’t help.

I had this issue too at one point. I ended up soaking that part in vinegar (to remove the gunk on it) and then rinsing it off with water, which ended up fixing it. I assume it was just grinding due to mineral build up. Seems like it's a pretty common issue, as it's even listed on their website in the FAQ.

Okay I could’ve sworn I scoured their website for this information. Granted it was a few years ago so maybe it’s new...? I’d found the “push the rubber coupling” tip, which has helped before, but I am breaking out the vinegar as we speak - thank you! I owe you one.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#199

Post by zoomablemind »

mtalantikite wrote: post #137
T-R wrote: post #36

I have one of these; the complaint about the fan being inaccessible is legitimate, but it's otherwise clean, and easy to clean - the tank and the base can be scrubbed by hand or just thrown in the dishwasher, unlike any vaporizing humidifier I've used. I think the other complaints may be regional - and the fact that the proposed solutions all seem to be vaporizing humidifiers (or boiling water) seems telling. I got o…

I have one too and cleaning the tank was never an issue. Instead, my problem was the wick always got moldy on me within a couple weeks. I went through a couple cycles of buying new wicks from them, but it kept happening and I gave up on it. Went back to my old ultrasonic one, which isn’t great, but it doesn’t get black mold and is better than nothing.

Same experience here. My conclusion was that the Honneywell model is just a vehicle to sell more filters, which are not that cheap in the long run.

Tired of the moldy mess, we too now run an ultrasonic mist'er. I can't say it makes a big difference, but it is quiet. Also routinely airing the bedroom with window open and ceiling fan spinning before the bedtime.

Ah, also had to plug that toxic bright blue light on our humidifier. Someone thought it's a nicely looking design, but such blue shining is hardly conducive to sleeping.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#200

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

outworlder wrote: post #189

Interesting. So one personal observation on Wirecutter (which caused me to stop trusting it). It does reviews of portable air conditioners. A couple of years ago, it went into painstaking detail on how single hose AC is bad. They linked articles from the Department of Energy and so on. Their message was that single hose were easy to install but were absolutely not worth it. And recommended a dual hose system I happen…

FWIW, you are correct that it is essentially physically impossible for the single hose models to be as efficient as dual hose. Single hose models take in conditioned air, pump heat into it, then pump that air to the exterior. Dual hose do the same, but with exterior air as the input.

Single hose models have to work harder two ways. First, in pumping the air out of the conditioned environment, they're basically throwing away work they've done. Not all of it, but some. More the bigger the difference is between the interior and exterior.

Another thing they have going against them is that they need to pull air from somewhere -- the exterior. So their fans have to work a bit harder due to the pressure difference.

Dual hose models suffer neither drawback. Single hose portable ACs are an abomination that should not exist.

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