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What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

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Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is forcing you to write. I write because it's something I can do. I'm seriously handicapped and there are a lot of things I simply cannot do. That's a lousy argument. I use myself as an example for various reasons, but the reality is this a widespread problem and the state of journalism is a real problem, as I noted above. I'm well aware of why people don't like hearing they basically want slave labor. I've li…

> I'm well aware of why people don't like hearing they basically want slave labor. They don’t like it because it’s a bald faced lie. You’re accusing them of supporting slavery. Just a quick refresher on what slavery is (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery ) > Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave, who is someone forbidden to quit their service for another person and is t…

>I bought the Harry Potter books because of the world she built, not because of her writing ability.

Risible. What made that world if not the writing? The Harry Potter Wikipedia contains all the substantial plots, characters, worlds they inhabit. Same world. Pay for that, would you? Read that for pleasure, would you?

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#282

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…

Whelp.

I just learned more about humidifiers from your comment than from reading zillions of reviews.

I seem to recall my brother's fish tank increased the humidity. Could a bucket with an aquarium style aerator also work?

--

Adding my thoughts here ("Yes, and...") because your input was most constructive.

Review sites could go even further. Start with the most basic DIY home build solutions possible. Just to show how things work. Like a reverse teardown. Even include some basic metrics and science. Like watts consumed, evaporative rates, etc.

Per the AQI problems, in China and Western USA (forest fires), there was a semi-viral video for a DIY air filter using just a box fan and bog standard air filter.

So many other products, appliances could receive similar treatment.

It'd be nothing to use a stove top to mock up at a warm mister. Ditto cool mister (bucket, old t-shirt, fan). And maybe repurpose a sonic tooth brush for an ultrasonic mister.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#283
post #22

Technology Connections just recently made a really good video about humidifiers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28

Actually just discovered that channel a couple weeks ago. Kind of amazing how interesting he can make such mundane topics. (Though I do prefer to watch at 1.75-2x speed.)

He really does need to do a video on hair cutting technology though. For a bit the hair made him look younger, now he’s starting to look emo.

I’m not saying that to be catty. One of the little mercies of the quarantine is the number of people who have figured out how to keep making content. It’s a little bit of normalcy, or at least it was until everyone’s personal grooming limitations started causing that illusion to crack, along with bits of my sanity.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

This is every air quality device in the industry. I have an old vornado air purifier that uses furnace filters for its media. $30 for the allergen level filters, when I can find them. When the electronics crap out in that thing will be when I learn to repair fans.

I had a prototype I built before I discovered these that used a 12V Molex power supply brick and a bunch of case fans to draw air through a furnace filter. I had it in a triangular box, intending to put it under a bed or a chair so it was dead silent. Then I found the Vornado and that went into storage. Higher cfm.

Unfortunately the Vornado filter was built at the height of the blue LED craze. But at least it’s low lumens.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#285
Some years ago I got an Enviracaire EWM-220, which looks to be discontinued now. This is a warm-steam one that also has a UV bulb in it to (presumably) sanitize the water. Twin tanks where one gets used up before the other one starts to drain, so you can refill them one at a time.

Didn't see this mentioned in another comment, but when it's time to de-calcify the boiling chamber (very easy to access on this model) I squirt a little Lysol toilet boil cleaner in there and let it foam and sizzle on the scale buildup for about ten minutes, then wash it away.

Anecdotally, I saw this model in a couple different violin shops around the time I got it. Typically in one of these places there will be showrooms where you can try out bows and instruments, and they usually have about a hundred violins/violas/cellos hanging up in there.

Humidity control is extremely important for fine string instrument storage, so I figured if this is the model a shop has settled upon to protect $100-200K of their merchandise, it's probably a good choice.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#286
There are many air purifiers, too, which are impossible to clean. Wynd Max is one of those! If you turn it off for a few days (and forget to turn it on), it fills up quickly with dust, which is impossible to clean. Same with Molekule. I wish when people design products they don't ignore the omnipresence of dust in our homes! All these new cool fabric-like materials are also impossible to keep clean.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that too much bleach though? I do just a few drops in my ~1 gallon humidifier that works continuously in my clone room and it stays clean and even keeps the Serratia bacteria that make the pink stuff in the reservoir at bay. I do use reverse osmosis water to fill it though. Is breathing that much aerosolized chlorine a concern? A calculator I use is here. Tap water is about 2 ppm. https://www.publichealthontario.c…

I hasn’t been an issue, but I am careful to not overdo it. I have overdone it once with a cool mist humidifier, and it was definitely noticeably uncomfortable. I replaced the water quite quickly.

You’ve inspired me to up it a bit. I think I’m doing a little too low. I want zero bacteria, not to just be in a stalemate with them.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that's why I say it boils down to an expectation of slave labor because, yeah, people basically get mad at being told "this is why this goes on" rather than going "oh, I had not thought to connect those dots. I shall have to keep that in mind going forward." Someone getting mad doesn't mean they disagree with you in that specific worst-case way. > These so-called "ethics" seem to boil down to "we expect writers…

> you could replace "writer" with almost anything and make the same analogy. Even something like "hitman"! This is some extraordinary specious reasoning, comparing "writer" with "hitman". How is "hitman" a creative force for good for society? There is value in good writing. We haven't figured out how to judge and pay for it directly. It's not hard to see that if you continue to not pay for something, it doesn't get d…

> This is some extraordinary specious reasoning, comparing "writer" with "hitman". How is "hitman" a creative force for good for society?

The argument I quoted doesn't care if they are a creative force for good.

There are other reasons to want to pay writers, but those reasons don't conclude that it's slave labor to not want to pay. That's why I criticized the specific argument, not the value of writers in general.

Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier

#290

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…

I just bought a (different) honeywell humidifier. so far it works, but not as well as I expected. I hoped it would be able to maintain a somewhat stable humidity for the sake of my guitars, but it can't really keep up with the desiccating power of my central heat. I wonder if part of the issue here is mismatched expectations with evaporative humidifiers?

If you have a central HVAC and valuable things that are sensitive to humidity you really need a whole-house humidifier. A bunch of manufacturers make them, I have the Aprilaire 400 ($741 professionally installed in 2016), you can see all their products here: https://www.aprilaire.com/whole-house-products/humidifier
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