I'm in Australia, and I've lived in a lot of areas both inland (hot dry) and coastal and humidifiers are that common here. What is it in the US that creates the need/demand for Humidifiers?
Winter.
What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
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Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
#42I used to live in China a decade ago and everyone used ultrasonic humidifiers there. When I moved back to the US, I searched for one of them and could only find steam and evaporative humidifiers like this Honeywell one. Having small children, I went for the Honneywell humidifier and hated it - I was stupefied that it had such good reviews. So I searched for "safe" steam humidifiers and couldn't find one, so I gave up…
I was able to buy an ultrasonic humidifier six years ago from Bed Bath and Beyond. I think I had to order it online but it didn't seem to be too rare and it wasn't expensive, or at least it cost a reasonable amount.
Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
#43I'm in Australia, and I've lived in a lot of areas both inland (hot dry) and coastal and humidifiers are that common here. What is it in the US that creates the need/demand for Humidifiers?
Cold outdoor temperatures cause indoor humidity to get extremely low, because cold air can't hold humidity well.
Today where I live, the relative humidity outside is around 50%, and temperature -5c. That puts the absolute humidity around 1.7 grams per cubic metre. At 20c indoor temperature, that equates to around 10% relative humidity. Far too low.
Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
#44I count myself among the victims of this wirecutter article. What a piece of garbage, I can't believe I got tricked into buying a humidifier that requires wick and heating element replacements when modern devices don't.
Heating element replacement? The Honeywell HCM-350 I got has a UVC bulb which will eventually need to be replaced, but there's no heating element since it's an evaporative humidifier.
Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
#45All humidifiers get gross. I’ve found that the ones that use an ultrasonic piezo transducer are less bad than the other types though.
It works well and puts a lot of water into the air. Once a week, I rinse it with a diluted bleach solution out of a spray bottle. Problem solved.
Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
#46I don't use the my Honeywell humidifier regularly, but I use it from time to time and honestly I like it more than any other humidifier I've used. I've found it very easy to keep clean, works really well at increasing the humidity without turning the room into a swamp and I've never had any issues with the wick becoming gross. I exclusively use RO/DI water in the humidifier, never any tap water, so maybe that is help…
I use my Honeywell 24/7 and also find it effective [1] and easy to clean [2], even with our "hard" tap water. It might help that I use a good air filter nearby, which solves the dust problem.
I used to use an ultrasonic humidifier like they suggest but definitely prefer the evaporation-based unit.
The article read a little like one of the clumsy actors in an infomercial. The tank slides out and has a screw top! How can they spill so much while carrying it from the sink that it forms puddles?
[1] It goes through a tank almost every day. That water is going somewhere.
[2] I replace the wick and do a light bleach clean roughly quarterly.
Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
#47FWIW I have an AirCare humidifier and no complaints. It has a fan and a big cellulose filter/wick of some sort for the water to evaporate from. Works fine.
I found that one to be junk too, it grows mold everywhere unless you are super on top of adding chemicals. Maybe I'd have had better luck if I ran distilled water only. I use a warm mist honeywell/vicks one now and it's great cost about $35. But I'm pretty sure that I will add steam to my hvac though next season and be done with it.
The vicks giant bulb thing for $20 that they recommend gets pretty gross because you can't get all the water out and the slag accumulates as it doesn't work with distilled water.
Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
#48Cool 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.…
There is better way to humidify which is to just have cold temperature evaporation. It is slower and you need bigger machine for the same volume, but it requires very little energy and the only real electronics is a fan that moves air. I got rid of all mist humidifiers because of residue, noise and some health concerns (no, I am not feeling safe inhaling those fine particles) and I am happy for it. Most importantly,…
The Honeywell in question is this type-- it calls itself a "cool mist" humidifier, but it's an evaporative humidifier: basically all there is to the thing is a water tank, a wick, and a fan to move air over the wick.
Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
#49I bought one last fall and have been using it quite regularly during the winter. The humidity in my bedroom has been dipping down to 20-30%, and I prefer it to be 40-50%.
I started with distilled water, and it worked great - the wick/filter stayed in pristine shape for the 3 weeks I did so. However, buying distilled water was about twice as expensive as changing the filter every two weeks: $0.99/gal at 1-2 gal/day vs a $6.99 Walmart-brand filter. I haven't looked around to see if I can find cheaper reverse-osmosis water.
I have not had to clean the fan yet, but that does seem difficult.
My biggest issue is the fan noise. The machine only works well when set to the highest speed, but the fan is quite loud at that setting. I have the machine a few feet away from my bed, and High makes it hard to sleep. Medium/Low are no problem, so I just leave it on all the time on Medium.
Refills are only an issue if you carry the tank by the handle. I only use the handle to take it out of/put it into the unit, and carry it upside-down in my arm when taking it to the bathroom to refill.
Re: What’s Wrong With The Honeywell Humidifier
#50Sat in a damp London flat, with condensation permanently dripping down the windows (despite the dehumidifier running virtually 24/7), I struggle to relate to a world where you would deliberately want to put moisture into the air.
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