Man. It seems like every avenue of humidification is paved with difficulty.
Ultrasonic humidifiers (and others) that spritz water droplets out? They need fed expensive water, or they spread particulates everywhere. Health aspects aside, it's nice living in a house that isn't bathed in something that looks like chalk dust.
Evaporative methods? They're similar in their lust for pure water, and the particles tend to concentrate at the humidifier instead of everywhere else. That accumulation needs to be cleaned up periodically (or parts replaced, depending on how rent-seeking the design is).
Distilled water from the store? That's gloriously clean water, but it represents a money pit that can never be filled up.
RO water? Sounds nice (is nice), but they're expensive and inefficient (producing 1 liter of RO water wastes in the realm of 3 or 4 liters down the drain). The systems need installed, and not everyone has the capacity to wrangle their own plumbing projects.
And as an added bonus: Drinking RO water saps our precious bodily fluids of the minerals and electrolytes that people crave to stay alive, so we also seek to deliberately impurify it.
I guess that means that an ideal path to RO-oriented humidification, we end up with 3 taps at the kitchen sink, then? One that provides demineralized for the humidifier, another that provides remineralized water for drinking, and one for everything else?
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It's all ugly in some way.
Isn't there some kind of evaporative humidification method that is easy and inexpensive to clean? Something I can just feed cheap tap water into, and that I only have to deal with cleaning once a month or something? That sounds like the path of least pain for me in my neck of the woods.
When I last looked, the evaporative methods were better than others. You don't need distilled water for it, tap will work. They do need cleaning and frequent disinfecting though due to the pad constantly sitting in the water. The prices of replacement pads are a bit expensive but it was cheaper than constantly buying distilled water.
There are a few brands out there but the Philips ones seemed better than the others and the prices were not as insane. I just disliked their marketing and buzzword filled content but otherwise they seem OK. Oh and you should know a lot of their stuff now are internet connected(disabling it will make you lose some functions but otherwise the device still works) and have touch buttons and screens etc. It's unfortunate but this seems to be where every device is heading.
I do agree with you that this seems overly complex. You can pretty much do it yourself if you'd like to take on a project. A fan and a constantly wet rag has the same function but is not as compact.
Thanks. I'll check out Philips. I wonder if third-party pads exist.
I prefer dumb, but I don't mind if it's smart. Especially if I can integrate the smarts into my Home Assistant rig.
I built a humidifier once. I just used the Instant Pot that was already on the countertop. I filled it with water, set it to "Keep warm", and it slowly evaporated the water and left minerals behind.
This worked fine (it was safe, if inefficient).
But monitoring the consumption of water and the improvement in humidity showed that to actually raise the humidity to a comfortable point would and do so throughout the house would use a lot of water.
And I want to do more with my time than fill humidifiers back up. :)
For truly dumb, Honeywell HCM350W/HCM350B https://amzn.to/4tSEAGy has just a multi-speed fan knob and a hidden UV lamp and nothing else. The 1.1 gallon tank gets through a couple of nights here, current outdoor humidity is 16% on an overcast day in the middle of "rainy" days (high altitude semi-arid). 6 non-brand wicks for $22 will last a long time: https://amzn.to/48EwKbb
Copy that, thanks. The third-party replacement bits look OK-priced to me, I like the idea of a UV light (which is at least simple and safe), and since it's dumb then it's certainly simple to automate with a switched outlet.
I'll try to pick one up before the cold weather comes back again. (Right now, we have the opposite problem for humidity here, in that we have too much of it.)
We have fairly hard water so they get chalky white and crispy in like 2 months or so, but replacing is still a little optional, the wick just starts slowly working less well. Minerals stuck on the wick aren't a health risk or anything like that. The base where the water sits is easy to wash and bleach when you feel like it.
A tip here, if your wick is symmetric you can turn it upside down and get some more life out of it. My humidifier has rectangular wicks mounted at an angle, and only the top back tends to get a lot of minerals. I can thus turn them around and over in 4 different orientation.
Plus I have very soft water, so all combined I can get through an entire winter with just one set of wicks.
Still, I wish they made washable wicks out of fabric instead, so you could just put it in a bath of vinegar or citric acid for a few hours and then put them in the washing machine. In theory I see no reason they couldn't last for years.
These wicks are like tough paper. Yes, flipping the wick doubles the lifespan here. Also before it gets too bad, rinsing the wick dislodges the mineral deposits and slows down the buildup.
Ultrasonic humidifiers (and others) that spritz water droplets out? They need fed expensive water, or they spread particulates everywhere. Health aspects aside, it's nice living in a house that isn't bathed in something that looks like chalk dust.
Evaporative methods? They're similar in their lust for pure water, and the particles tend to concentrate at the humidifier instead of everywhere else. That accumulation needs to be cleaned up periodically (or parts replaced, depending on how rent-seeking the design is).
Distilled water from the store? That's gloriously clean water, but it represents a money pit that can never be filled up.
RO water? Sounds nice (is nice), but they're expensive and inefficient (producing 1 liter of RO water wastes in the realm of 3 or 4 liters down the drain). The systems need installed, and not everyone has the capacity to wrangle their own plumbing projects.
And as an added bonus: Drinking RO water saps our precious bodily fluids of the minerals and electrolytes that people crave to stay alive, so we also seek to deliberately impurify it.
I guess that means that an ideal path to RO-oriented humidification, we end up with 3 taps at the kitchen sink, then? One that provides demineralized for the humidifier, another that provides remineralized water for drinking, and one for everything else?
---
It's all ugly in some way.
Isn't there some kind of evaporative humidification method that is easy and inexpensive to clean? Something I can just feed cheap tap water into, and that I only have to deal with cleaning once a month or something? That sounds like the path of least pain for me in my neck of the woods.