Please redirect if there is a more appropriate community for this question.
I’m dealing with dry air, and the humidifiers I had bought before got the tiniest grits of dust or something in them and leaked their whole tank of water. Turns out they needed purified water or distilled water to function long term.
I just want to put tap water into a thing and get humidity into the air. Any suggestions?
Edit, they were indeed ultrasonic humidifiers.
I’ve never heard of a humidifier leaking because of not using purified water.
Humidifiers that use ultrasonic elements to vaporize water can, as I understand it, get buildup from residue. You can get a white dust from them. But I wouldn’t expect them to leak.
I’ve never had any issue with use of tap water in humidifiers. I’ve used the variety that just wicks water up into a material and has a fan blow through it. Those shouldn’t even have the dust potential.
It depends on how hard your water is. The calcium can cause any seal to not be a seal for long
I can’t think of a humidifier I’ve owned that had seals for the water, just a bucket/bowel to hold the water and a thing on top that blew air out.
I’ve had one that had a big bucket that had a valve at the bottom. If that doesn’t sit flush, I can picture it leaking pretty easily.
Could you link me to one of these bucket or bowl type of humidifiers?
This is the most recent one I’ve had, the water tank is one solid piece and the electrical bits go down into the water from the top. I had a larger one with the same solid tank with the bits on top as a kid that held a gallon of water, but that was decades ago and I don’t see anything like it on a quick search.
It cannot leak unless the tank cracks.
This is very interesting. Does it clog up with hard water?
I couldn’t remember if it cycled water or not and peeked at the user manual which is linked on that page. It says to use tap water and if it is working to slowly to add some salt!
It does have directions for cleaning if hard water causes issues, and I remember it being pretty easy to clean as we did so once a month or so.
You don’t have to add any of the vicks stuff either. We just used it as a plain old humidifier.
Why would calcium cause a seal to leak? I just searched for “calcium seal leak water” and nothing comes up.
Hard water tears up plumbing.
https://beyerplumbing.com/9-ways-that-hard-water-affects-your-plumbing-and-appliances/
If any seal, o-ring, gasket, etc… in a system comes into contact with excessive scale from hard water, the rubber is going to lose its elastic properties, get dirty, and ultimately stop working as well.
And more basic: if you attach a hard scale lump to a rubber surface, that rubber surface simply won’t seal anymore.
The white dust is supposedly not OK to breathe, offsetting the benefits of increased humidity.
So I guess you shouldn’t take showers
It’s not steam, it’s a mineral dust
Are you talking about an ultrasonic humidifier? AFAIK, those shoot out tiny water particles along with any bacteria that might be present, creating a health risk. You’re meant to only use distilled water with those.
I’m confused. How is putting bacteria from water in the air worse than drinking the bacteria in the water directly?
Your stomach kills bacteria etc., while your lung doesn’t have a comparable mechanism
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You can add bacteriostatic/algaecide stuff to a tank of water, helps discourage bacteria or algae from growing in it.
I don’t think I’ve seen it coming up for humidifiers, but for evaporative coolers – which are more-or-less just very-high-throughput humidifiers – I’ve seen recommendations to stick something like that in. I use a very dilute disinfectant, can’t recall the name off the top of my head.
That’s why you change the water daily. If your tap water is chlorinated it can be assumed to be safe enough for atomizing.
Tap water is filled with minerals that get left behind when the water evaporates into the air. So your choice is purified water or you’re going to have to manually clean out all those minerals that accumulate inside the device.
Maybe get yourself a nice reverse osmosis filter. Run that water in your humidifier, coffee maker, ice maker and anything else mechanical that requires water. It’ll make all your devices last much longer. I used to have to add a little tap water to a keurig the first few times I used it because the water was so clear the sensor thought the reservoir was empty.
That purifier isn’t cheap but you probably only need a small one that produces a few gallons a day. Barring that, someone’s suggestion about boiling water in a pan is probably your best bet. The stuff in your water will eventually gum up any device you put it in.
In case you want some more info about humidifier, I recommend Technology Connections on Youtube.
Maybe filter it first through a Brita or similar water purifier? I’m lazy and just been buying distilled water off the shelf because my well water isn’t so hot and I don’t feel like replacing four humidifiers every year. The buildup is gross.
We did think of this, apparently too late. I’m gathering from other comments that I am dealing with hard water, and the seals on my humidifiers had already crusted over when we got the Brita filter, so it did not fix the issue
Do you have a fireplace or a stove for heating anywhere? My family always used a pan of water on top of those in the winter
I wish I had a heating stove or fireplace for this purpose, but alas, it’s a gas furnace connected to a central air system
That’s incredibly expensive at todays energy prices.
Oh, I think that largely depends where you live. Some places it’s much cheaper than gas or electric to heat your home. If that’s how you were already heating your home some water on top is easy
I use a humidifier by AIRCARE. A bit more doing than a simple tabletop, but nothing too complex. It’s a base unit that sits on the floor. Has a removable tank that I fill directly from the tap. I do add a bacteria/algae treatment to about every other fill. Need to replace a filter about once a month (I try to extend it a little longer). And then after the season (about 3-4 months over the winter) I clean the unit. They make different ones, and they’re generally much more powerful than a tabletop unit, albeit with a larger footprint.
Adding to this, some of the AIRCARE humidifiers are just a plastic tub, a wick that sits in it, and a lid with a fan. You’d have to break the tub to leak water.
Looking at the prices on those filters, wow! That’s like an extra subscription each winter to fix dry air. Getting one big enough to get the whole house at once seems good, but 55 to 80 dollars a month is a lot!
That’s the rub. There are generics. And they do work. Still, an ongoing cost, to the tune of 2 or 3 filters in a season. You’re right.
I honestly have not had this problem with ultrasonic humidifiers. They just need to be cleaned every couple of weeks.
This really depends on your tap water; in some places tap water is clean enough to work, but it seems yours is not. If you want something to just set and forget, you’ll probably need to do more localised research. E.g Hardness, turbidity, etc.
VENTA’s take normal water plus their own special additive. They are pretty good if you accept to buy this extra fluid regularly.
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Read the ingredients of this liquid
Sure. If you tell me, I’m going to read… (no, they don’t tell)
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I’m looking at the Honeywell HEV320BC Moisture humidifier. Seems straight, simple, and without ultrasonic vaporizer.
Why would someone need a humidifier? Though I live in a pretty humid place so I might be missing something.
If you live in a really dry environment, your lips will dry out and chap, and it’ll make you tend to get thick mucous as the air dries out your throat and lungs. It exacerbates irritation if you have some kind of respiratory condition, and exacerbates dry skin.
I mean, high humidity also has its obnoxious sides – mold, things tending to go bad more-quickly, harder for your body to shed heat by sweating. I’d rather be on the low side than the high side, but super-low humidity isn’t fun either.
Cold air can’t hold a lot of moisture. People who heat their homes heat cold air, which lowers the relative humidity of air that was already dry to begin with. So you end up with dry air if you heat your home.
I live in Canada. We get very humid summers but the winters are way below freezing. Below freezing temperatures make the air extremely dry, with outdoors plunging to 0% humidity.
Humidifiers are needed to maintain indoor humidity though you can’t raise it too much or you’ll get condensation inside the walls and on the windows, leading to mold issues.
