Which Humidifier to Choose for Your Home

Feb 1
08:52

2013

Jay Sanders

Jay Sanders

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A humidifier adds moisture to your home to ensure the right humidity level within your household. Insufficient humidity can lead to chilly feeling, stuffy noses and itchy dry skin. The right humidity level differs from person to person, but it is recommended to start from about 60% and modify it until you feel comfortable with a certain humidity level.

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 When you are considering the purchase of a humidifier, there are things to take into account before buying one. The first thing is the space you want to use the unit with. If you plan to add moisture to the entire house and you are heating with hot air you should ask a heating contractor to install you a whole house humidifier.

 On the other hand,Which Humidifier to Choose for Your Home Articles if you are not heating with hot air and only want to add extra moisture to a couple of rooms go with a stand alone humidifier. You can choose from 4 types of humidifiers: evaporative, steam, ultrasonic and cool mist.

 Evaporative

The tank of the unit stores a few gallons of water, which is forced throughout a wicking material and blown through it by a fan adding humidity to the air by evaporating the water. It is an energy efficient model and the tank needs to be refilled at every couple of days. There are models with UV light option that destroys airborne bacteria or viruses.

 Steam

This is a heater type humidifier where water is boiled to create steam and are the most expensive to operate. There is no white dust at all because steam consists of pure water. The heating element will collect some amount of build-up minerals which can be eliminated by periodically soaking the heating element in white vinegar.

 Ultrasonic

These add moisture by using sound vibrations leaving however white dust on all surfaces. It is dust that is not easy to clean up. You will not have white dust in your home if you use only distilled water (but that is not cheap at all).

 Cool Mist

These units are the cheapest humidifiers as when in operated, water is spun into small droplets and blown into the air. They are ok to be used for a couple of days. Avoid putting it on wooden furniture as water can accumulate around the machine from not fully evaporated droplets.

 For long-term use the evaporative humidifier is the most recommended one. The unit is cheap to operate and you only need to refill the tank at every couple of days.