Comment by T-R | Hacker News Reader

Comment by T-R | Hacker News Reader

I have one of these; the complaint about the fan being inaccessible is legitimate, but it's otherwise clean, and easy to clean - the tank and the base can be scrubbed by hand or just thrown in the dishwasher, unlike any vaporizing humidifier I've used. I think the other complaints may be regional - and the fact that the proposed solutions all seem to be vaporizing humidifiers (or boiling water) seems telling.

I got one because in Arizona, the water quality's terrible, but the air is bone-dry to the point it turns your skin to sandpaper. The hard water means that vaporizing humidifiers fill the air with white dust that coats everything, because they vaporize the minerals. Evaporative humidifiers don't; the minerals all end up in the filter. And, while an evaporative humidifier has no trouble going through a full tank of water overnight on the lowest settings in AZ, it phsyically can't oversaturate the air like a sauna in the way that a vaporizing humidifier does.

The air in the north east just doesn't get dry enough (maybe in winter, but then you don't have the AC fighting your humidifier), and if boiling a pot of water is what the author's looking for, an evaporative humidifier just doesn't do that.

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 humidifier. Someone thought it's a nicely looking design, but such blue shining is hardly conducive to sleeping.

> 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.

> This is every air quality device in the industry.

I did not have much exposure to many. Previous to the Honneywell we had the "boiler" kind of humidifier, the one that uses two graphite electrodes submerged into water tank. Not many consumables, except that this does not work much, unless one keeps it right at their noses (as pictured on the box :). The electrodes develop some grime eventually which further decreases 'efficiency', but can be cleaned somewhat.

As for the ultrasonic one we use now, there does not seem to be any consumables as such. Maybe the ultrasonic element itself. In three years of seasonal use I can notice some either corrosion or build up on the black ring of the element, but not much difference from that.

There is some kind of filter ring, made of hard plastic, filled with small beads. But as I said in the 3 years we had no reasons to change it. Clean it, yes, but not replace it like with Honneywell.

Cleaning the thing is a drag as always. Two usual problems: the reddish mold above the waterline and inside the "gorge" and nozzle. Also the limescale, though a moderate one. We fill it with just the cold tap water, which is not too bad here.

How do you deal with cleaning the handle part of the tank? It looks like the end can pop off, but I haven't tried.

I don't have a problem getting my fingers down everywhere but the corners of the handle, so just pushing a paper towel down there works fine; I wouldn't be surprised if people with bigger hands than mine have more trouble, though. In practice, I've mostly just been throwing it in the dishwasher.

I use a kitchen sponge to get around the corner and it's been quite clean for me.

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