Avoid Ultrasonic Humidifiers

HN front page story based on quantitative measurements is flagged, yet no one has presented data to challenge the claims in the article. Would be interesting to combine HN flags (and reversals) with other media sources to derive signals on misinformed flagging.

From 1991, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-08/documents/hu...

> Recent studies by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have shown that ultrasonic and impeller (or "cool mist") humidifiers can disperse materials, such as microorganisms and minerals, from their water tanks into indoor air ... Breathing mist containing these pollutants has been implicated as causing a certain type of inflammation of the lungs. The Federal government has not concluded that the dispersal of minerals by home humidifiers poses a serious health risk. Nevertheless, using water with lower mineral content will reduce exposures to these materials.

Since 30 years have passed since the above statement, perhaps there have been more studies on the topic?

The exhaustive Technology Connections review of all the household humidifier options: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28

I’d love to know why this is flagged.

My experience: can’t use an ultrasonic humidifier in this house, because it results in a huge amount particulate fallout. No way am I going to breathe in that amount of extremely fine dust. Might as well work in a marble quarry without a respirator mask.

I recently bought an ultrasonic humidifer after a recommendation from wirecutter but after doing some research I am returning it.

I think the tone of this article is a bit alarmist but there is a truth here: ultrasonic humidifiers significantly increase measured PM2.5 particles in the air. PM2.5 is used here because they are tiny and will travel deeply into your lungs and can be absorbed into your bloodstream. Now, with respect to the _kind_ of particles that ultrasonic humidifiers put into the air... well it's whats in your water. If you have easy access to distilled water then ultrasonic humidifiers can be both efficient and you don't have to worry about particles.

I think there is some reason to believe that the particles in your water even if absorbed into your lungs are less likely to cause damage than say PM2.5 smog particles just from a comparative point of view.

As someone who used to get bronchitis from sinuses too often I both want to use a humidifier and also not worry about this sort of issue in the first place so for me it's just not worth evaluating the risk not that there is enough information to do so anyway.

My opinion is get a simple hot or cold evaporative humidifier, clean it regularly because you should be doing that anyway and move on. I think it's pretty useful to use a few drops of some water treatment as well since it will reduce bacterial and mineral buildup.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922954/ > These results indicate that aerosol particles released from ultrasonic humidifiers operated with tap water initiated a cellular response but did not cause severe acute inflammation in pulmonary tissue. Additionally, high mineral content tap water is not recommended and de-mineralized water should be recommended in order to exclude any adverse effects.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51859262_Indoor_par...

Thanks for sharing this. Right now I know someone that is complaining of massive "white dust" thinking its coming from the ceiling (you know those fugly textured ceiling for soundproofing). While it COULD potentially generate dust, the level I have seen would make the ceiling dissapear within years, however due to nosebleed problems when dry, she uses humidifiers everywhere in the appartment. Since the heating dries up the place like crazy, she got ultrasonic humidifiers.

I never considered this but it would make sense, if you boil 1L of water out you end up with white stuff in the bottom once everything is dried out. Since nothing's left in the container when the ultrasonic is emptied, 1+1...

I don't know why this is flagged. People are way too rapid to dismiss stuff around here. Thanks for posting this!

In my experience, using distilled water or ZeroWater-filtered water does not produce any meaningful amount of PM2.5 or PM1 particulates when used in ultrasonic humidifiers.

I'm still not sure if this is fake news or not.

For bronchitis you should inhale very small water salt solution.

I get it for incent or smoke but why would water do harm or my cooking smells?

Yes. We recently moved up to a place with real winters, and I got a series of humidifiers. I run air quality sensors indoors (yes, multiple), and indeed the ultra sonic ones kicked up a CRAZY amount of PM2.5s, PM1s, and PM10s.

We now only use evaporative humidifiers.

And of course, this guy has a video for this! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28

In this day and age of "I did my research on the internet" ridicule, there's a fair part of me that treats this with a grain of salt. Though it kind of makes sense, and I get how non-distilled water could create issues (as documented).

Look into air washer humidifiers instead. Venta, Boneco, and Xiaomi among others make them.

They use a rotating wheel and a fan to humidify the air. Most of the parts can be washed in the dishwasher so no replacement filters are required.

Problem is evaporative humidifier require using moldicide in the water. Who wants to breath that.

Is this a proper peer reviewed research? If not please don't add more noise to the internets.

Is there a list of Ultrasonic Humidifiers anywhere so I can avoid them?

There are millions of people using nebulizers daily on the advice of their doctor. "They use oxygen, compressed air or ultrasonic power to break up solutions and suspensions into small aerosol droplets that are inhaled from the mouthpiece of the device. An aerosol is a mixture of gas and solid or liquid particles."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulizer

Would this warning also apply to them?