Ultrasonic humidifier

[maverick06]

Well, after fighting with the wick style humidifiers constantly fouling i bought an ultrasonic one. This one does great keeping the humidity up.

BUT after running it for about 2 days constantly, i now have a haze in the air. its the atomized mineral deposits in the water. Although no one in the house has a problem with them, i dont want to generate one. So I have shut it down.

I guess I now get to look into the deminerilization tablets or buying deionized water. Next year will be easier, I will just save up some of the condensate from the AC unit, thats easy, just a bit annoying.

Does anyone have any suggestions here? I am sticking with the ultrasonic humidifier, just have to buy/clean the water.

 

[woodgeek]

Buy wicks in bulk, change monthly?

 

[seige101]

Had the same problem with the ultrasonic ones (we have very hard water with lots of iron content) Since putting in an iron filter and water softener it helped out a lot. Then i got the brilliant idea to feed it filtered water from the reverse osmosis system on the kitchen sink. Problem solved. The only cleaning i do is once a month i will swish around a tiny amount of bleach water inside the tank to sanitize it, then rinse it out and will with filtered water again.

Suggestions buy bulk 5 gallon bottles of water (like poland springs) or install reverse osmosis filter under kitchen sink $300-450.

Some ultrasonic units have a carbon filter cartridge that the water flows through first but they clog quickly IMHO

 

[MasterMech]

Buy wicks in bulk, change monthly?

Where do you get them Woodgeek? I notice that my double wick unit struggles towards the end of the season. Really annoying to listen to it running full blast most of the time but the damn wicks are expensive (and the cheaper aftermarket ones don't last nearly as long) to throw out monthly.

 

[BrotherBart]

Don't have an answer for the ultrasonic. The reason I don't use them. With the two wicks I have I just soak them in water with bleach every once in a while, rinse and go again.

 

[woodgeek]

Honestly, when I bought my latest humdifier, I bought 3-4 wicks, forgot what they cost. Running only 6-8 weeks a year, I haven't used them up yet.

 

[maverick06]

Well I think i have a solution, albeit not for this year.

I have good access to a bunch of 5 gal jugs. Collect condensate from the AC / dehumidifier in the summer. then use in the winter. Not too bad, figure 2 gallons a day. Not great, not easy, but it will work. Failing that, I think a used RO system (~$50 ebay) and maybe only use it for the humidifier, I dont need it for the rest of the house.

will see what next year brings. I really like the humidifier though, does a great job!