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Do any of you have good suggestions on a room humidifier? My house is so farging dry...its like the Sahara in here. I hand washed a few dishes last night, and they were bone dry after sitting on the counter for just a couple of minutes! My sinuses get so miserable now when I'm home for more than a few days..*whine*

The problem is the house. It's well over 100 years old with all the original woodworking and plaster walls, so we have a dehumidifier running in the basement to prevent warping. With the heat going as well, it is just too much. I have turned the dehumidifier down to the lowest setting and am running the heat as low as I can, but it doesn't appear to make much difference.

So I figure the best solution is to get a good humidifier for the bedroom, but I've heard that some of them are tasty little breeding grounds for bacteria. Any recs on a good, healthy machine? I'd call the owner of this house and ask about just turning the dehumidifier off completely, but he is in the middle of a battle with kidney cancer...I don't want to bug him with little things.

Any thoughts?

marrymeflyfree wrote:Do any of you have good suggestions on a room humidifier? My house is so farging dry...its like the Sahara in here. I hand washed a few dishes last night, and they were bone dry after sitting on the counter for just a couple of minutes! My sinuses get so miserable now when I'm home for more than a few days..*whine*

I've been thinking about getting one for our bedroom as well - with the heat on my throat gets so dry that it's almost painful.

marrymeflyfree wrote:So I figure the best solution is to get a good humidifier for the bedroom, but I've heard that some of them are tasty little breeding grounds for bacteria. Any recs on a good, healthy machine?

I've seen advertisements for "anti-bacterial" humidifiers, but I don't have any specifics. I'll be watching this thread with interest.

earendel wrote: I've seen advertisements for "anti-bacterial" humidifiers, but I don't have any specifics. I'll be watching this thread with interest.

Doing some googling here...a few different sites have recommended the 'ultrasonic cool mist' type machines as having the least bacteria/virus/mold output, with the regular 'cool mist' type being second.

We have a tabletop Holmes for the bedroom and upstairs hallway. Wick type, with a proprietary filter/wick (of course; it's so they can gouge you on the consumable part). We have had no problems with it. I think it's model 3150, but don't quote me. It holds something like 1 or 2 gallons of water in the tank.

We use one of the antibacterial solutions that you add to the water when you fill up the tank. I do that every other fill, and we don't have any problems for the season.

If you go with a tabletop version, either the Holmes or another brand, make sure you put a tray or something underneath it when you first use it. I tried another brand, which unfortunately I don't recall, that was similar to the Holmes, meaning the tank puts water into the base on an as-needed basis. There was apparently something wrong with the valve, though, because it constantly overfilled the base and leaked water out the sides. I went out and bought a second Holmes, and it worked fine.

I believe there are still tabletop humidifiers that have a more enclosed base, like our big Bemis (now EssickAir) that does our entire first floor. That would prevent the problem mentioned above.

The fans can sometimes be loud, and the occasional gurgle of the water flowing into the base might be a bit startling or cause sleeping issues. Check out some online reviews before you buy.

We get our supplies and the humidifiers at the local True Value hardware. You might get them at Target, WalMart, etc., but the supplies like the filter/wick might be harder to find there. Stick to the hardware places, including Lowes and Home Depot.

Good luck!

marrymeflyfree wrote:Do any of you have good suggestions on a room humidifier? My house is so farging dry...its like the Sahara in here. I hand washed a few dishes last night, and they were bone dry after sitting on the counter for just a couple of minutes! My sinuses get so miserable now when I'm home for more than a few days..*whine*

The problem is the house. It's well over 100 years old with all the original woodworking and plaster walls, so we have a dehumidifier running in the basement to prevent warping. With the heat going as well, it is just too much. I have turned the dehumidifier down to the lowest setting and am running the heat as low as I can, but it doesn't appear to make much difference.

So I figure the best solution is to get a good humidifier for the bedroom, but I've heard that some of them are tasty little breeding grounds for bacteria. Any recs on a good, healthy machine? I'd call the owner of this house and ask about just turning the dehumidifier off completely, but he is in the middle of a battle with kidney cancer...I don't want to bug him with little things.

Any thoughts?

Not that this will help but Olivia has a really cute Hello Kitty humidifier in her room.

They also make Spongebob ones.

I ordered a Duracraft warm mist humidifier from an Amazon market seller. It was well-reviewed, and inexpensive. I think it would have worked out fine had the tank not been cracked.

It was 2.5 gallons, and $23. There is a huge jump to the next price level, but this is probably one of those situations where you get what you pay for, and it's worth going to the $75-150 range. When I buy my next one, I will go to the neighborhood hardware store (it's a chain but also a locally-owned store), and ask them for advice. Getting a cracked tank through the mail was disappointing, and it cost so much to mail it back, I just threw it out.

MMFF, as a temporary fix, we discussed this once on the board before, and one suggestion was to run your bathtub about a third full before you go to bed. Some of that water will evaporate in the nearby rooms, and provide a little relief. If the bathroom is far from the bedrooms this won't help.

We are in Stage 3 drought here so I am not doing this right now, but it does seem to help a little.

gsabc wrote:Stick to the hardware places, including Lowes and Home Depot.

Thanks for the tips...heading to Lowe's shortly!

Ritterskoop wrote: MMFF, as a temporary fix, we discussed this once on the board before, and one suggestion was to run your bathtub about a third full before you go to bed. Some of that water will evaporate in the nearby rooms, and provide a little relief. If the bathroom is far from the bedrooms this won't help.

I remembered this last night! The bathroom is on the other side of the house, but I did fill three very large mixing bowls with water for the bedroom. I'm not sure if it helped, but it kept me sane since I felt like I was doing something productive for the problem. Probably too little surface area to work, though.

Ritterskoop wrote: We are in Stage 3 drought here so I am not doing this right now, but it does seem to help a little.

Still?? Is this the same drought that plagued the south all summer?

marrymeflyfree wrote:

Ritterskoop wrote: We are in Stage 3 drought here so I am not doing this right now, but it does seem to help a little.

Still?? Is this the same drought that plagued the south all summer?

Yep. We finished 2007 down 15" from our usual. It's rained a little bit more the past week or two, but we have a long way to go to get back where we belong.