Please redirect if there is a more appropriate community for this question.
I’m dealing with dry air, and the humidifiers I had bought before got the tiniest grits of dust or something in them and leaked their whole tank of water. Turns out they needed purified water or distilled water to function long term.
I just want to put tap water into a thing and get humidity into the air. Any suggestions?
Edit, they were indeed ultrasonic humidifiers.
Maybe filter it first through a Brita or similar water purifier? I’m lazy and just been buying distilled water off the shelf because my well water isn’t so hot and I don’t feel like replacing four humidifiers every year. The buildup is gross.
We did think of this, apparently too late. I’m gathering from other comments that I am dealing with hard water, and the seals on my humidifiers had already crusted over when we got the Brita filter, so it did not fix the issue
I use a humidifier by AIRCARE. A bit more doing than a simple tabletop, but nothing too complex. It’s a base unit that sits on the floor. Has a removable tank that I fill directly from the tap. I do add a bacteria/algae treatment to about every other fill. Need to replace a filter about once a month (I try to extend it a little longer). And then after the season (about 3-4 months over the winter) I clean the unit. They make different ones, and they’re generally much more powerful than a tabletop unit, albeit with a larger footprint.
Looking at the prices on those filters, wow! That’s like an extra subscription each winter to fix dry air. Getting one big enough to get the whole house at once seems good, but 55 to 80 dollars a month is a lot!
That’s the rub. There are generics. And they do work. Still, an ongoing cost, to the tune of 2 or 3 filters in a season. You’re right.
VENTA’s take normal water plus their own special additive. They are pretty good if you accept to buy this extra fluid regularly.
Read the ingredients of this liquid. It’s probably just a bacteriostatic, meaning it’s simple chemicals designed to keep bacterial populations low between scheduled cleanings.
You can probably make your own by buying the ingredients and mixing them yourself. One of the most important is citric acid which you can get in the kitchen section of any supermarket; dump some in water and it makes a really good cleaning solution, and a few grains goes nice in a drink of water too (just a few grains though, it’s pretty strong stuff).
Read the ingredients of this liquid
Sure. If you tell me, I’m going to read… (no, they don’t tell)
It’s a little hard to read but I think it says:
- Water
- Quaternary ammonium chloride (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_ammonium_cation, this appears to be a disinfectant/cleaning agent)
- Water softening agent (this is the citric acid, which also acts as an antimicrobial)
There seem to be health concerns about quaternary ammonium compounds, so in looking at alternatives I found reference to hypochlorous acid which is available in product form:
Seems safe and effective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypochlorous_acid
There doesn’t appear to be a reason not to mix hypochlorous and citric acids - it’s not like mixing ammonia and chlorine which makes deadly chlorine gas - but I’m not sure if mixing them would improve efficacy.
Just don’t use hypochlorous acid in your dishwasher, it starts to decompose into chlorine gas (and water, but the chlorine gas is the worry) above approximately 100°F.
This really depends on your tap water; in some places tap water is clean enough to work, but it seems yours is not. If you want something to just set and forget, you’ll probably need to do more localised research. E.g Hardness, turbidity, etc.
Why would someone need a humidifier? Though I live in a pretty humid place so I might be missing something.
I live in Canada. We get very humid summers but the winters are way below freezing. Below freezing temperatures make the air extremely dry, with outdoors plunging to 0% humidity.
Humidifiers are needed to maintain indoor humidity though you can’t raise it too much or you’ll get condensation inside the walls and on the windows, leading to mold issues.
