On a tangent note: don’t use ultrasonic humidifiers. Unless distilled water is used, they create a shit-ton of pm2.5 particles.<p>Use evaporative humidifiers (just disks with myriads of small notches for water to cling on and a fan): <a href="https://us.smartmiglobal.com/pages/smartmi-evaporative-humidifier-3" rel="nofollow">https://us.smartmiglobal.com/pages/smartmi-evaporative-humid...</a>
> On a tangent note: don’t use ultrasonic humidifiers. Unless distilled water is used, they create a shit-ton of pm2.5 particles.<p>Not according to my uHoo air quality monitor. I have had one running a few feet from the monitor for over a week and there hasn't been any notable increase in PM2.5 particles.
Last time I checked (brought my sensor to the office to one room with ultrasonic) it showed 101/105 ug/m3 for pm2.5/pm10<p>In the next room (where there were none) it was 6.<p>Depends on the water, I guess.
> any notable increase in PM2.5 particles<p>What's your PM2.5 baseline, and did you measure TDS in the water?
Since Nov it's been fluctuating between 5-7 ug/mg, with a few spikes hitting 9 and 10. At this moment its a 6.<p>I haven't checked the TDS but when I used a water test strip for an aquarium early this year it was in the hard water range.
Thanks to this post, I checked my ultrasonic filled with tap water. With it running all night in a bedroom with an open door, morning pm2.5 readings are ~30 and the meter is in the kitchen.
The ones I had for a bit basically fogged out the apartment immediately and left white (i’m guessing salt) deposits all over everything. I know you are supposed to use distilled but it’s cost prohibitive at the rate these blow through water unless you also have a home distillery.
> Use evaporative humidifiers<p>You don't have to buy one either. A suspended wet towel with a fan blowing on it will work very well. If you want to get fancy, have the last inch or two of the towel sitting in a tray of water.
But then I have to buy the towel and the fan, the tray, something to suspend the towel at the right height …
My brother's house in Perth, Australia has an antique air conditioning system in the roof space that works in exactly this principle. 4 blankets that wick up water and have air drawn through them and into the house by a fan. It's in disuse now but I understand they were common and quite effective in the day.
That's a permanent bachelor design aesthetic.
I’m not sure that has a performance of 0.3L per hour (needed when it’s real cold outside).<p>But any thing beats nothing, I guess. Kudos to you
Don't use evaporative humidifiers(the motorized wet towel). I don't know if it actually cause legionellosis, but it's not very sanitary, and the sanitizing additives for those are known to be actually harmful.<p>Use boiling type humidifiers (basically just electric tea kettles).
Alec from Technology Connections also has a great video comparing humidifiers here<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28</a>
Are pm2.5 particles a problem if they are water soluble? After entering the body they will just dissolve.
Hard water often contains hard to dissolve minerals. An evaporative humidifier over the time accumulates limescale and it’s very difficult to remove it, you cannot just dissolve it. With ultrasound humidifier all this limescale will be in the air. Admittedly not in all regions the water is hard but if it is then ultrasound humidifier will be a bad choice.
Depends whether you want that stuff in kidneys and what have you.<p>Bigger particles are known to irritate the lungs and even cause asthma (google or ask gpt)
Distilled water isn’t strictly necessary. I use mine with purified water with a reverse osmosis purifier. I periodically test the TDS of the water to confirm it is low. It’s fine.
The best solution I've found a few years ago is one Venta LW 45 for every 30 m² of space. That's enough to run them on the lowest speed while maintaining acceptable humidity and CO₂ levels.<p>Higher speeds are too noisy. Smaller machines evaporate less.<p>For sub-zero outside temperatures, it's necessary to add at least 5 g of water to each cubic metre of air coming from outside.<p>The recommended ventilation rate of 30 m³/h per person requires to evaporate 4 liters of water per day.
That’s a lot of refilling. You might want to look into a whole house humidifier, I added an aprilaire 700 evaporative to my hvac ducts, it costs a few hundred $. Plumbed in, automatic. So much less screwing around
Chinese I’ve mentioned blew Ventra out of the water. I’ve been using humidifiers for the last 15 years and switched to smartme around 5 or something like that (liked the idea of auto speed and was tired of aged squickness after many years of its predecessor).<p>Haven’t used the first generation. Had a couple of the second (they notoriously had water level sensor issue that could be fixed just enabling “drying mode” that always ran for 8h after the sensor thought there were no water).<p>Third gen is the charm.<p>Cheap, effective (pump, double-bottom for rounded instead of flat tank — uses evry last drop), quiter, 5L tank, less creak after a few years.<p>tldr; I only wish it lasted whole 24 hours when it is -5C and lower outside, but I guess that requires 7-8L.<p>Also, having a few helps with the noise (I have total of three in my apartment).
Which venta are you referencing here?
That Smartmi model seems to have toxic IoT in it.<p>I'm currently using the Vornado EV100 non-IoT evaporative humidifier, and my only complaints are relatively minor, as humidifiers go (consumable wick, fan noise, insanely bright blue LEDs). <a href="https://www.vornado.com/shop/humidifiers/evaporative/ev100-evaporative-humidifier" rel="nofollow">https://www.vornado.com/shop/humidifiers/evaporative/ev100-e...</a>
I found this too. I wonder why they don't just accept a PUR water filter on the input side.<p>I also wonder why mini-split heating systems drip and pool water outdoors instead of pumping that distilled water back indoors for humidification.
It's funny in an ironic way because the original purpose of air conditioners was to remove humidity from the air, the mechanism used was to cool the air down thus forcing some of the moisture out. The general public quickly caught on that having cool air was nice in it's own right and that is the main purpose these days. however the dehumidifying function is still sometimes used, people are surprised when their air conditioner turns on at the same time as the heater (why are they fighting each other?) but that is because the system is trying to remove moisture from the air before it is heated. Mainly seen in cars so the windows don't fog up.<p>Probably something wrong with me but I just find it humorous trying to add moisture to a system designed to remove it. Really a reasonable request however, depending on where you live the air can get quite dry.
You’d need a reverse osmosis system, not just he charcoal filters like that<p>And the condensate water from an AC evaporator coil is not anything like distilled water, dust/bacteria are also in it.
> I also wonder why mini-split heating systems drip and pool water outdoors instead of pumping that distilled water back indoors for humidification.<p>Do you want Legionnaire's Disease? Because that's how you get Legionnaire's Disease.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Philadelphia_Legionnaires%27_disease_outbreak#Epidemiology" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Philadelphia_Legionnaires...</a>
During summer dehumidification is needed in most areas.<p>And it is really not distilled water. It gathers dust and so on from air. Distilling in more so closed circuit, where as those are very much open.
This is pretty crappy one-size-fits-all advice in itself.<p>If you’re willing to use distilled water, ultrasonic humidifiers have their own advantages over evaporative.<p>I’m personally willing to buy distilled water. It’s a dollar per gallon, and we only need the humidifier during a short few months. You can even buy a small countertop water distiller for under $60.
I'm thoroughly unconvinced.<p>Doing some basic research... hard water is overwhelmingly various carbonate and bicarbonates of magnesium, calcium, sulfur, iron, maganese, and aluminum. All of which are essential nutrients and readily soluable in water.<p>The other proposed problem was pathogen aerosols- however I was unable to access anything but an abstract. So, I don't know if they survived being aerosolized, produced more and/or worse pathogen count than evaporative humidifiers, Nor the size of the pathogens.<p>It seems to me the known risk is mostly mechanical (Asthma, exacerbated COPD, etc) and nonpersistent (particles dissolve and are used or excreted via the same pathways as when consumed). With an unknown risk on the pathogen side.
> If you’re willing to use distilled water, ultrasonic humidifiers have their own advantages over evaporative.<p>Unless you are anally retentive about cleaning it, ultrasonic humidifiers vaporize microbes into the air. There have been loads of studies about this.<p>The only real way to avoid this is to use the humidifiers that are boiling the water.
How did we survive the last 3.5 billion years?
Drying clothes indoors is also effective. When I set up my laundry rack rh can surge by 30%. I imagine setting up a tray of water under a ceiling fan might be similarly effective.