Category: Control Your Air Moisture

Coming from a part of the world where the air does not get so dry, when I moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, a place where the air gets really dry for long periods, I quickly discovered the importance of a humidifier. It was not long thereafter when I stumbled on the idea of whole house humidifiers.

In reading this post, just as you are wondering, I too pondered, “Should I get a whole house humidifier?” Let me start by answering your question in short.

Many factors are entailed when considering getting a whole house humidifier. Chiefly, you should get one if you live in a region with dry seasons whereby humidity levels fall consistently below 30%. Next, as most whole house humidifiers require an air duct, get one only if you have an air duct.

With no existing ductwork, it is very difficult to install a whole house humidifier in your building without doing some serious renovations.

Your ductwork is the key part of distributing air across your entire home or office building and whole house humidifiers were accordingly designed to piggyback on your duct to distribute moisture.

So, you should not get a whole house humidifier if you do not have an existing air duct. With these two principal issues in mind when considering a whole house humidifier, I can now take you through all the other factors entailed. 

Some factors I have found over time in my pondering about getting whole house humidifiers are weak and can be overlooked, but I still cover them here to help you leave no stone unturned when you finally reach a conclusion on this matter. Let’s dive into the discussion.

What Is A Whole House Humidifier?

Before I take you through whether you should get a whole house humidifier, I think it’s important to start off by defining what a whole house humidifier is. Once you know what a whole house humidifier really is, you will better understand and decide whether you should get one. 

Simply put, whole house humidifiers are humidifiers designed to humidify your entire house at once. Sometimes they are also called in-duct humidifiers, fixed installation humidifiers, industrial humidifiers or central humidifiers. They are unlike portable humidifiers, which can only humidify a single room at a time.

Another type of humidifier you will often find being called a whole house humidifier is a console humidifier. Console humidifiers are, however, not placed in a duct to humidify your entire house. You place them in a room in the same way as portable humidifiers, but they can humidify multiple rooms in your home at the same time while running from one room.

They are usually much larger and heavier than portable humidifiers and because they can humidify multiple rooms at a time, they are also called whole house humidifiers. Personally, I don’t really think they deserve to be called whole house humidifiers.

This is because in situations where you have a really large house or you have air-tight doors between rooms, they cannot effectively humidify multiple rooms in your home and they definitely cannot do your whole house. 

For this reason, when I talk about whole house humidifiers in this post, I’m referring to the type that you connect to your building’s air duct and that can truly humidify all the rooms in your house at the same time. Now, there are several types of whole house humidifiers out there. 

The main ones are drum, flow through and steam/warm mist humidifiers. Let’s briefly look at each of these.

Drum Whole House Humidifiers 

Among the main whole house humidifiers, drum whole house humidifiers are the least expensive and they often turn out to be the easiest to install. When you install them, you normally attach them on the cold air return line of your duct. 

Drum humidifiers rely on a motor and belt to rotate a drum sitting in your humidifier’s water tank to continuously lift this cold water into the air. Then, as the drum continuously flings water in the air, passing air movement in your duct causes some of the water to evaporate.

The passing air then carries this vapor through your duct and eventually releases it across your building, raising your humidity level. Though they are relatively inexpensive compared to the other types of whole house humidifiers, drum humidifiers are difficult to maintain. This is because they have standing water in their tank. 

With standing water, if it stays in their tank long enough, you risk having mold problems and mineral dust accumulation if your water is not well demineralized prior to using it in your humidifier. You also have to change the belt that keeps your drum system rotating often as it wears out.

Flow Through Whole House Humidifiers 

Unlike drum humidifiers, flow through whole house humidifiers can be installed on both the supply and return line of your air duct. In terms of price, flow through humidifiers are in the midrange when it comes to whole house humidifiers.

Similar to drum humidifiers, they also use cold water and rely on air movement and evaporation to add moisture to your home or building. However, instead of a spinning drum, they use a filter through which gets saturated by water and air blows through.

They also have no standing water in their system, so your risk of mold issues is lower, however you’re still prone to spreading mineral dust around your home should you use untreated water in your humidifier. 

The beauty of flow through humidifiers is that they use no electricity. Only their humidistat and valve components use electricity and these have an insignificant on your electric bill. 

All you have to do is supply the filters with water and provide drainage for excess water to flow out of the system. Then maintenance wise, you simply have to change the filter annually or whenever it wears out. The video below shows how flow through whole house humidifiers work.

Steam Whole House Humidifiers

As the most expensive, steam humidifiers are the most effective type of whole house humidifier. They are not so difficult to install but it’s still best to hire an expert if you want one installed well. Instead of adding moisture to your home using air movement and evaporation through your duct, steam humidifiers make vapor through steam.

Your furnace’s air movement then pushes this vapor through your duct and into your home through your vents to increase your humidity as needed. Installing a steam humidifier entails simply attaching a steam hose from the main humidifier unit that produces the steam to your furnaces supply duct.

Because they rely on steam rather than evaporation, steam humidifiers give you a more precise and constant humidity level across your building compared to other types of whole house humidifiers. They have no standing water and so are quite a low mold risk but consume relatively more electricity than other whole house humidifiers. 

You also need to connect a water supply unit to these types of units and make sure that your water is demineralized prior to entering your humidifier using a water treatment system. Steam humidifiers are very low maintenance and probably only need a heating element change once in a while. 

Whatever type of modern whole house humidifier you get, they all come with a humidistat, thermostat and digital control panel like the one on your HVAC systems. Together, these help control your humidifier and furnace to maintain your desired temperature and humidity level autonomously across your home. 

With this said, I think I can safely say I have given you quite a thorough definition of what a whole house humidifier is, and I can now confidently take you through whether or not you should get one. For more info on how whole house steam humidifiers work, see the video below.

Let’s start with the reasons you should get a whole house humidifier.

6 Reasons You Should Get A Whole House Humidifier

There are plenty of reasons you should get a whole house humidifier. Foremost, get one for the standard reasons anyone would get any type of humidifier. These are your typical comfort, prevention and preservation reasons such as,

• Preventing and easing dry skin, flus and other health conditions,
• Keeping your pets and plants healthy
• Preventing valuables from getting damaged and
• Improving your air quality

For more detailed information on these reasons, I write about them in more detail in two of my posts here and here. These reasons apply to all types of humidifiers. Where things become unique to whole house humidifiers is when we look at coverage and some operational advantages. Let’s look at each of these unique reasons in more detail.

1. Get A Whole House Humidifier If You Need To Humidify Multiple Rooms

Besides the standard reasons for getting a humidifier, the main reason you should uniquely go for a whole house humidifier is if you are looking to humidify multiple rooms in your building at the same time.

If you have a home or building with over 3 rooms or an extremely large open plan office space and your building has an air duct and you are aiming to humidify all these rooms, portable humidifiers will not help you. Console humidifiers will also do a lackluster job.

This is simply because no matter how large their capacity, because we can only place these types of humidifiers in one area at a time, their reach into other areas away from where they are placed is limited either by barriers between the areas or coverage distance.

You can resort to getting multiple console or portable humidifiers and place them in each room or area where there is limited coverage, but this can get costly real quick. You have more maintenance costs, energy consumption, and no centralized control of your entire building’s humidity level, which can prove disastrous if one of your humidifiers malfunctions.

In view of this, it makes more sense to have one humidifier that can reach all your rooms and areas of your building through your air duct at the same time. You save yourself a lot of headaches as a whole-house humidifier can simultaneously manage your humidity level across your entire indoor space at the touch of a button.

2. Whole House Humidifier Provide More Precise Humidity Levels

In addition to being able to humidify your entire indoor space, whole-house humidifiers will maintain the most constant and accurate humidity levels in your home. Working with your furnace, they optimize your humidity level across your entire home.

The ease with which you can control them also enables their preciseness. They are self regulating and you just set your desired humidity and temperature and they adjust themselves to maintain this as your ambient temperature and humidity change.

If installed properly, they will always autonomously add the right amount of moisture in your space, without you ever having to worry that they will add too little or too much moisture in your space and cause damage to your property because of excess or inadequate moisture. 

So if you are looking for the best level of precision you can get when adding moisture across your entire home or workspace, then you should get a whole house humidifier.

3. Whole House Humidifiers Are Low Maintenance And Less Work

If you are looking to humidify your entire building in the least involving way, then you should consider whole house humidifiers. With whole house humidifiers, you will never have to manually add water to your humidifier like you do for most portable and console humidifiers.

This is because whole house humidifiers are usually connected directly to your plumbing system and autonomously draw water from your municipal water supply as and when they need water. 

Any excess water they draw is also autonomously drained out of your whole house humidifier system, except for drum humidifiers, which are designed in a way that they always hold standing water in their water reservoir.

Then, for maintenance, with a whole house humidifier, you will only ever have to replace one set of filters and other humidifier components for your entire building. This is way less time and money spent if you were to compare to a situation whereby you had multiple humidifiers running to cover your entire indoor space.

4. Get A Whole House Humidifier If You Need Discreet Humidification

If you don’t want a bunch of other appliances lying around your indoor space and you could use less noise in your work or living space, then you have every reason to get a whole house humidifier. If there are words that describe whole house humidifiers well, it’s “quiet” and “invisible”.

Because they are installed in the same area as your furnace, unlike other types of humidifiers, whole-house humidifiers are hidden away, giving you more space and less noise within your work or living space while adding moisture to your air.

5. Whole Humidifiers Can Increase Your Properties Value

I don’t think this is such a strong reason for you to get a whole house humidifier but when looked at together with all the other reasons for anyone getting one, the thought of an added benefit or an increase in property value easily swings my decision towards getting a whole house humidifier.

A higher property value is always good to have in case you plan to put up your home as collateral or should you ever have to sell it and an upgrade to your HVAC system like a humidifier contributes positively to your property value. 

So, don’t get a whole house humidifier solely for this reason, but because you get an increase in your property value as an extra benefit of getting one.

6. Get A Whole House Humidifier If You Want To Cut Your Energy Cost

Last, with savings costs when humidifying your entire house or office, whole house humidifiers almost always rank first in terms of saving you energy.

First off, some whole house humidifiers like flow through humidifiers, which I described earlier, do not use electricity to add moisture to your home. 

Then of the whole house humidifiers that use electricity, compared to using multiple humidifiers to cover your indoor space, you only use a single whole house humidifier and consume way less electricity to get the same level of humidification.

Besides, your savings on electricity consumption, because whole house humidifiers humidify your indoor space more efficiently than other types of humidifiers, they are better at keeping you warmer at lower temperatures through dry winters than other types of humidifiers. 

They will save you a lot more on heating costs across your entire home than portable or console humidifiers can.

With the 6 main reasons you should get a whole house humidifier out of the way, next, to answer your question fully about whether you should get a whole house humidifier, it only makes sense for me to also take you through reasons not to get a whole house humidifier.

7 Reasons You Should Not Get A Whole house Humidifier

For the reasons not to get a whole house humidifier, I am going to be a lot more brief. If you want more details, ask in the comments below.

1. Don’t Get A Whole Houses Humidifier If You Have No Air Duct 

The first reason I would advise you against getting a whole house humidifier is that your home or building does not have air ducts. This is because of the money you will have to fork out and the amount of work that needs to be done to firstly install an air duct before you install your whole house humidifier.

If you have no air duct, unless you can easily afford to get one and you do not mind doing some hectic renovation, I would stay away from whole house humidifiers. Instead, opt for console humidifiers. These will work out cheaper even in the long term.

2. Whole House Humidifiers Are More Costly To Get

The cheapest whole house humidifier I could find was a flow humidifier on Amazon. At the time of writing this article, the cheapest one was going for about US100. A hundred bucks is not so bad for a humidifier that will humidify your entire home or workspace.

However, when you get a whole house humidifier, unless you can install it properly by yourself, you also have to fork out cash to set it up. This is where things get costly. Expect to pay an additional US$200 just to get one installed. 

The Higher end whole house humidifiers cost up to US$1200 and these are usually steam humidifiers while the lower end ones are mostly flow through humidifiers. For whole house humidifiers on the lower end, budget about US$300 including installation and on the higher end, about US$1500.

I have seen portable humidifiers that cost as much as US$1000, but you can get other portable humidifiers that perform as well as some of these really expensive ones, if not better, at less than US$300. 

So, when you compare the startup cost of a portable and even a console humidifier to that of a whole house humidifier, you obviously end up paying a lot less in start-up cost with your portable humidifiers as you have no installation costs. 

That said, if you factor in the benefits you get from each type of humidifier, this all balances out and long term it, if you do the math’s, it actually works out cheaper to humidify your indoor environment with a whole house humidifier.

So what am I saying here? If you don’t have at least US$500 set aside to spend on a whole house humidifier, and you need to humidify your home asap, then rather opt for a more affordable portable humidifier. 

Otherwise, you might just end up buying a whole house humidifier and sitting on it because you don’t have enough cash to get installed. However, if you have the patience, the other option is obviously to buy one and wait until you have enough money to get it installed if money is tight.

If you are not ready to fork out upwards of US$500 on an appliance, then leave the idea of a whole house humidifier alone. I say this mostly for those based in the US. However, if labor costs are much lower in your country, then this may not apply to you and your upfront costs may not be so bad.

I’m sure there is a country where you can get an installation done for under US$100. Yes, we can argue about living costs and the economics entailed, but if you are paying less than US$100 to install an in duct humidifier and your humidifier costs you less than US$200, don’t dare hesitate getting a whole house humidifier.

3. Whole House Humidifiers Are Harder To Install

This is again a relative reason not to get a whole house humidifier. Compared to portable or console humidifiers, it’s trickier to install a whole house humidifier. If you want to do things by yourself, but you have as much as a slight doubt you could properly cut through your duct and attach and seal your humidifier, then you should not get a whole house humidifier.

They are a DIY project that could go wrong with costly consequences. The installation process takes over an hour and can take half a day depending on your furnace, drainage, plumbing and air duct is set up. So, if you cannot get things done professionally, it best you avoid getting a whole house humidifier.

4. They Can Have Damaging Effects If Not Properly Installed

As I alluded to earlier, if you did not properly install your in duct humidifier, the results could be costly. You are bound to get mold in your air duct, which will eventually spread through your house and you could damage your furnace or wear it out faster than you are meant to.

You could spread excessive moisture in your home, which can damage valuables made of materials that easily absorb moisture like fabric, wood etc.. Excessive moisture will also cause not just metal items around your home to rust, but can also destroy your air duct through rust.

These are a few of the disastrous effects of poorly installed duct humidifiers among many. So, to avoid such accidents, you should not get a whole house humidifier if you cannot ensure someone properly installs it.

5. They Can Be Dangerous If You Don’t Clean Your Duct

If you do not get your air duct maintained and cleaned as per recommended schedule, the moisture from your duct humidifier will mix with all the filth in your duct and create an environment for all kinds of mold, fungi and mites to thrive.

 Eventually, these get spread around your indoor air with negative consequences for your health. Therefore, if you cannot keep your air duct clean, do not make things worse by adding a whole house humidifier to it.

6. Whole House Humidifiers Can Mask Air Leaks In Your Duct

Sometimes you may actually have enough humidity in your home with no humidifier. However, because there are holes and poor insulation around your home or office, you cannot keep this humidity. 

In such a case, you could solve your indoor humidity issues by simply doing an air leak audit and sealing and insulating your building and duct better. But if you came in and installed a whole house humidifier, it would hide your poor insulation problem by making your home warmer and better humidified.

“What’s wrong with that?”, you might think. The problem with this is you end up wasting energy and money on an appliance you might actually not need. In the long run, if all you had to do to improve humidity and temperature levels in your building was to insulate it better, then you save a ton of money.

Considering this, before you set out to get a whole house humidifier, do an energy and air leak test first. Then once you seal and insulate your home based on the findings of the audit, and find that your humidity levels are still not good enough, then get a whole house humidifier. Otherwise do not bother getting a duct humidifier if better insulation fixed your low indoor humidity problem.

7. You Have Not Tried Alternative Humidification Approaches

My last reason you should not get a humidifier is that you have not tried some alternative humidification approaches. Sealing and insulating as I have just mentioned is one alternative but to add on to this, in some indoor environments, especially homes, you can generate enough moisture from your day-to-day activities to keep your humidity level in a good range.

Avoiding using air extraction fans when you cook or shower, washing dishes, drying clothes and some heating appliances can add just enough moisture to maintain a good humidity level in your home if your house is well insulated. 

With a well insulated indoor environment, you may also find a console or portable humidifier does a good job at humidifying your entire home or work environment. If that’s the case, then you really have no need for a whole house humidifier and on this note, I think it’s time I conclude this post.

Final Verdict – Should You Get A Whole house Humidifier?

Going through all the reasons you should and should not get a whole house humidifier, for me, the main issue that stands out most for not getting one is the danger of your humidifier causing problems by producing excessive amounts of moisture. This has been a common issue among whole house humidifier owners, but in this day and age we have largely solved this problem.

The reason excess moisture was such a problem and continues to be a problem was because for most whole house humidifiers made in the past, though they have an autonomous humidistat they have no thermostat so you have to monitor your outdoor temperature manually and tune your humidistat accordingly to avoid excessive moisture.

When the temperature outside your home rises, and you don’t turn down your humidity level on your humidifier, the physics behind humidity are such that you will suddenly have more wet conditions around your home through condensation. As a result, things get soggy, damp and mold grows, and it’s basically a situation you do not want in your work or living space.

Considering all, the solution here is simply to make sure when you are getting your whole house humidifier or if you already have one, that you get an automatic humidistat. The automatic humidistat has thermostats inside and outside your home that sense your outdoor and indoor temperature.

These thermostats signal your humidistat to adjust the amount of moisture your whole house humidifier produces to a level whereby your humidifier does not produce excessive moisture because of changing outside temperature. 

With an automatic humidistat, you get rid of the tedious manual process of adjusting your humidistat based on outdoor temperature, which people often forget to do and do poorly, resulting in your whole house humidifier causing excessive indoor moisture levels.

In view of this, go for a whole house humidifier with an automatic humidistat (must include an indoor and outdoor temperature sensor) should you decide to get a whole house humidifier. 

The other thing I could say is that if you can, opt for a steam humidifier if you can. They are cleaner and less invasive to your duct when it comes to installation and they provide more consistent humidity levels across your building.

In conclusion, if you can make sure your humidifier is properly installed and that your whole house humidifier comes with an automatic humidistat, my take is that a whole house humidifier is quite a beneficial investment in any building.

It is a worthwhile investment if you live in any part of the world where you have a dry season and humidity levels drop below 30% for extended periods. I think I have said enough now and I hope the information I have shared here was helpful. 

Should you come to the conclusion that you are going to get a whole house humidifier, before you make your final decision have a look at some of the one’s I highly recommend on my recommended humidifier post over here.

You woke up one day and suddenly you have a humidifier on your table and you are clueless about what it can help with. Or maybe you are wondering about what else it can help you with. What could this appliance that disperses moisture into the air really be useful for? 

Let me start by giving you a quick answer to your question. 

Briefly put, What Will A Humidifier Help With? As an appliance designed to add moisture to the air, humidifiers will help with several things. In summary, humidifiers will help with preservation of products and valuables, controlling temperature, prevention and easing of illnesses, air sanitization and improving productivity in various activities.

Many people think humidifiers are only made to help with increasing your humidity in an indoor environment when the air is dry. This is not the case. 

There is much more that humidifiers will help with and I have written this post to show almost all the different things humidifiers will help you with. By the time you’re done reading this post, I believe you’ll know all the ins and outs of what a humidifier will help with. Let’s get started then.

1. Preventing And Easing Illnesses

One of the major things I have found a humidifier will help with is keeping you in good health. They do this by preventing and easing the symptoms of several illnesses. 

When your humidity drops below 30%, you become prone to a host of health issues and if you are already sick, your symptoms could get even worse. This is because of the number of ways in which dry air weakens your immune system and allows for airborne pathogens to spread.

If your humidity is too low (that is below 30%) among other health problems, you can develop and worsen the following health issues:

• Influenza
• Dry Skin
• Dry Eyes
• Sleep Better
• Congestion And Allergies 
• Throat Problems And Coughing

However, when you run a humidifier and it increases your humidity level to the ideal 30-60% range, the adequate level of moisture in your air does wonders for your wellbeing. If you had dry and flaky skin, over time, your skin becomes more moist and smooth.

I have also seen enough anecdotal evidence of eczema symptoms easing. Then, as shown by enough scientific evidence, your flu symptoms ease and you have less congestion and more productive coughing. 

For respiratory issues, your symptoms ease because having adequate moisture in your air ensures your cilia, which help keep pathogens out of your airways, perform at their optimal level. 

Besides this, by increasing the number of water particles in the air, humidifiers reduce the number of pathogenic particles floating around your air. Accordingly, they also reduce the chances of you inhaling them and subsequently getting sick. 

They do this by making it easier for these particles to stick together while floating, then once they stick together, they become too heavy to float around your air and fall to the ground before you can inhale enough of them to make you really sick.

These pathogenic particles include allergens like pollen and dust and viruses and bacteria, including the flu bug and the COVID virus. Because of their ability to help us fight off such airborne diseases, humidifiers are often used in hospitals to minimize disease transmission and help patients feel and get better faster.

Now, I can bog you down with more details of the mechanisms by which a humidifier will help you keep in good health but I think from what I have said so far, you get it, so I’ll stop here and move on to the next point. For more info on this, check out my post on how humidifiers help. There I dive into the nitty gritty on all this.

2. Controlling Your Temperature

The next thing a humidifier will help you with is controlling your temperature. Well, they do not exactly help you control your temperature as an air conditioner does, but they act more in a way that prevents you from getting too cold or too hot. Let me explain.

When it’s cold and dry, part of the reason you feel cold is that water evaporates off of your skin really fast to make up for the lack of moisture in your air. As the water evaporates, you also lose body heat, and this loss leaves you feeling cold.

To counter the rapid evaporation and essentially decrease how cold you feel, one solution is to add moisture to your air. When you do this, water evaporates from your body at a much slower rate and, as a result, you feel warmer. 

But how do you add moisture to your air? The best way is to use a humidifier and by making you feel warmer at lower temperatures, this is how a humidifier will help you better control your temperature. The warming effect works really well, especially when you use a warm mist humidifier.

However, please note that humidifiers won’t help in this way if your weather is both cold and humid as there is already enough moisture in the air. You won’t feel warmer. 

As for keeping you cool, the process is much simpler. A humidifier will help you keep cool by simply spraying cool vapor directly on you. The mist will cool you down similarly as a cold shower on a hot day cools you down. 

The warming and cooling effects humidifiers will help provide are not limited to just your body’s well-being but apply to other facets of life, especially in manufacturing.

3. Keeping You Comfortable

I have shown you that humidifiers will help you keep in good health and also they will help you cope with extreme temperatures. These are all key aspects of your general comfort humidifiers will help you maintain.

However, if you are neither sick nor feeling too hot or too cold, sometimes when your humidity level is just too low, you just feel a certain physical uneasiness. Try observing how you feel when your indoor humidity is low compared to when it’s in the goldilocks 30-60% range. 

I’ll bet you will most of the time feel physically better when your humidity is the goldilocks zone. Considering all the discomforts caused by dry air, humidifiers will help you feel more physically and even mentally comfortable by maintaining your indoor humidity level within the suitable 30-60% range.

4. Saving On Heating

As humidifiers will help you feel warmer at lower temperatures, another thing that they will help you achieve is lower energy costs by making your home feel warmer at lower heating temperatures. 

You can save money by decreasing your temperature by one or two degrees, and doing this over eight hours can save you up to 1% on your heating bills over a month. A humidifier will also help you save energy when cooling your building using a cooling process called evaporative cooling.  

With evaporative cooling, you can save up to 75% on your cooling costs as compared to the common refrigeration cooling approach. You can learn more about evaporative cooling here.

5. Keeping Plants And Pets Healthy

Just as they help humans, humidifiers will also help keep pets and plants healthy. Most pets and plants will fare well when your humidity is between 30-60% however, there are some that need humidity levels above 60% to thrive.

Without enough humidity, many plants will shrivel and die. Pets, especially small birds and lizards, will develop respiratory issues and most pets will have issues with dry skin, causing them to excessively shed dander.

6. Preserving Your Building

When the air inside a building gets too dry, it can cause some minor structural damage. If you have wooden floors and fittings in your home or office space, dry air can cause these to shrink wrap. Without enough moisture, wallpaper can shrink and tear, and walls can suddenly develop unsightly cracks.

However, if your home gets the right amount of moisture, you can completely avoid such structural damage and this is totally something humidifiers will help you deal with. They will ensure materials used to build and finish your space keep their natural moisture and maintain their integrity.

7. Preventing Damage To Your Valuables

Dry air damages your valuables in two ways. By reducing the natural moisture content of your valuables and by causing static which can damage mostly valuables that contain integrated electronic circuits. 

So if you collect antiques or you own some books, wooden musical instruments or wooden furniture and you get extremely dry air, because of the material of such valuables, dry air can damage them by causing them to warp and split.

By causing static, dry air can also damage your electronic valuables by short circuiting them when they come into contact with a statically charged object. Such damage can cost you a lot however you can avoid it by just adding some moisture to your air and accordingly a humidifier is one of the few solutions you will come across that will help you keep your valuables safe.

8. Improving Air Quality

Earlier, I described how humidifiers can reduce pathogens and pollutants in the air by making them too dense to remain floating. This is one way they will help with improving your air quality. 

Another way they will help is by dispersing disinfectants or sanitizing liquid into your air just as they do water. You simply mix some air sanitizing or disinfecting solution with water and pour this into your humidifier tank as you would with pure water and run your humidifier.

Make sure you get the right disinfectant (#link to Amazon) that’s safe for your pets and indoor plants and for humans. With the right disinfectant, you will kill pathogens and neutralize various pollutants in your air, and by so doing, keep your air clean.

The type of humidifier that is most effective for this is actually called a fogger, but you can use a typical humidifier that’s designed to simply disperse moisture. Maintaining good air quality is yet another thing humidifiers will effectively help you with and if you compliment them with air purifiers, you can achieve superior indoor air quality levels.

9. Improving Productivity In Various Household And Business Activities

The last thing on my list of what humidifiers will help with is improving productivity in several activities. These activities are mainly business activities. 

In the beauty space, humidifiers help speed up the adhesive curing process when beauticians are doing eyelash extensions and you can also use your humidifier in this way when doing lash extensions at home.

Then if you have a grow tent, or you are a hobby or commercial mushroom or weed grower, humidifiers will help you boost your yields and growth rates by providing your plants or fungi with adequate moisture for them to thrive.

If you run a data center or server room, researchers have found humidifiers to be a useful low energy way of cooling your server room and also preventing damage by static (ESD) to your servers. 

Humidifiers have also been found effective in maintaining the integrity of materials and machinery in the packaging and printing industry. For more on all the industrial applications humidifiers help with, check out this post.

With these 9 things, I have now taken you through all the key things a humidifier will help you with. I hope I have now eased your curiosity, but if I have not, please do ask in the comments below and I will get back to you as soon as possible. 

If you’ve gone through this post and you’ve seen how useful a humidifier can be and you wanna look into getting one, before you decide, make a pit stop by my recommended humidifiers page to get an idea of what kind of humidifier you should go for and which ones are among the best you can get.

There are many times and places when you should use a humidifier. Humidifiers add moisture to the air, and there are enough situations when you would need to do this. 

Before I dive into the details, let me answer your question in short.

In short, when should I use a humidifier? Humidifiers should mainly be used when indoor relative humidity needs to be maintained at between 30-60%, which is the ideal range for most living and nonliving things. Besides this, humidifiers should also be used when moisture is needed for a cooling process or when humidity levels beyond 60% are required.

You should not only use humidifiers when you need to maintain your ideal range of humidity, but also when you need to regulate temperature. There is more to using humidifiers than the eye can see and in this post I share with you both the common and overlooked details of when you should use humidifiers. 

My list is not exhaustive, but it will certainly open your eyes to situations when you should use a humidifier you may never have fathomed. Get through my list and I am pretty sure you will be confident about identifying and deciding on when you should use a humidifier or not.

1. When The Humidity Level Drops Below 30 Percent.

The ideal humidity level for humans and most valuables when you are indoors is between 30% to 60%. If your humidity level drops below 30% for whatever reason, the air becomes too dry for humans and a lot of other things kept indoors with potentially damaging effects.

As a humidifier’s function is to add moisture to your air and, by doing so, it’s able to increase your indoor humidity level you should use a humidifier when your humidity drops below 30%.

Doing this will increase your humidity above 30% and consequently prevent the damaging effects of drier indoor air when your relative humidity is below 30%.

That said, make sure you keep your relative humidity below 60% when using a humidifier, otherwise the air becomes too moist with potentially negative consequences. 

Most humidifiers come with a regulator called a humidistat that will maintain your humidity at your desired level. Regardless, to be on the safe side, you can use a hygrometer to make sure your humidity is in the safe range of 30% to 60%.

2. When The Air Feels Dry

When the air indoors feels dry, even though your humidity level is between the suitable 30% to 60% range, it’s a good time to use your humidifier. Sometimes when humidity levels are ok, my mouth feels dry, my eyes feel irritated, I get a headache and even my skin feels tight.

Perhaps it is because I am dehydrated and there is not enough moisture in my body for whatever reason. Sometimes you might be in a room for a while while an air conditioner is running and if your body is not well hydrated, you may feel the effects of dryness as the air-con sucks up moisture from your air and body.

Under these circumstances, I’ve found that adding a little more moisture to your air helps. So if my air is feeling dry and I measure my humidity with a hygrometer and my humidity level is around 40% then I use a humidifier to crank it up to about 45% to 50% and that usually gets the air moist enough to stop me feeling dry.

Give this a shot next time your air feels dry and let me know in the comments below how it goes.

3. When It’s Hot

When the weather is boiling, even when it is humid and hot, most of the time I just feel like jumping into a cold shower or a pool. I’m almost always craving the cooling effect of cold water on my skin. 

Well, you can get this same cooling effect from a humidifier. You should specifically go for a cool mist humidifier which disperses fine and cold water droplets into your air. 

Outdoor models of these humidifiers which you can place on your patio are also available. In fact, they are better known as misting fans and they can be in all shapes and sizes. So, reflecting on all this, use a humidifier when it is hot to help you cool down and keep cool.

4. When Its Cold

You would think because a humidifier helps you cool down, it makes little sense to use it when it is cold. How the hell does it also warm you up when it cools you down too? I also didn’t get how all this works initially. Let me try to explain.

When it’s cold, you feel cold because a lot of moisture is evaporating off your body and skin to compensate for the lack of moisture in your ambient air. As water evaporates off your skin, it leaves your skin feeling cold. 

Keeping all this in mind, if you then add more moisture to your ambient air from another source that is not your body, you slow down the evaporation of moisture from your body as you now have enough moisture in your air. 

As a result, you then feel warmer as there is less evaporation happening from your skin. In view of this, if it so happens you were using a heater to warm yourself up, you will feel even warmer at the same temperature just because there is more moisture in your air and your humidity is higher.

All this, however, only works when your winter is dry. If your winter is humid with humidity levels between 40 and 60%, then using a humidifier won’t help you feel warmer.

Based on this, use your humidifier specifically when it’s cold and dry and not cold and humid to help you feel warmer and also save on heating costs as you feel warmer at lower temperatures.

5. When You Are Sick Or Preventing Illness

I mentioned earlier that dry air can have a damaging impact on humans. Most of the damage is in the form of illnesses. When the air is dry, you are more prone to a host of illnesses including,

• Allergies  
• Influenza
• Throat problems
• Coughs
• Nosebleeds
• Dry skin
• Dry eyes
• Asthma attacks

A lot of the problems are upper respiratory and skin related and they are all because the air is excessively sucking the moisture out of your skin as there is not enough moisture in your ambient air.

With enough moisture in your air, your skin remains hydrated as its moisture does not evaporate to make up for lack of moisture in the air and so your eyes and skin don’t get dry and irritated. 

You also decrease the spread of influenza and airborne allergens as moisture makes these airborne disease particles denser and fall to ground faster before you inhale them. Added moisture also improves the performance of your cilia, which help keep pollutant and infectious particles out of your respiratory system. 

Then should you fall sick, and get dry skin or a respiratory problem, higher humidity levels between 30% to 60% relative humidity help to ease the symptoms of your illness. So be sure to get a humidifier to effectively fight against illnesses.

6. When Preventing Pets From Getting Sick

Similar to human beings, animals living indoors be it in your home, dog kennel or some pet hotel benefit from adequate humidity levels. If the air is too dry, they will also have respiratory and skin issues.

Furry and feathery animals may have more dandruff, and lizards may have extremely flaky skin and can even die. Birds in particular can have life-threatening breathing problems. 

As for lizards, some types of lizards need extremely high humidity levels in their terrarium of up to 90% relative humidity. Accordingly, you wanna have a humidifier running to provide adequate humidity for your pets and for some pets you additionally need one that fits in their enclosure.

7. When Protecting Furniture And Buildings From Dry Air

When you see your wooden floors and furniture shrinking or twisting, you know that you have a dry air problem. The problem can get so bad you eventually see cracks in your walls, wall paper tearing and even your window panes shifting. 

With enough humidity in your air (30%-60%), you can prevent all this from happening and what better way to increase humidity indoors than using a humidifier. Use a humidifier when ensuring your home or building and your furniture thereof are in good condition. 

8. When Protecting Certain Valuables

A lot of things we keep indoors are prone to damage if your air gets too dry. The damage happens because either dry air sucks much needed moisture in these objects or causes static electricity, which damages your valuables and particularly electronic valuables.

Something I have observed, and that has been scientifically proven, is dry air causing static electricity. When my air gets really dry, especially in winter, I totally experience more static.

If you are not careful and you happen to touch an exposed electronic gadget whilst your hands are statically charged, you can short circuit your gadget and that will be the end of it. People have gone as far as losing laptops to static.

Then, from a moisture perspective, if your humidity is too low, things like your books, musical instruments, antiques and paintings dry up to a point they shrink, lose shape, their bindings come loose or they twist and crack. Additionally, if you have house plants, they can wither and die without adequate humidity.

An easy way to prevent all this is to ensure your humidity level stays between 30%-60% and this is yet another situation when you should use a humidifier.

9. When Disinfecting and Cleaning Your Air

A situation that is often overlooked that calls for using a humidifier is when you are disinfecting your air. I think we might overlook humidifiers in this regard because we usually refer to these types of humidifier to as a fogger. Call it a fogger or humidifier, it’s all the same. 

To sanitize and disinfect your air with a humidifier, you simply add air disinfecting and sanitizing liquid in your humidifiers water as per usage instructions provided and run your humidifier and as this mixture is dispersed in your indoor space, it cleanses it from all sorts airborne diseases and pollutants.

10. When Doing Certain Beauty Treatments

A humidifier really comes in handy when doing certain beauty treatments in a spa, beauty salon or at home. The first place I can think of humidifiers being used for beauty treatments is in a sauna.

The steam generator in your sauna is just another type of humidifier. Also, when doing facials, sometimes you use a facial steamer, which again is just another type of humidifier. 

Eyelash extensions are another beauty treatment that require a humidifier. When doing eyelash extensions, the results are not as good if your humidity is too low. The ideal humidity level to get excellent results and lash retention with eyelash extensions is between 45% to 60% relative humidity.

This is because the adhesives used in doing eyelash extensions cure much slower and poorly under low humidity conditions. With poorly cured adhesives, lash extensions cannot stick properly and easily slip off. Besides, slipping off the extensions also clump up together. 

However, if you have adequate humidity, everything seems to work more easily. I’m sure there are beauty applications where using a humidifier is important, but let me end here. So with this said, another key place when you should use a humidifier is when you are doing certain beauty treatments.

11. In Various Commercial And Industrial Situations

Last, on my list of situations when you should use a humidifier are various commercial and industrial processes. In the table below, I provide some useful commercial and industrial situations in which we use humidifiers and how humidifiers help in each of these processes.

Process In Which Humidifiers Are Used When Doing Commerce and Industry
Process	How A Humidifier Helps
Automotive manufacturing humidification	Increased efficiency & accuracy.
Cleanrooms & laboratories humidification	Improves production efficiencies.
Explosive & munition manufacturing humidification	Prevention of electrostatic risk to combustible materials.
Medical device manufacturing humidification	Improves yields and reduces waste.
Paper & pulp production humidification	Prevents dimensional changes.
Packaging humidification	Reducing static and maintaining the properties of paper, card and adhesives.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing humidification	Increases efficiency & yields.
Printing humidification	Prevents dimensional change and improves production processes.
Textile manufacturing humidification	For improved yield & quality.
Tobacco production humidification	Improved product quality and production efficiency
Electronics manufacturing	Eliminate harmful electrostatic discharge with humidification
Spray booth humidification	Prevents evaporation of water-based paints and improves finish. Reduction in static build-up and less dust adhesion to surfaces Reduction in spray evaporation between spray nozzle and surface Prevention of premature and uneven drying Evaporative cooling effect in sanding decks and inspection areas Optimum environment for electrostatic painting and powder coating Improved production efficiency, reduced sanding requirement, lower paint cost and improved finish
Abattoir humidification	Reducing weight loss during carcass chill down to less than 1%
Data center humidification	Provides high capacity, low cost evaporative cooling and combats ESD.
Tea production humidification	Humidification during fermentation Improves oxidation and the quality and value of black teas.
Mushroom growing humidification	Increases efficiency & yields.
Crop storage humidification	Improves crop preservation period

Table Source: Condair

There are many more processes than this when you should use a humidifier, and the list I have shared with you here is certainly not comprehensive. 

Regardless, I hope I have shown you a time or place when you should have a humidifier you never even thought of. If you have come this far, you have completed the list and you know more about when humidifiers should be used than most people do. 

As a bonus, I am going to leave you with some additional tips that are quite important when you are deciding on when you should use your humidifier.

Additional Tips On When You Should Use A Humidifier

Should I Use A Humidifier All Night Long?

Something that came across my mind when I initially wondered about when I should use a humidifier is whether I should use one throughout the night. If you are wondering the same, the quick answer is you don’t have to use one all night long, but you can.

In my opinion, you should only use one all night long if you are facing serious issues with dry air and disrupt your sleep. For other uses like preserving your valuables and your household, it’s unnecessary.

Whichever way, if you kept your humidifier on all night, if it is a smart humidifier with sensors, it will automatically switch on and off to maintain a constant humidity level and it will automatically switch off when it is out of water. 

So it all comes down to, are things better when you leave your humidifier on all night. If you observe they are better, then you should. If you observe they are worse or there is no change, then you should not.

Should I Use A Humidifier All-Year Round?

If you live in a parched climate throughout the year, I highly suggest using a humidifier all year round. Most people, however, live in areas where it is hot and humid in the summer but a lot drier in the winter. 

If this is true for you, then you don’t need to use a humidifier all year round. You should use a humidifier when the humidity levels drop significantly and throughout winter and put it away in summer unless it’s a cool mist humidifier which can cool you down from the hot weather even when it’s humid.

The story changes when we look at things from a commercial and industrial perspective. In these settings, then your humidifier becomes once more a year round appliance,

What Kind Of Humidifier Should You Use?

I kind of answer this in my post about types of humidifiers, but in short, when you are battling dry air in winter, you are better off with a warm mist humidifier and when you are dealing with hot weather; you are better off with a cool mist humidifier.

Besides these two cases, there are specific types of humidifiers designed for certain uses including, beauty treatments, certain pets, disinfecting air or for growing rooms and other applications. They differ in size and mechanism and it’s a whole other post for me to dive into the details.

A question I come across often in improving indoor air quality is whether someone should get a humidifier. Sometimes this question comes from people who are clueless about what a humidifier does, but they happen to have heard that it somehow makes the air better. However, most of the time I see it asked by people who are simply unsure about the many ways humidifiers can help them.

To answer your question clearly, I am going to go into detail about the reasons you should and should not get a humidifier, but before I do, briefly put, 

“Should you get a humidifier?” Of the many reasons you should get a humidifier, they can all be summed up as two reasons. The first is to protect yourself and any living thing and the second is to protect any non-living valuables from dry indoor air respectively. Ultimately, you should get a humidifier to avoid the damaging effects of dry air.

Humidifiers are made to add moisture to your indoor air and help you alter the level of indoor humidity to a level of your choosing. By doing so, their primary purpose is to help you combat the negative effects of dry air. The ideal humidity range for most things, including us as humans, is between 30% to 60% relative humidity. 

Typically, you should only need to get a humidifier when your indoor air drops below 30% relative humidity, however sometimes even when the air is not dry and well within the ideal range humidifiers can be used for certain situations whereby relative humidity needs to be above 60%. 

Such situations are obviously not common but for anyone curious, I list these and all the common reasons I have come across for getting a humidifier in this post. Even though I found the reasons to be a bit of a stretch, if you get to the end of this post you will find I have also shared the few reasons you should not get a humidifier that I have encountered.

So if you are wondering whether you should get humidifier for whatever reasons, I wrote this post just for you and if you don’t get your answer here and you believe I missed something, express your concerns in the comments section below and I will do all I can to guide you to the best of my knowledge on this topic.

16 Reasons You Should Get A Humidifier

There are many reasons you should get a humidifier. In my quest to find all the reasons anyone should get a humidifier, I found 16 distinct reasons. Some reasons are obvious and linked to each and others do overlap but are distinct regardless, and others might just surprise you.

As you may have guessed, most of the reasons are to do with the adverse consequences of dry air. If I were to categorize the reasons, I would put them in two categories. As I mentioned earlier, the first would be to get a humidifier because of its benefits to you and almost all living things in your environment and the second would be because of its benefits to your built environment and various things we keep in our homes or work spaces. 

With that said, let me now take you through the details of what I believe are all the reasons you should get a humidifier.

1. Keep Your Skin Moisturized

The most common reason I came across for getting a humidifier is to keep your skin moisturized. Be it your hands, feet, face or lips, humidifiers will help you keep skin around your entire body moisturized. It’s winter where I am as I write this post and I am in a constant battle against my face and hands drying up.

I apply three layers of lotion and still my skin dries up like a pickle and feels annoyingly tight. Our air gets dry for many reasons besides the weather and if for whatever reason the humidity level in your environment drops below 30% for a prolonged period, your skin will get irritatingly to a point whereby even the best moisturizing lotions in the world may barely help.

Below humidity levels of 30% any finite amount of moisture on your skin, be it your body’s natural moisture or any moisturizing product you apply, evaporates quickly, leaving you with tight, chapped and ashy skin. So the best solution to avoid your skin getting dry is to bring in something that will constantly add enough moisture in your indoor environment and restore your evaporation rate to an adequate level.

This is where humidifiers come in. With the right humidifier, you can easily raise your indoor humidity level above 30% and maintain it in the comfortable range for human skin of between 40% to 60%. Humidifiers obviously won’t help if you are mostly outdoors but sit in a humidified room for an hour during the dry season and you won’t help but notice how much more moisturized and comfortable your skin feels compared to places you spend time in that are not humidified.

2. Reduce Your Nosebleeds 

If you are a nose-bleeder like me, one thing you are bound to pick up on is that when you are in a country, season or environment with dryer air, you bleed more frequently and more easily. You may also have never had nosebleeds before and then maybe when you moved to a new city, you suddenly started nose bleeding. 

Often, you can blame the dry air for your sudden nose bleeding if you are from a relatively humid country or town and move to a relatively dry one. The dry air sucks up all the moisture in your nostrils and then the very sensitive skin under which you have a vast network of tiny arteries in your nasal cavity tears because it just does not have enough moisture to remain stretchy. 

Then once the skin up your nostrils tears, the underlying arteries also rupture, causing your nose to bleed. To avoid all this, one effective approach is to use a humidifier wherever possible. Humidifiers are especially effective if you spend a lot of time indoors. 

They will artificially increase and maintain your humidity at a comfortable level for your nose, ensuring you are always breathing in moist air, which adds rather than absorbs moisture from your nostrils. If you have the common dry air triggered nosebleed, with a humidifier in place you should get far less nose bleeds. 

If your nosebleeds don’t improve even after trying a humidifier, then it’s best you see a doctor. Also, if you have never consulted a doctor about your nosebleeds before, better consult one before turning to a humidifier for any relief.

3. Protect Your Throat

Another part of your body that does not do well without enough air moisture is your throat. For some people, when humidity levels are low, they easily develop scratchy and dry throats. Dry air might even make you sound hoarse and at times cause you to suddenly lose your voice. 

To prevent all this, a good humidifier can go a long way. By adding moisture to your air, a humidifier subsequently lubricates and soothes your throat as you breathe in and out over time. 

In fact, professional singers commonly turn to humidifiers to ease vocal dryness. So you should certainly look into getting a humidifier if, for whatever reason, you are trying to deal with a dry throat.

4. Soothe Your Sinuses

If you are prone to sinus problems, and you are or have been to a place where the air is dry, you can’t help but notice how your sinus problems flare up in tandem with the dryness. Many people with sinus issues get headaches, pressure and stuffy noses due to really dry air.

This happens because without enough moisture, your mucus does not flow fast enough in your nose, leading to congestion and all kinds of sinus problems. In other words, your sinuses are less likely to cause you problems if your humidity level is high enough, making a humidifier a handy tool for you to have if you have sinus problems and you are facing dry air conditions.

5. Halt the Spread of Flu, COVID and Other Airborne Germs

There is more than enough information out there on the benefits of humidity in fighting against the spread flu. Based on the exact principle by which spreading the flu bug is reduced at higher humidity levels, you can also reduce spreading of other airborne germs and diseases. 

So, how does this all work? According to scientific research, as humidity levels rise, you find respiratory particles grow faster and fall to the ground earlier than when the air is drier. This means as your air becomes more moist, chances of viral and infectious particles travelling from one person to another decrease.

After hearing this, my immediate thought was why had I not been using a humidifier, especially during those long cold winters when people around me come down with colds and I never fail to catch it.

If there is anything out there that reduces the chances of me catching an airborne disease and I can afford it, it just makes sense to get it. If these are your thoughts as well, then here’s another reason you should get a humidifier.

6. Counter Airborne Allergies

Based on the same science involved in slowing down airborne disease aerosols or droplets, moisture in the air also slows and weighs down solid airborne particulates, including those that cause allergies. Compared to when your air is dry, dust, pollen and other solid air particles stick to each other and fall to the ground more easily. 

This significantly reduces their presence in your air and your exposure to them, which is fantastic for you if you are prone to airborne allergies. So based on what I’ve just explained, if you have dry air issues in your indoor environment, you’ll be wise to get yourself a humidifier and keep one running around you whenever you are indoors.

7. Prevent Dry Eyes

One thing I have often suffered during dry winters, especially when I am in a room with air conditioning or HVAC heating for an extended period, is eye irritations. Some people’s eyes burn, some people complain of itchiness, but personally I feel like there are tiny stone specs in my eye. 

I’ve tried dealing with these by putting water in my eyes and hydrating eye drops, but I’ve never gotten instant relief from any of these solutions. The best thing you can do for yourself if you get dry eyes is to prevent this from happening in the first place and a well-selected humidifier will help you do just that. A humidifier is a worthwhile investment if you are highly susceptible to dry eyes.

8. Alleviate Various Respiratory Disease Symptoms 

I have already pointed out how humidifiers can help soothe your sinuses. Well, by adding moisture into your air, they also soothe various other respiratory conditions such as COPD, colds and at times even asthma. The reason humidifiers help is because they lubricate your respiratory system, which when otherwise left exposed to dry air become rather irritated and more susceptible to disease symptoms.

That said, humidifiers can aggravate other health issues. For instance, migraines are usually associated with higher humidity levels. So, for this point, I strongly suggest you consult your doctor well before you use a humidifier to ease any medical condition. That way, instead of blindly following general information around the internet, you avoid unnecessarily worsening your health.

9. Help With Snoring

I was surprised when I heard this for the first time and it will probably surprise you to learn this too, DRY AIR CONTRIBUTES TO SNORING. How so? Simply put, over exposure to dry air, especially while you sleep, gets you nasally congested and makes your throat swell.

Once that happens, the flow of air through your respiratory system becomes restricted, causing you to excessively breathe through your mouth and eventually snore.

To avoid or minimize the chances of snoring in this way, a humidifier can accordingly help to considerably lubricate your airways. So if you have dry air related snoring, this is yet another unquestionable reason to get a humidifier.

10. Keep Your Baby Comfortable

I have so far elaborated on all the bodily benefits of humidifiers to humans. These benefits not only apply to adults but also to babies and as a parent you will save your newborn or toddler a lot of discomfort by using a humidifier in their room.

They breathe better; it does wonders for their skin, and they will probably sleep better too. So you should get a humidifier if you have a baby around your home that you want to keep comfortable. Just keep your humidity in the 40% to 60% range to avoid any complications.

11. Make Your Home Or Office Warmer

Something you are bound to notice if you are observant is that a cold indoor environment is usually synonymous with dry indoor air. Accordingly, when there is more moisture in the air, a room feels warmer. This is so because our bodies cool down by losing water through evaporation.

However, when there is a lot of moisture in the air, evaporation does not happen as fast as your air is already full of water. So if your body is not losing water so much through evaporation, then it is no longer effectively cooling down and if you are not really cooling down, you end up feeling warmer. 

This effect also works really well when you are indoors in winter and the best way to increase your indoor moisture so you can feel warmer during winter is by using a humidifier. The effect works so well that you end up feeling warmer at lower heating temperatures. In fact, for this reason, it’s widely advised to run a humidifier alongside your heating system in winter to help lower your heating cost. 

So you should get yourself a humidifier if you want not just a warmer indoor environment but a warmer space at a lower heating cost.

12. Keep Your Houseplants Healthy

Just like humans, most plants require the right amount of moisture to thrive. The comfortable humidity range for house plants is from 20% to 60% but most common house plants will be happy between the 40% to 50% range, which is also ideal for humans. 

If your humidity falls too low, you will quickly see the negative impact on your plants. Some plants will lose leaves, others will have their leaves wilt and dry, some may develop diseases, others will show stunted growth and some may ultimately die. To avoid all this, get a humidifier so you can ensure you keep plants healthy by providing them with adequate humidity even through dry air seasons.

13. Protect Your Home

Another thing in your life that can get damaged if left without adequate moisture is your home. When I talk about your home, I am referring not just to your home’s physical frame but also to the fittings, finishes, and furniture in your home. If the air gets too dry, these can all get damaged.

The worst is wooden furniture and fittings. Dry air can cause these to twist and wrap, as it easily sucks every bit of moisture out of wood. With inadequate moisture, don’t get shocked when you wake up to your wooden floors or furniture cracked or twisted. 

I once stayed in a house with wooden floors where the wood shrank so much there were gaps between sections of the floorboards that were so wide my smart phone could fall through into the crawl space. I’m not even gonna mention how creaky the floor got throughout the house. I really did not know dry air could cause such serious damage to a home.

Other parts of your building that get damaged include wallpaper and paint, which eventually peel off your walls. To avoid all these damaging effects of dry air, there are a couple steps you can take, but in this article’s context a humidifier and more specifically a whole house humidifier, will go a long way in preventing dry air from damaging the interior of your prized building and its furnishing.

14. Protect Your Musical Instruments

As we make some musical instruments out of wood, you can imagine the impact dry conditions can have on them. Be it a violin, guitar or piano, if your instrument was never acclimatized to your country or city’s weather, it is likely to firstly go out of tune and then eventually wrap and twist if exposed for too long to dry air.

Some instruments are built with their location specific weather conditions in mind and are acclimatized, but if you are worried yours is not, then it’s a good idea to store your instrument in a place where you can maintain a good level of humidity. For most instruments, this will be between 35% and 50% relative humidity and you can easily achieve this with a reliable humidifier on hand.

15. Keep Your Electronics Safe

Ever touched your laptop or car door or someone and suddenly been electrocuted? That’s static electricity, and it’s a common occurrence in winter when the air is dry. For the most part, static is just an annoyance everyone tries to avoid, but with electronic gadgets, static can actually damage computers and other electronics, especially those with a metal casing. 

Luckily, adding moisture to your air is an easy fix for static and you can quickly get rid of static with a decent humidifier. So, a good reason to get a humidifier is if you wanna get rid of static in your home or office.

16. Helps Keep Pets healthy

Depending on what pet you have, you might need to provide your pet with additional moisture not just during a dry season but throughout the year. If you own reptiles, you will find some reptiles like corn snakes are pretty comfortable in the 30% to 50% humidity range and you just have to run a humidifier when your relative humidity drops below 30%. 

However, other reptiles like Leopard Geckos or Bearded Dragons need humidity levels to be way up around 80% to 90% for them to thrive. In such a case, you definitely need a humidifier, but it is not practical to have one that sets your entire room at such high humidity, otherwise your room will just be soaking and damp. The solution here is to get a mini humidifier that you can easily fit in your pet’s vivarium or living environment.

As for other pets like birds, for instance, most just need you to stick in the 40% to 60% humidity range which is perfect for humans too and in this case you can simply run a room humidifier if the air gets too dry and your humidity level drops below 40%. So in conclusion to the reasons you should look into getting a humidifier, you should finally get one if you would like to easily maintain an optimal humidity level for your pet.

7 Reasons You Should Not Get A Humidifier

When you are deciding whether to get a humidifier, besides the reasons for getting one, you obviously also need to know every valid reason you shouldn’t. As compared to reasons for getting a humidifier, I found far fewer reasons anyone should not get one. Let’s look at these reasons.

1. White Dust

White dust has got to be the main reason anyone should avoid humidifiers. If you use normal tap water with most types of humidifiers, you will find they eventually release a white dust like substance in your air and the dust finally settles on surfaces around your work or living space. 

The dust comes from the natural minerals found in tap water, and as your humidifier releases fine water particles in your air and the water particles evaporate, the water particles leave behind these minerals as a by-product. Though the side effects of breathing in this dust are not clear, the dust is said to be potentially dangerous, especially if you have existing respiratory issues. 

Based on this, many people avoid getting humidifiers. That said, you can now get humidifiers that do not produce mineral dust and also if you use distilled water, you solve the problem as distilled water is natural water stripped of its mineral content. So if you must have a humidifier but cannot cope with the white dust for whatever reason, explore your options with the two solutions I have just mentioned. 

2. Extra Cleaning Chore

Another reason you should not get a humidifier is if you have a busy schedule and you do not want to add an extra appliance to clean on your list of chores. Most types of humidifiers out there can be tedious to clean and the consequences of not cleaning them include spreading of mold and bacteria in your air.

Spreading bacteria in your air could then subsequently make you sick and not cleaning your humidifier might damage it if you use untreated water directly from your tap to operate your humidifier. If your humidifier gets damaged because you failed to clean it regularly, then what’s the point in getting one. Ultimately, this all means you should avoid getting a humidifier if you won’t have time to clean it.

3. Risk of Burns

The next reason you should not get a humidifier is specific to a particular type of humidifier called a warm mist humidifier. These types of humidifiers work by heating water and emitting steam into a room. There are many advantages to this type of humidifier, but if you have pets and kids around, the steam they emit and the appliance itself can get so hot it can burn a child or pet.

This is the last thing you want to happen when you bring an appliance into your home and for this reason you should avoid getting a humidifier and specifically a warm mist humidifier. If you have kids and pets around and you barely manage to keep track of them and you need a humidifier, rather go for a cool mist humidifier to avoid burn accidents.

4. Bacteria and Fungus

I already alluded to bacteria, mold and fungus earlier when I talked about cleaning, but this is another reason you should not get a humidifier that should be highlighted and stand on its own. Humidifiers, especially cool mist humidifiers, are a haven for bacteria, mold and fungus if not well maintained and they are very good at spreading these in your air through the vapor they release.

This is not a major cause for concern if you and anyone who gets exposed to your humidifier has a strong immune system and you regularly clean your humidifier but when you have anyone with a weak immune system including pets in the vicinity, they are at high risk of succumbing to any bacterial or fungal disease dispersed into your air by your humidifier however little in quantity.

So, avoid humidifiers if you have anyone with a weak immune system and any doubt you can keep them clean and from developing even the slightest amount of bacteria, fungus or mold. 

5. Excess Moisture

A complaint I see often with humidifiers is that they make everything wet. There are many reasons this happens. Often it’s because a humidifier does not have a humidistat, which allows it to self regulate not to let out too much moisture out into your indoor air, but sometimes it may just be because your humidifier’s humidistat has malfunctioned. 

Whatever the case, there is a risk of you having excess moisture in your home whenever you run a humidifier and this can cause all kinds of problems to your furniture, your health and other things you keep like books, musical instruments, clothes, etc.. Everything gets soggy and damp and if this goes on long enough, you get funny odors and mold and bacteria growing where they should not.

The risks of excess moisture if you have a humidifier with a humidistat are low. However, if you can’t afford to have excess moisture in your indoor space and can’t take any chances, then this is a reason for you to avoid humidifiers.

6. Noise

Not all humidifiers make noise, but most types of humidifiers do. The only type I know for sure won’t make noticeable background noise is an ultrasonic humidifier. All the other types of humidifiers will make some noticeable noises which can be distracting or annoying if you cannot tolerate noise in your home or workspace.

For most humidifiers, the noise comes from their fan and you will have to put up with a background humming noise. If you cannot deal with that either because the noise will keep you up at night or just disrupt your level of focus, it is reason enough not to get a humidifier. However, if you absolutely must have one and you want the quietest possible humidifier, then you better go for an ultrasonic humidifier.

7. You Live In A High Humidity Zone

This reason is so obvious, but I have to mention it in case anyone has any doubts. If you live in a tropical region where humidity levels are almost always high, above 45%, then you should not waste your time getting a humidifier. As a humidifier adds moisture to your indoor environment, where your humidity levels are always higher than 45% then you do not really need one. 

It will pretty much be a waste of electricity. There are few exceptions where you might need a humidifier in a humidity region, but most of the time, these are rather special circumstances. For instance, you might get one if you have a room full of pets like lizards that enjoy humidity levels of above 60% or you are growing moisture loving mushrooms. 

These circumstances are far from common, whether you are in a really dry or humid part of the world. Accordingly, if you live in an extremely humid part of the world, you will waste your money buying a humidifier for general use.

If you have ever used a humidifier to help you with dry air, I do not have to tell you what a blessing and wonderful invention they are. However humidifiers can become quite a messy affair especially if you don’t know how to clean and maintain.

If not cleaned well, they develop mold, which they eventually release into your air and this can make you and your family sick. They also develop limescale which looks plain disgusting and can damage your humidifier if not dealt with properly and for these two reasons is very important to know “how to clean a humidifier”.

Accordingly, I wrote this post to show you how to effectively clean your humidifier. There are many guides out there but many of them focus on a specific type of humidifier but here I show you how to clean your humidifier no matter what type of humidifier you’ve got.

I start by explaining how often you should clean your humidifier, then I show you the tools and materials you need to clean a humidifier properly and thereafter I finally walk you through how to clean your humidifier under different scenarios and for your specific type of humidifier. 

Read through this post and should be able to confidently clean your humidifier.

How Often Should You Clean Your Humidifier

An important part of cleaning a humidifier properly is knowing how often you should clean it. This largely depends on the type of humidifier you have. Some need to be cleaned more regularly than others and usually the cleaning frequency for your particular humidifier is indicated in your humidifier’s manual.

However if for whatever reason you don’t have access to your humidifier manual, here is some general guidance from my personal experience and research on how often to clean the common types of humidifiers you will find out there.

From what I have seen, most types of humidifiers should be cleaned on a daily and weekly basis if they are being used regularly. Now don’t get alarmed, the daily cleaning is a quick and easy process, however every week you have to do some intensive cleaning.

For most humidifiers, especially cool mist humidifiers, if you do not do the necessary daily cleaning, standing water in the humidifier will foster mold, mildew and sorts of unwanted bacteria which your humidifier will eventually spew into your air causing people to get sick.

To avoid all this, you have to clean your humidifier by getting rid of any water in its reservoir or tank and rinsing the tank every day. I have seen some people advise that you can do the daily cleaning process every 2 to 3 days instead of everyday if you have really good water quality but my take is to do it on a daily basis if you want to keep things as clean as possible.

As for the weekly cleaning, this is a deep clean to additionally fight mineral build up in your humidifier. Mineral build up wears out parts and can block your humidifiers nozzles reducing its effectiveness and your weekly cleaning routine helps you slow down and prolong your humidifiers life, especially if you use hard water in your humidifier.

If you think cleaning your humidifier daily or even weekly is quite a bother, one thing I have found helps a lot of people get the cleaning done is doing it before they actually run their humidifier for the first time everyday. 

Just make sure that your humidifier cannot be turned on for the first time on a given day without emptying its water and rinsing its tank. Everything I have said so far largely applies to portable cool mist and warm mist humidifiers and the cleaning frequency story is slightly different for whole house and console humidifiers. 

These humidifiers are usually less accessible than portable humidifiers in terms of cleaning. You could but it’s not practical cleaning them on a daily or weekly basis.

Often these humidifiers are fit into your furnace or HVAC system and you need to call a professional to get them cleaned properly and this is normally a monthly routine. 

Furthermore, these types of humidifiers are now made with an automated daily flushing and cleaning system eliminating the need for you to clean them manually. 

So, if you are getting a whole house humidifier, make sure to go for something one that has self cleaning features to keep your humidifier as clean as possible and subsequently the air in your house.

Materials and Tools Used For Cleaning Humidifiers

If you’ve understood the ins and outs of how often you should clean your humidifier, the next thing I think is important to understand is what tools you need to clean your humidifier. 

My focus here and in the rest of this post is on portable humidifiers but I will mention whole house humidifiers a bit here and there in case anyone is curious about how whatever I’m sharing applies to them.

The process of cleaning your humidifier mostly entails scrubbing and disinfecting. There are a variety of disinfectants, cleaning chemicals and brushers you can use but some can be harsh and damage the material your humidifier is made of.

Based on this, my humidifier cleaning tools and materials list also includes some less harsh cleaning tools and chemicals in case you have a humidifier made of materials that are sensitive to the harsher type of cleaning chemicals and tools. 

Hydrogen Peroxide

One of the most common disinfecting chemicals used when cleaning a humidifier is hydrogen peroxide. The disinfectant is used to clean parts of your humidifier that are prone to bacterial and mold growth and this is for the most part it’s reservoir/tank. 

For a standard humidifier tank, you usually need about 1 to 2 cups of 3% hydrogen peroxide. However, be careful with hydrogen peroxide as it’s  one of the harsh chemicals that can react with certain plastics and materials that some humidifiers are made of. 

White Vinegar

White vinegar is another common disinfecting chemical used for cleaning humidifiers. It’s great because it is also a powerful solvent especially for limescale/mineral build up. However it is another corrosive chemical that can potentially cause damage if your humidifier is made of sensitive material.

One to two cups of white vinegar should suffice for the usual portable humidifier. I have also found that you need vinegar with at least 6% acidity to effectively kill bacteria and mold and dissolve limescale on your humidifier.

Bleach

The final common and also harsh disinfectant for cleaning humidifiers is bleach. Bleach has long been proven to kill all sorts of microorganisms including fungus, bacteria and viruses. 

To use bleach you have to mix one teaspoon of it per gallon of water (about 3.8 litres). Then you can use as much as you need of it in your humidifier. If you don’t mix it with enough water it can burn through certain materials especially metal and it can be lethal if you touch or inhale it. So be extra careful with bleach.

Anti-Mold Spray

If you have assessed that your humidifier is made of sensitive material and won’t work well , then the best option for you is an anti-mold spray. There are so many options. 

Two great bleach free examples include Concrobium 27400 Mold Control Aerosol, 14 Oz and CLR Mold & Mildew Clear, Bleach-Free Stain Remover which are both available on Amazon. You simply spray or pour these on your humidifier reservoir and rinse afterwards.

Detergent

Once you have disinfected your humidifier or before you do, as the disinfectants may not be effective at removing some grime and stains around your humidifier, it’s a good idea to use some liquid or powder soap to help with this before or after using a disinfectant chemical.

Dishwashing liquid should work but you can go for something more specialized if you have tough dirt around your humidifier. That said with detergents and disinfecting chemicals too, unless the manufacturer says you can, do not use them on your humidifiers wick as this can destroy the antimicrobial finishing placed on the wick when it was manufactured.

Water

To state the obvious, you will need water to rinse all the soap and chemicals off your humidifier when you are done scrubbing.

Cleaning Brush & Sponge

For scrubbing your humidifier, dish washing sponges, soft bristle scrub brushes, toothbrushes and glass cleaning brushes will serve you well. Soft bristle and glass cleaning brushes come in handy as they preserve the aesthetics of your humidifier by preventing you from scratching glass or glass like surfaces on your humidifier.

Furthermore, to get into the tiny spaces and corners, I have found it’s also a good idea to have some Q-tips on hand and a cleaning brush set like this one on Amazon with tiny brushes that can fit through tiny pipes and straws..

Towels

When cleaning your humidifier, you certainly can’t do without a towel. You will need towels for wiping off dirt and towels for drying your appliance once you are done cleaning it. You can use any type of towel but I would go for something non-abrasive. I believe a great option when it comes to microfiber cloths is Water Liberty’s Nano Towel.

Gloves

As you will be handling some harsh chemicals, you will need some cleaning gloves when cleaning your humidifier.

Screw Drivers

Some humidifiers may have tanks/reservoirs that may need unscrewing before you take them apart so it’s a good idea to have a tool box with a set of screwdrivers ranging from very small to large on hand just in case.

Cups And A Bucket

Lastly, to measure, and hold cleaning chemicals, have some designated cups ready on the side. Also have a bucket or two where you can mix chemicals or detergents with water and soak some parts of your humidifier. 

On this note, these are all the tools and materials you need to clean almost any type of humidifier you’re likely to come across properly.

Humidifier Cleaning Approaches

Having taken you through what tools you need and how often you should clean your humidifier, I can finally explain to you how to do the actual cleaning. All humidifiers follow pretty much the same general cleaning process.

However, if your humidifier has a wick or heating element or you have a furnace or HVAC based humidifier, there are some additional cleaning steps you have to take. Also, as I alluded to earlier, with most types of humidifiers you will have a daily and weekly cleaning routine which differ in intensity. 

Due to the nuances between devices, there are slight differences in the way each type of humidifier is cleaned. That said there is a general cleaning approach that applies to each type and I touch on the main approaches of cleaning them here. So, let me show you the general cleaning approach first.

General Humidifier Cleaning Approach

Step 1. Switch Off And Disassemble Your humidifier

Before I do any humidifier cleaning, the first thing I make sure I do is switch off and unplug my humidifier to avoid getting electrocuted. Once I have done that then I disassemble my humidifier.

For most humidifiers you will be able to easily pull apart their water tank, reservoir, humidifier base,  filters, discs, fans and nozzles from the humidifiers main body. However some may need some unscrewing to take apart some parts.

Once you have carefully taken apart your humidifier and neatly placed the various parts on a table top or on some clear surface somewhere so that the parts do not get lost, you are ready for the next step.

Step 2. Soak, Scrub and Rinse Your Humidifier

Once you’ve taken apart your humidifier, the next step is to soak the parts with no electronics on them. If you soak the parts with wiring, circuit boards or bulbs on them, you can damage your humidifier.

Furthermore, you only really need to soak your humidifier’s parts if they have mineral build up, noticeable mold growth or tough stains on them. You can soak your humidifier’s parts in a bucket or large enough tub for 15 minutes to about an hour in any of the chemicals I listed in the cleaning materials and tools section.

Whether you use bleach, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide or anti-mold spray, these will kill any bacteria or germ growth on the parts you soak. However to deal with (limescale) mineral build up, you have to soak your humidifier parts in vinegar.

So in case you are trying to get rid of both mineral build up and mold, your go to chemical is vinegar. If you want to use bleach as well, do not mix it with vinegar. The mixture is highly corrosive and dangerous and will harm you.

Rather soak the concerned parts of your humidifier in vinegar first to get rid of the limescale then rinse and soak them again in any other chemical disinfectant you wish to soak them in. 

Then if your humidifier has a base with a reservoir, do not soak the base but rather place your disinfecting chemical or vinegar in the reservoir to disinfect and descale the reservoir’s surfaces. 

Using some labeled cups, preferably measurement cups, make sure to dilute all chemicals with water as recommended before soaking anything to avoid damaging your humidifier or harming yourself. 

Since you are dealing with chemicals that could potentially harm you, also make sure to wear cleaning gloves throughout the soaking and rinsing process. Once you are done soaking, it’s time to scrub.

Use q tips or the tiny cleaning brushes I showed you in the materials and tools section to get to the minute corner of your humidifier and scrape out any hard to reach dirt. If the limescale or stains on any soaked parts of your humidifier have softened enough, they should easily come off when you scrub them.

Once you are done scrubbing, rinse the chemicals on all the parts of your humidifier and then use detergent to scrub the parts once more and then rinse and wipe everything dry and let everything air dry for at least 30 minutes.

For the outside of your humidifier, if it’s very dirty you can also scrub them with detergent as well and then rinse and dry while making sure to avoid getting water on any electronic parts. Otherwise, all you have to do is simply wipe your humidifier’s external body clean with a damp cloth and let it dry. 

In all your scrubbing be sure to use soft bristled brushes and non abrasive materials to avoid scratching your humidifier. 

Step 3. Reassemble Your Humidifier

To state the obvious, once everything is dry the final step is to put your humidifier back together ready for its next use. 

These 3 steps are all the steps you will generally take in cleaning most humidifiers. I must mention however that the steps are deep cleaning steps. For light cleaning, after step 1, you only have to take out your water tank from your humidifier, scrub it with preferably an antibacterial detergent then rinse, dry and put it back.

Cleaning Humidifiers Daily

A question I see often when it comes to cleaning humidifiers  is what kind of cleaning a humidifier needs on a daily basis. On a daily basis, your humidifier needs a light clean as I described in the general cleaning approach section.

Before you use it every day, quickly take out its water tank, scrub it with soap, rinse, dry with a cloth and put it back. If you notice dirt on the external part of your humidifier then you can also wipe the dirt off. That way you avoid tough stains on your appliance.

Cleaning Humidifiers Weekly

When you finally get to your weekly humidifier cleaning, you will have to deep clean your humidifier as I described in the general cleaning approach section. This way you do not give mineral deposits or mold a chance to develop.

Sometimes you may find your humidifier is quite clean when it is due for its weekly clean. In such cases I would skip doing a deep clean and do a daily clean instead. However if you do notice the surfaces in and around your humidifier tank or reservoir getting slightly slippery or slimy, you better do a deep clean before things get really messy.

Cleaning Humidifiers That Have Wicks

One of the common nuances I stumble upon when cleaning humidifiers is the cleaning process of a wick if you have a humidifier with a wick. Though many humidifier wicks come with an antimicrobial coating, they are notorious for harboring bacteria and limescale.

Accordingly, a lot of wick filters are made to be replaced every couple of months rather than being cleaned. That said, for wicks that can be cleaned, do not soak the wick in bleach or wash it with detergent as this will destroy the wick’s antimicrobial surface.

To clean the wick, all you have to do is rinse it under cold running water and this should get rid of any limescale build up on it. Next simply leave the wick to dry in the sun or gently dry it with a blow or hair dryer. 

If mold and bacteria have not grown on your wick yet, drying it helps to kill off any such organisms. If you notice mold, then you are better off just replacing your wick. Taking this into account, you may come across wicks that can be washed in harsh chemicals.

If that’s the case for you, then the process is to simply soak the wick as you would when deep cleaning other parts of your humidifier then rinse it and give it a hand wash with soap as you would hand wash clothes and let the wick dry.

However, every wick has a useful life, and if your wick gets crusty with mineral deposits and becomes smelly and moldy, don’t bother cleaning it. Just replace it.

Cleaning Humidifiers That Have Heating Elements

The cleaning process for humidifiers with heating elements is exactly the same as the general humidifier cleaning approach except for when it comes to cleaning the heating element. 

The heating element quickly gets coated with limescale if you use hard water in your humidifier and accordingly needs weekly/monthly cleaning to prevent it from getting damaged. 

To clean the element, you have to soak it in vinegar for 20 minutes to an hour. Usually the element is in the reservoir and some humidifiers have removable elements. If it is in a reservoir and not easily removable, pour your vinegar mixture in the reservoir. 

If you can remove it, then rather soak it in a bucket. As your humidifier soaks in the vinegar, swirl the mixture around in the tub or reservoir to make the vinegar penetrate the limescale. Once the limescale is soft enough, and easily scrapes off, then you can scrub your humidifier’s heating element with soap and rinse it clean.

Cleaning HVAC Humidifiers

The final unique humidifier cleaning situation you might be in is cleaning an HVAC or Furnace humidifier. As with portable humidifiers, your whole house duct based humidifier is not exempt from regular cleaning.

Duct based humidifiers are even more prone to bacterial infestation than portable humidifiers as they are usually in a place where they get very little sunlight. Most use treated water and so limescale may not be a big issue but mold if they are not cleaned mold can quickly develop on your humidifiers filter or reservoir and get transmitted through your entire home.

To clean duct based whole house humidifiers, you usually have to open up your humidifier and pull out some components which mostly include filters and heating elements. 

Once you pull these out, you deep clean them as I described under the general cleaning approach section and put them back in your humidifier. As with portable humidifier filters and wicks, eventually you have to replace your whole house humidifier filters.

On this note, I think I can say I have shown the fundamentals of cleaning humidifiers and if you have read carefully through the sections that apply to you, you should now be able to safely keep your humidifier clean. If you have any questions, criticisms or remarks, please feel free to leave a comment below and let us discuss.

Additional Useful Tips To Keep Your Humidifier Clean

To make cleaning humidifiers an easy process, I have come across a couple of handy tips that I think you’ll find useful too when you try them out. If you are not using any of these, I suggest you start using them as they will save you a lot of hustles cleaning.

1. Use demineralized water

The main reason limescale builds up in your humidifier is because of minerals naturally found in tap water especially if you live in an area with hard water. However if you got rid of the minerals in your water, you would get barely any mineral build up in your humidifier.

Accordingly you would barely need to do any limescale cleaning on your humidifier’s components. But how do you demineralize water? Well you have several options. 

You can get a countertop water distiller or a whole house water softening system so that you always get safe drinkable demineralized water from any tap in your home. 

Another approach is to use demineralization cartridges which you simply place in your humidifiers water tank but I have seen enough complaints about their long term use that I almost always point people to either a water distiller or whole house water softener system.

Get any of these systems and you won’t really have to worry about cleaning limescale on your humidifier and anywhere else mineral deposits build up across your home.

2. Don’t let water sit in your humidifier tank

 When you are not using your humidifier, try as much as you can to keep its water tank empty and dry. By doing this, you greatly avoid mold growth and save yourself time spent scrubbing mold off your humidifier and disinfecting it. 

Keeping your humidifier dry to avoid mold also applies to when you want to store it. Before you put away your humidifier for an extended period, be sure to check that all its components are completely dry to avoid mold and mold stains that later have to be cleaned when you next want to use your humidifier.

3. Read Your Humidifier’s Manual

If you do not have your humidifier’s manual, for most humidifiers you can find the manual online. I cannot stress this point enough, the best cleaning guide you will find for your humidifier is from your appliance’s manual. 

Your manual is the first place to turn to for cleaning details if you do not get enough detail from general cleaning guide’s like mine. You will avoid a lot of mistakes, and save time figuring out how to take apart and reassemble your humidifier.

One of the daunting concerns I know I have had and you probably have as well when caring for your guitar is the possibility of it getting damaged due to exposure to extreme and constantly changing humidity conditions. 

Consequently you probably went out and got yourself a guitar humidifier and now you are left wondering when to use it. Accordingly the question continues to linger in your mind,

“When should I use a guitar humidifier?” In short, the ideal humidity level for a guitar is between 40 and 60 percent. Accordingly the best time to use a guitar humidifier is when humidity levels around a guitar drop below 40%. Guitar humidifiers should be used when inside a guitar case to optimally protect a guitar from humidity damage.

In fact, because they work best when enclosed in your guitar case, guitar humidifiers are actually fully referred to as guitar case humidifiers. Now, there are several different types of guitar humidifiers out there. 

Some of these do not just add moisture but have a dual function and also absorb it. So in this case you can also use your guitar humidifier when your relative humidity shoots above 60%. 

There are a couple more situations when you should and should not use a guitar humidifier and if you want more in depth information on this I share an in depth guide in the rest of this post. I also share some additional information on how to manage your guitar’s ambient humidity to keep it in its best possible shape 

If you go through every part of this post I am certain in addition to knowing when to use your guitar humidifier, you will also know exactly how to provide your guitar with the level of humidity it needs to keep it looking and sounding beautiful. So for your guitar’s wellbeing, stick around and explore this post.

Why Use A Guitar Humidifier

As a guitar owner and lover, I found that knowing exactly why I should use a guitar humidifier helped me greatly understand and appreciate when I should actually use one. So before I jump into the when part of using a guitar humidifier let me first give you a walk through why you should use one.

Simply put, the only real reason you should actually be using a guitar humidifier in its actual sense is to prevent your guitar from getting damaged when your air is too dry. If your guitar is left in an environment where your humidity is too low you risk damaging it in all kinds of ways.

Moderate loss of moisture in your guitar due to low humidity may make it start to sound brittle or plinky. Then if it continues to lose moisture your guitar’s wooden parts eventually start to shrink causing cracks in its body, warping of its neck and it’s glued joints to come loose. 

In extreme low humidity situations your guitar can get damaged beyond repair. The worst part is that this all happens unnoticed. To the untrained eye, you literally just wake up one day to play your guitar and it sounds, feels and looks unusual and a lot of the time by the time you realize something’s wrong it’s too late to even get your guitar fixed.

Some people have gone as far as to say that low humidity is the silent killer of guitars. The same idea applies if your humidity is too high but more on this later. 

In my experience with guitars I also found that all types of guitars, electric and acoustic, are affected by poor humidity conditions as long as some parts of their body is made of wood. That said, I have found that acoustic guitars are the type that are more prone to low humidity issues compared to electric guitars.

Ultimately, once the wooden parts of your guitar have completely dried out, there is simply no reviving your guitar. In view of how you could easily and unnoticeably lose such a prized possession just because of dry air, this is where a guitar humidifier becomes a very useful gadget.

A guitar humidifier is such a small investment but it can save you a fortune if you own a guitar and you live in or often find yourself in places with unfavorably low humidity conditions. With a guitar humidifier, within minutes you provide your guitar with the moisture it needs to stay in shape and to keep it sounding beautiful. 

If you get a good guitar humidifier, you completely avoid all the damaging effects of dry air on your guitar I have just highlighted here and this is exactly why you should use a guitar humidifier. 

A guitar humidifier is to a guitar as a screen protector and phone cover is to a phone. However, you have to know when and how to use a guitar humidifier or you could actually ruin your guitar using one. 

Now that I have made it clear to you why you should use a guitar humidifier, let us take an extensive look at when you should actually use one.

When Should You Use A Guitar Humidifier?

The optimal humidity range for your guitar to remain in good condition is between 40 and 60 percent relative humidity (RH). As the use of most guitar humidifiers is to add moisture to your guitar, simply put you should use a guitar humidifier anytime the humidity in the place where you are going to keep your guitar for over a day falls below 40%.

Basically when humidity levels around your guitar fall below 40%, there is not enough moisture in the air to keep your guitar in good condition. Because the air is so dry, it starts to suck any available moisture around it and this includes moisture from your guitar’s wooden parts and this is when you need a guitar humidifier.

Your guitar humidifier raises the humidity level around your guitar to between 40 and 60 percent when your ambient air’s humidity is below 40% preventing any moisture loss from your guitar’s body and subsequent damage as I pointed out earlier in the previous section of this post.

Usually your home’s humidity level drops below 40% in winter months especially when you are using a central heating system. Home heating systems are designed in a way that they circulate dry and warm air around your house causing your humidity levels to drop. 

So winter is a time you really want to have your guitar humidifier ready to work, especially with your home’s heating system running all day. As I have seen, it’s the time of year when a lot of people’s guitars get badly dehydrated.

The other thing to note is that most guitar humidifiers are designed for use when you place your guitar inside a casing that lets minimal air seep in. Also, some guitar humidifiers can both add and remove moisture when being used in your guitar’s casing.

If you have this type of guitar humidifier, you can use it not only when your air gets too dry but also when your humidity rises above 60%.They will get rid of excess moisture around your guitar when your humidity is out of range and add back moisture when your humidity is too low.

These are all the situations and times I have come across of when you should use your guitar humidifier. However, knowing when to use a guitar humidifier is not enough, you also have to know when not to use one.

With the exception of guitar humidifiers that can both decrease and increase moisture, do not use your guitar humidifier when your ambient relative humidity is above 60%. You will over hydrate your guitar and this too damages your guitar as I have pointed out in the next section.

You also obviously do not want to use your guitar humidifier when your ambient humidity levels are within the 40 to 60 percent range or you will just end up taking the humidity level around your guitar out of range. 

To add to this, in some parts of the world your humidity level stays in the 40 to 60 percent range and if you find yourself in these parts, you totally do not even need a guitar humidifier.

The only time I have seen you may ever need one is if you constantly have air conditioning on in the room where you keep your guitar as this dries out your air.  Ohh and also if you decide to take your guitar on a trip to a part of the world that seasonally reaches humidity levels beyond your guitar’s comfort zone. 

With all this in mind, I think I can safely say you now know pretty much every situation and time when you should use a guitar humidifier. If you were here just to find out when to use your guitar humidifier, you can stop reading this post here and carry on with your life. 

However, if you want to take things to the next level and know how to maintain the optimal humidity level for your guitar, keep reading. I believe you will find the extra tips I am about to share very useful, especially if you are just getting started in managing your guitar’s moisture.

How To Keep Humidity Optimal For Your Guitar

As you likely stumbled on this post due to concerns about your guitar getting dehydrated rather than too much moisture, to this point I have mainly focused on the effect of low humidity on your guitar. But for you to manage your guitar’s moisture well, you also need to know the adverse effects high humidity has on it.

There is a lot of information on this but in short, if your guitar is exposed to high humidity (above 60% RH) the excess moisture in the air gets absorbed by your guitar’s wooden parts causing the wood to expand. With enough moisture absorption, the glue on your guitars starts to deteriorate.

This means your guitar’s glue joints will start to come loose. Furthermore, a very common occurrence is for your guitar’s back to start bloating causing it to have a back bow. All this in turn causes your guitar to start sounding weird. 

Your frets may start buzzing considerably and your guitar may start to sound soggy with a lifeless and dull tone. These are, in short, the damaging effects of high humidity on your guitar and the effects happen quite quickly after your guitar has been in a place with excess humidity for as little as a day.

Looking at the overall impact of humidity, surprisingly, lower quality plywood based guitars actually withstand extreme humidity conditions better than high quality solid or hard wood guitars. 

So if you have the more expensive solid wood guitars you have to be extra paranoid about the impact of humidity on your guitar. Hard or solid wood guitars are more prone to humidity as this type of wood expands and shrinks with changing moisture levels more than plywood does.

Now that you know the adverse impact of both low and high humidity on your guitar let’s get started with the first step of maintaining optimal humidity levels for your guitar.

1. Check Your Humidity Level With A Digital Hygrometer

Now when you suspect your guitar is succumbing to low or high moisture conditions either by changes in its tone or subtle changes you may have noticed in the way it looks and feels, before you rush out looking for a guitar humidifier, the first step I recommend you take is to get a digital hygrometer.

A hygrometer is a gauge that measures your relative humidity and it’s best to get a digital one because they are the most accurate type. The reason I suggest you start with a hygrometer is because they will help you assess if your humidity is actually out of range for your guitar.

Once you have assessed your humidity level, if you find your humidity is consistently between 40 and 60 percent over a 5 day period, then you immediately know your guitar is getting damaged because of something other than your humidity level and there is no point in trying to manage your guitar’s moisture exposure.

On the other hand if your relative humidity is consistently out of the 40 to 60 percent range as you measure it over the course of a day then it’s time to find a solution that will bring the moisture around your guitar back to the 40 to 60 percent RH range. This brings us to our next step.

2. Use An Appropriate Guitar Humidification System 

The first point of call is your typical guitar humidifier but it’s by no means the only solution. You can also use a room humidifier, and a couple of other options but let’s start by looking at how to effectively use guitar humidifiers.

Guitar Humidifiers

When it comes to guitar humidifiers, you will get the most out of them if you use them with a guitar case that’s as airtight as possible and preferably a hard-shell guitar case. The whole idea behind guitar humidifiers is that it is much easier to control humidity in a small space like inside your guitar case than in a large room.

Accordingly guitar humidifiers are designed to work inside your guitar case and are not really helpful when placed next to your guitar in open air. They are small and inexpensive and I think they are the most effective way to manage your guitar’s moisture cost wise and functionally.

Most of them simply add moisture in your guitar case to work against low humidity but I have also come across some that will also absorb excess moisture in addition to adding moisture. These types of guitar humidifiers are referred to as two-way guitar humidifiers.

Then you have small packs designed solely to absorb excess moisture you can place in your guitar case and these are technically referred to as dehumidifiers. Some common dehumidifiers used in guitar cases include silica gel packs and bamboo charcoal packs (#affiliate links to Amazon). 

If your relative humidity is too high, store your guitar in its case with one of these packs and they will suck any excess moisture keeping your guitar case’s humidity in the goldilocks zone for your guitar. 

As for the two-way humidifiers, I have not personally tried them but I have seen a lot of people highly recommend the Planet Waves Humidipaks and the D’Addario Two-Way Humidification System (#affiliate links to Amazon). 

These humidifiers will release moisture or add moisture as needed in your guitar case to keep your guitar between the 40 to 60 percent relative humidity level. One thing to keep in mind with two-way humidifiers is that they take a couple of days to work, so give them a bit of time to reach a balance and within a week they should be working fine.

Both the dehumidifier packs and and two-way humidifiers should last you anywhere from 2 to 6 months depending on how often your ambient humidity is out of the 40 to 60 percent goldilocks zone. 

Then for the common guitar humidifier, there a lot of good options out there but the​ Oasis Case Humidifier and MusicNomad’s Case Humitar (#affiliate link to Amazon) have time and again proven themselves in this department. 

With the usual type of guitar humidifiers, whether you fit them on your guitar’s sound hole or just place them in your case, be sure to refill their water every 2 to 3 days. Make sure to seal the humidifier well so water doesn’t leak into your case and to also close your guitar case properly to avoid drying out your humidifier quickly. 

Stick to what I have said here and you should be good to go with guitar humidifiers.

Guitar Humidifier Cabinets

The next humidification solution for your guitar are humidifier cabinets. These cabinets come fitted with a humidifier or both a humidifier and dehumidifier and are designed to maintain the humidity level inside them between the 40 to 60 percent range.

The cabinets are easy to set up and maintain and all you do is simply place your guitar inside. Similar to the cabinet I also stumbled on a plastic rectangular tent called a guitar humidor. 

The tent has a water reservoir inside which keeps its enclosure’s humidity level consistently at 50% RH. You can hang the tent on your ceiling, wall or in your closet and inside it you have space to hang about 3 guitars. 

A good example of the instrument humidor tent on Amazon is the Musik Tent Guitar Humidor. A guitar humidifier cabinet or humidor tent is a great option if you play your guitar once in a while.

Room Humidifiers and Dehumidifiers

Finally on my list of humidification systems for guitar’s are room humidifiers. You can get either a whole house humidifier if you keep your guitar in multiple rooms or a normal portable room humidifier if you have a dedicated room for your guitars or your guitar simply spends the bulk of its life in a particular room in your home.

There are so many types of room humidifiers out there and I have written a whole other post about that here if you are trying to decide what type to get. But to keep things brief, whatever type of room humidifier you go for, the most important thing is to get the right size humidifier based on your room’s square feet.

With the right size humidifier, you can consistently add enough moisture to maintain the required level of humidity for your guitar across the entire room. This principle also applies when using room dehumidifiers. 

However with dehumidifiers you are instead looking to consistently remove moisture from your room’s air when your humidity is too high. My only problem with room and whole house humidifiers and dehumidifiers is that they are not a practical approach for managing your guitar’s moisture exposure year round.

This is especially true with dehumidifiers as they are heavy on electricity consumption. Where these systems become important is when you are going through extremely dry or humid seasons. 

This makes sense because in these seasons you are likely to be running these appliances anyway for your personal comfort. In view of this if you have bad humidity all year round then you will be better served with either a guitar humidifier cabinet or a guitar case humidifier. 

Whatever system you go for, just be sure to maintain a consistent level of humidity for your guitar and not to over humidify your guitar. If you put your guitar through constant cycles of low and high humidity you are essentially shrinking and expanding its wooden parts with every cycle and this can also cause structural and tone damage to your guitar. 

3. Monitor Your Humidity Level With A Digital Hygrometer

Once you have found a good humidification solution, the final step in managing humidity levels for your guitar is to continuously monitor the humidity around your guitar. Whether it’s in your case, guitar cabinet or room you have to check at least on 3 separate days a week that your humidity levels are in the good range.

Fortunately you now have hygrometers that come with an app that allows you to monitor your humidity remotely as long as your phone and device has an internet connection. And on this note I can say you now know enough to ensure that your guitar does not get damaged because of humidity issues.

Extra Measures To Take When Using Guitar Humidifiers

Besides using hygrometers and a guitar humidification system, another measure to take is to control your temperature. This is because temperature has a direct effect on your ambient humidity. Accordingly the room temperature or storage temperature range you want to go for for your guitar is between 70 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit (21 to 25 degrees Celsius). 

Another thing that will really help you keep things in check is to add dealing with your guitar’s humidity to your weekly routine. Set reminders and just make it a part of your life if you are serious about keeping your guitar in good condition.

Reading through other user’s experience when using guitar humidifiers, I found that if you have one of those guitar case humidifiers that seals off your guitar’s sound hole, it’s a good idea to use it with an extra case humidifier that sits somewhere behind your peghead.

If you use the sound hole based humidifier on its own, you trap all the vapor it produces within your guitar’s body and little moisture goes to your guitar’s neck leaving it at risk of warping. 

There are a couple of other caveats I can share but let me end this post here. If you keep note of everything I have shared across this post you should be able to confidently control the humidity around your guitar to keep it in its best shape and accordingly stretch its useful life.

As always I hope you found this post helpful and feel free to ask in the comments section below if you have any questions.

Humidifiers are used to control indoor humidity in a variety of settings including in your home, office, industrially and in all kinds of public spaces. Accordingly you will find them in all shapes and sizes out there. Do a little research and you will even notice multiple distinct names being used to refer to one type of humidifier. 

This can make it seem like there are so many different types of humidifiers out there and worse yet make things rather confusing when you have to make a decision concerning humidifiers. I see this confusion a lot online when people list types of humidifiers and often three out of the five types they list are actually one type with three different names.

Initially I set out to write this post as a one stop guide to different types of humidifiers but in light of all the confusion and misleading information I took care to also properly classify and clearly point out each distinct type of building based humidifier with the various common names given to each of them.

In summary, the different types of humidifiers fall under two categories, warm mist and cool mist humidifiers. Under the two categories, there are various types of humidifiers with different technologies. These various types of humidifiers are then further categorized into portable and whole-house humidifiers.

Once you have these broad humidifier categories in mind, you’ll avoid half of the mistakes people make when identifying types of humidifiers. Taking these categories into account in the rest of this post I dive into the nitty gritty showing you everything that falls under these categories.

By the time you are done reading through here, you shouldn’t be confused between the different types of humidifiers anymore. So, if you are serious about knowing your different types of humidifiers or just curious about the difference between a couple of them that you came across then read this post. I am confident you will find clarity.

What Are The Different Categories Of Humidifiers?

Nowadays you will find so many different types of humidifiers out there. Out of all the seemingly different humidifiers they can all be classified into four categories. Two of the categories are based on size and the other two are based on the type of humidification technology they use. 

The two technology categories you will find include warm mist and cool mist humidifiers while the two size categories include portable and whole house humidifiers. One thing you will also find and that took me quite a while to figure out about humidifier categories is the multiple names used to identify them.

Don’t let the multiple names confuse you. When it comes down to how the humidifiers operate, you almost always end up classifying humidifiers in the four categories I have mentioned. Let’s look at each of the categories in more detail starting with the technology based category.

Categories by Technology 

Warm Mist Humidifiers

The first category of humidifiers I am going to talk about are Warm mist humidifiers. The other common names used for this category of humidifiers are isothermal humidifiers and steam humidifiers. 

Steam humidifiers are known as one of the cleanest humidification systems due to their use of hot water which kills all sorts of germs as your humidifier does its job. Warm mist humidifiers work by heating water to create vapor which is eventually released into your air as sterile moisture. 

You will find several types of warm mist humidifiers out there. In comparison to cool mist humidifiers (the other technology based category of humidifier) they are praised for achieving high levels of moisture saturation and being generally more silent.

Steam humidifiers are a good idea in winter. They are also helpful when it comes to dealing with flu and cold symptoms. They also produce lower levels of mineral dust compared to cool mist humidifiers. 

However, they are more costly to run from an energy consumption perspective as they have to heat up water in one way or another to work. Also, if you are using an air conditioner a large enough humidifier will increase your cooling cost as you add more moisture and heat into your air for your aircon to work against.

Using a steam based system in close proximity to your baby is also not ideal as heated water is a safety risk around a child. Pound for pound, warm mist humidifiers are generally more expensive than cool mist humidifiers. To add on to their running costs you may incur, they use filters that need to be replaced every now and then. 

Cool Mist Humidifiers

Cool mist humidifiers, also referred to as adiabatic humidifiers work by emitting a cool vapor to add moisture to your air. Water is added to the humidifiers reservoir. Then before the water makes its way out of your humidifier, it travels through a wick filter within the humidifier to get rid of some impurities. 

Thereafter dry air sucked into the humidifier by a fan is blown out causing the water saturated in the wick like filter to evaporate into your room. Other cool mist humidifiers work by using high frequency vibrations. The vibrations are so high that they break up the water into tiny droplets which are propelled into the air. 

These tiny water droplets then evaporate adding moisture in your air. So from this you can see cool mist humidifiers use direct evaporation of water to add moisture to your air without heating any water and consequently without raising your room temperature.

There are many other types of cool mist humidifiers but whatever mechanism they use they all boil down to adding moisture to your space through direct evaporation. This category of humidifiers are well suited for use in warm weather as they won’t raise the temperature in a room.

Cool mist humidifiers are also generally easier to clean than warm mist humidifiers. You literally just wash them as you do your dishes. The catch however is that they need frequent cleaning especially due to mineral dust accumulation and easy bacterial build up. 

If you don’t clean them often, these impurities can be transmitted into your air causing all sorts of health problems. That said allergy and asthma sufferers have found cool mist very helpful in alleviating their symptoms. 

Lastly with cool mist humidifiers expect to have a dull background humming noise whenever you run your appliance. So if you don’t want another noise making appliance in your home you’d rather opt for the more silent warm mist humidifier.

Categories by Size

The other way humidifiers are differentiated is by their size. Humidifier size is not really about the physical size of the appliance but rather about the area and number of rooms they can cover in one go and their mobility.

Two humidifiers can use the exact same humidification technology but because their level of mobility and the area they cover differs significantly they are classified in separate categories and are seen as different. In terms of size, humidifiers fall in two categories. 

The two categories are Portable and Whole-House humidifiers. Let’s look at each in more detail.

Portable Humidifiers

Portable humidifiers, also known as personal humidifiers, range in size from small table top to large floor based units. They are also called portable humidifiers. This category of humidifiers as the name suggests are the type that can be moved around.

Now, as much as they are movable, not all the humidifiers in this category are easily movable. Some are in fact quite large and heavy and need to be pushed around on wheels. What makes them movable is that they are not permanently fixed somewhere in your office or living space.

Some portable types of humidifiers are small enough for you to carry and around when you are travelling and on the move and they are battery operated while others are large and designed to be placed and moved around within a home or office environment.

These humidifiers can be either cool mist or warm mist. They are most suitable for you if you need to humidify your personal space or just one room at a time in a building.

Whole House Humidifiers

Whole-house humidifiers are the complete opposite of personal or portable humidifiers. These humidifiers are also called in-duct humidifiers, fixed installation humidifiers, industrial humidifiers or central humidifiers. 

Unlike portable humidifiers they are usually permanently installed in a building’s HVAC system to humidify multiple rooms at the same time. They are usually large and once installed cannot be moved around.

However there are some humidifiers that are referred to as whole-house humidifiers due to their ability to humidify an entire home but are placed directly inside your work or living area like portable humidifiers. 

These are usually called console humidifiers and they work in exactly the same way as other whole house humidifiers but without being placed in any duct work. This type of whole house humidifier is usually used for homes or buildings where you have no ducting but you want to humidify your entire home. 

As console humidifiers operate similarly to other whole house humidifiers that you install on your ducting I won’t touch on them in this post but I will focus more on the whole house humidifiers that you hook up to your furnace or HVAC. So when I say whole house humidifier I am referring mainly to the type you install on your ducting unless I say otherwise. 

If you have a forced-air furnace, an in duct humidifier can also be installed into your furnace. These humidifiers are usually connected somewhere between your HVAC’s air return and supply duct close to your furnace and air handler. 

They are usually installed with a humidistat to allow you to automatically control the level of humidity around your home. In addition there is some plumbing work done for an automated supply of water to your humidifier and for drainage of any excess water.

You can do a DIY installation of an in-duct humidifier and also maintain one yourself but it’s better you call in an HVAC expert to handle all this as the process is quite technical. So with a whole house humidifier, you better be financially prepared to add it to your HVAC maintenance bill. 

That said, if you must have building wide humidification they are the ideal option. This is especially true for large homes or buildings. Otherwise, you could be running a portable humidifier in multiple rooms which is not cost effective or energy efficient compared to a whole-house humidifier.

Whole house humidifiers are also known for energy saving In winter or cooler months since they increase building wide indoor humidity levels making you feel warmer at lower temperatures. This means you use less energy to keep your home warm.

Looking at the four humidifier categories, you now know the different types of humidifiers on a broad scale. In summary on a broad scale, the different types of humidifiers include:

• Steam/ Warm Mist Humidifiers
• Adiabatic/ Cool Mist Humidifiers
• Portable Humidifiers
• Whole-House Humidifiers

Of these different types, Portable and Whole-House humidifiers overlap with warm mist and cool mist humidifiers. So for example, you can have a humidifier that is both personal and either warm mist or cool mist.

Now that you know what the different types of humidifiers are on a broad scale we can drill down and look at the range of different humidifiers that fall under each of the broad categories.

The Complete List Of Different Types Of Humidifiers

Portable Humidifiers

1. Vaporizers

Vaporizer humidifiers are a common type of portable warm mist humidifier. This type of humidifier works by boiling water and releasing the steam produced thereof into your air. 

The beauty of vaporizers is that you can also add medical inhalants to their water tank to spread them in the form of steam and vapor and eventually inhale them. Furthermore, vaporizers allow you to choose between cool and warm vapor. 

When you set a vaporizer on its highest setting it dispenses visible steam and on it’s cool setting it instead dispenses mist. Since you can use them to emit medical inhalants into your air, vaporizers are quite commonly used to treat colds and flu.

They are among the more affordable types of humidifiers. Because they use heat, they are less likely to cause bacterial contamination. Vaporizers are also known not to emit significant levels of mineral dust into your air and they are definitely the go to type of humidifier if you are looking for a quiet humidifier.

The problem with them however is that they are a burn risk, especially for babies because they involve boiling water and steam. To add on, they use quite a lot of energy to produce the steam and mist they disperse to moisten your air. Another risk associated with vaporizers is that they are a fire risk.  

If you get a low quality one, it may have a poorly designed heat source that can overheat and cause your humidifier to melt and leak and potentially start a fire. Lastly because of the complex way vaporizers are built, they are harder to clean than most types of humidifiers.

To make their cleaning process even more cumbersome, sometimes vaporizer humidifiers will collect mineral deposits around their heating element and this has to be cleaned out by pouring citric acid or vinegar into your humidifier to soak and dissolve the deposits.

2. Evaporative Humidifiers

Another common type of humidifier you will come across is the evaporative humidifier. It is also known as a wick humidifier or cool moisture humidifier. 

This kind of humidifier is a cool mist humidifier. It is made of a wick, fan, and a water tank which some people refer to as a reservoir.

The wick is a porous material designed to suck water from the humidifier’s water tank. Once it sucks up water it’s large surface area then allows for a huge volume of water to evaporate. 

Then to support the evaporation process, the fan continuously blows air onto the wick and on to the water evaporating from your wick into your air. The water water vapor is then expelled as a spray or mist, creating humidity in your air.

That said, not all evaporative humidifiers are designed with a fan. Some come with no fan and just have a reservoir and wick and they are sometimes called natural humidifiers. You can check out an example of this here on amazon. 

You can actually make one of these at home by simply placing water in a stainless steel bowl with a towel over the bowl and partially dipped in it to slowly suck the water and eventually evaporate it into your air.

Whether you are using a wick or natural humidifier the whole process of how they work depends on the relative humidity in your living or work space. So, a room with high humidity will have a lower evaporation rate than a room with comparably low humidity.

As you may have probably imagined, it means this humidifier controls itself. If your humidity level is already high it won’t release as much moisture into your air and if your ambient humidity level is low it releases more moisture.

The beauty of evaporative humidifiers is that they are low maintenance and easy to clean. They are also very affordable and safe to use around children and animals as they do not generate any heat. 

As they emit cold vapor unlike warm vapor based humidifiers, they are also not a danger to most surfaces. They are also self regulating and you will waste no time wondering if they are set to the right humidity generation level.

The problem with them however is that they are a magnet for bacteria. They get moldy fast and they are known to spread mold and bacteria into your indoor air if they are not well maintained. 

So with this type of humidifier, be prepared to clean your appliance frequently. Another thing you can do to avoid bacterial growth is to use distilled water. 

You can buy distilled water or use a water distiller like this one here on amazon to make your own. If you can’t do that, rather look for a warm mist humidifier or an alternative that does not host bacteria.

Besides being a source of bacterial contamination, evaporative humidifiers are also known to be noisy due to their fan system. Lastly, they are also a source of mineral dust that can spread on surfaces around your home through the water vapor they produce.

The mineral dust comes from naturally present minerals in your home water supply. A solution for this is therefore to use distilled water which is essentially water that has been stripped of all its natural occurring minerals. 

You could also install a water softener system for your entire home which makes your tap water pure enough to use in your humidifier without creating white dust or alternatively place a demineralization cartridge in your humidifier.

3. Ultrasonic Humidifiers

Another portable humidifier you will come across is an ultrasonic humidifier. This type of humidifier is commonly a cool mist humidifier but these days you have some that come with an additional warm mist option.

They work by using a ceramic or metallic vibrating diaphragm to release very tiny water vapor into the air which eventually evaporates around your room at a rapid rate and raises your humidifier level. It’s called an ultrasonic humidifier because the diaphragm vibrates at ultra sonic speed. 

The vibrations agitate the water into very small water particles and as a result you see fog or mist coming out of your humidifier. Not all ultrasonic humidifiers have fans but those that do normally have a silent fan that pushes the mist your humidifier generates up and out of the humidifier and into your room.

To control your humidity level, some ultrasonic humidifiers come with a humidistat to automatically adjust the amount of moisture in your air to maintain your desired humidity level. On the other hand others have settings which you have to manually adjust as preferred.

The pros of ultrasonic humidifiers include their extreme energy efficiency safety with children as they mainly function as cool mist humidifiers and low maintenance requirements. Furthermore, they operate very silently. You can barely hear them.

However, like other cool mist humidifiers, they are not exempt from polluting your home with bacteria and mineral dust. That said, they are easy to clean and the solution to fight bacteria is cleaning your humidifier often. To deal with white dust from ultrasonic humidifiers,  disposable demineralization cartridges are highly recommended.

4. Impeller Humidifiers

To add on to our list of portable cool mist humidifiers, impeller humidifiers work by using rotating disks that run at high speeds. The discs fling water at some form of diffuser which breaks the water into very small droplets that float into the air and quickly evaporate. 

Like all cool mist humidifiers they are safe around pets and children. However from my research I found that these humidifiers at times aggravate allergies and asthma for some people and also cause problems for people with breathing issues.

They are also among the nosier types of humidifiers and you have to keep them extremely clean to avoid them releasing bacterial contaminants in your home.

5. Air Washers

The final type of portable humidifier I found is an air washer. This type of humidifier not only adds moisture to your air but also washes particulate impurities such as pollen, dust and dander out of your air.

Air washers normally consist of a single or multiple spinning discs and tank/reservoir of water in which the discs sit in. Other variations also have wicks like evaporative humidifiers and some also have prefilters to get rid of large pollutant particles in your air. 

That said, the spinning discs are the main way air washers humidify your air. To humidify your air, what happens is that the discs spin around inside the water reservoir while a quiet fan sucks your room’s air over the spinning disc. 

Thereafter any dust, allergens and other air pollutants  in the drawn air clings to the water on the discs and as the discs spin the pollutants are subsequently deposited into the water sinking to the bottom of the reservoir and leaving the drawn air clean.

Not only is the air going through the air washer cleaned but it is also moisturized. Once moisturized the air is expelled back into your room from the air washer and accordingly raises the level of humidity in your room.

Just like other cool mist humidifiers, the air washer has to be cleaned very often as they have a water tank where bacteria and mold grow easily and these can get into your air. However, on the positive side, they do not cause a white dust problem in your air and are safe for use around children and pets as they do not use any heat to moisturize your air.

Air washers can be used to humidify your air with either hard or soft water as they actually filter out mineral dust from the water used to add moisture to your air. 

They are also great for larger rooms as they are able to release a significant amount of moisture into your in a given time period compared to most of the other types of humidifiers. With most air washers, maintenance costs are low as there are no filter changes and all you have to do to maintain them is wash them like you do your dishes.

So these are all the different types I could find. If you know of any other type I may have missed, please do comment below and I will add it here. Now let us take a look at the different types of whole house humidifiers. 

Most of them are essentially the same as the portable ones in terms of the technology they use and are just bigger and immovable but there are some types that do not come in a portable form. For those that are similar I am going to keep the discussion brief and avoid repeating myself.

Whole House Humidifiers

1. Centrifugal Atomizers

First on our list of whole house humidifiers are centrifugal atomizers which are also referred to as disc wheel humidifiers or impeller humidifiers. The way they work is the same as the portable impeller humidifier.

However, instead of being placed in your room they are connected to your furnace and spread moisture across your entire home through your office’s or home’s air duct system. These humidifiers use a spinning disc to atomize water converting it into millions of super tiny droplets. 

The droplets are then blown by a built-in-fan in the humidifier out through your ducts and air vents into your room and once in your air, they evaporate and subsequently cool and humidify your air. 

This type of whole house humidifier is also connected to an electrical control panel inside your home for you to easily control and manage it. It has a water tank and most humidifiers of this type come with a water tank washing and emptying cycle to avoid problems of having stagnated water inside the unit.

Furthermore the humidifiers water tank is filled with either water from your main water source or treated water source. Centrifugal atomizers are very similar to drum style whole house humidifiers which I touch in the next section.

The difference between the two is that the disc wheel part of a disc wheel humidifier doesn’t need to be replaced often while the spinning part of the drum humidifier needs regular replacement. 

The drum humidifier disc is made of foam while the atomizer disc is made of multiple plastic grooves. The way the centrifugal atomizer is designed makes it very easy to maintain with no regular replacement parts needed.

This type of humidifier is also known for its higher moisture output capacity due to its large evaporative surface area. Another benefit is that you can use it with hard water without fear of mineral dust spreading around your home. 

This humidifier type is also quite useful from a performance perspective as it maintains its efficiency throughout its lifespan. However, you may find it tricky to regulate your humidity level with a whole house disc wheel humidifier. 

This is due to their built-in high speed air stream which causes water in the unit to continue to evaporate excessively even when you set your humidifier to a lower humidification level. 

That said, eventually your humidity level does align to your required level but just expect a delay after you adjust your whole house disc wheel unit downwards. The only other discouraging thing about centrifugal atomizers I found is that they are quite expensive.

2. Drum Humidifiers

Drum style whole house humidifiers are cool mist humidifiers. As I mentioned in the previous section, they also have some form of spinning disc but it is rather referred to as a drum. The drum is covered in by a foam pad which acts as a wick.

Whole house drum humidifiers also have a water reservoir referred to as pan and the drum part of the humidifier is suspended in the pan to enable it to rotate there. To humidify your air the humidifier unit is attached to your building’s furnace in a bypass manner and spreads moisture across your building using your air ducts.

A pipe is connected from your main or treated water source directly into your humidifiers pan. As the water level drops in your pan it is automatically refilled using a tank float valve in pretty much the same way your toilet works.

When you turn on the humidifier and adjust your humidity settings, your humidifier’s built-in humidistat turns on the motor of your unit. The motor in turn rotates your unit’s drum slowly through it’s water filled pan to keep it moist. 

Simultaneously hot air enters the drum through one end and is moisturized through exposure to the moist foam on the drum and forced out through the sides of the drum and through your ducts and eventually into your home whereby water in this moistened air evaporates and increases your humidity level.

The foams that cover your drum have to be replaced monthly but luckily they are very cheap and easy to find. This type of whole house humidifier is also quite affordable if you are looking for a unit that won’t break the bank.

But you pay for the low cost. You have to inspect the unit every month for cleanliness and to see if the foam pads need changing. Drum humidifiers also develop mold very easily and if not kept clean they can spread mold spores across your home or whatever building setup you plan to place your humidifier in.

Furthermore, even when your humidifier is off, water in it’s pan remains exposed to a naturally present high speed air stream in your duct system. This means water continues to evaporate through your duct and some level of humidification continues in your home even when it’s not required. 

To avoid both mold and excess humidity issues, you have to constantly ensure you empty the water in your humidifier pan when you are not using it. This also entails shutting off the humidifiers water supply. 

You should especially do this in summer when you don’t really need your humidifier. Additionally, to minimize mold, it’s wise to install a high quality furnace filter with the highest MERV ratings your furnace can handle.

3. Spray Mist  Humidifiers

Another cool mist whole house humidifier is the spray mist humidifier. The way this type of humidifier works is simple. A plastic water pipe is connected from your main or treated water source to some electrically controlled valves in your humidifier which is in turn connected to your air duct.

Then when you turn on your humidifier, the electrically controlled valves which are also referred to as atomizers, force water flowing directly from your water supply through tiny orifices causing the water to break into tiny particles forming water mist in your humidifier. 

Thereafter the humidifier sprays this mist directly into your supply air duct and the mist is moved through your duct and around your building using your duct’s air flow. What makes’ spray mist humidifiers great is their ease of installation.

There is no need for any bypass or additional ducting on your furnace or HVAC system. You simply cut a single hole on the supply air section of your duct and fit your humidifier there. 

The humidifier is so small at about 6 by 6 inches (square) and can fit almost anywhere on your existing ducting unlike other types of whole house humidifiers. As you install it directly on your ducting, you avoid the risk of messing with the air pressure in your return and supply duct as in the case of bypass installed alternatives.

These humidifiers also use minimal electricity and are a great option if you are energy conscious. There are no wicks involved so you avoid the pain of frequently replacing wicks. 

Spray mist humidifiers also have no reservoir and as a result you avoid creating a breeding ground for mold in your furnace as you have no stagnant water lying around in your duct system. The nature of the spray mist humidifier is such that it does not produce waste water and it doesn’t even need a drainage system. 

If you have soft or treated water you rarely need to maintain your humidifier but the nozzles of your electric valve will need occasional cleaning if you run your humidifier on hard water. If you don’t clean the nozzles when using hard water they will get clogged and stop working.

Sometimes the minerals in hard water can clog up your nozzles so badly they will need to be replaced. Lastly, with spray mist humidifiers, you will get mineral dust in your home if you are using hard water. 

So if your area has hard water and you want to use this type of humidifier you will have to invest in treating  your water supply to avoid spreading white dust around your office or living space.

4. Bypass Flow-through  Humidifiers

The bypass flow through humidifier is yet another cool mist humidifier. Like the spray mist humidifier it also uses electrical control valves. However these valves do not necessarily break your water particles into tiny particles but rather spray water on to a solid usually rectangular pad within your humidifier called a “biscuit”.

Your humidifier is connected to your furnace in a bypass manner using additional ducting. Then when you turn on your humidifier from an electrical control panel in your home your humidifier’s humidistat signals it’s electrical valves to open up and spray water onto the biscuit.

Once the water is sprayed on the biscuit, hot air from coming from your furnace passes through the biscuit causing the water that was sprayed on it to evaporate and subsequently flow into your building. The main challenge you will face with this type of humidifier is white dust clogging up your valves nozzles and spreading through your indoor environment.

Again, this can be dealt with by installing a water softener system for your facility. Maintenance costs are low as the only time you will ever need to replace anything in this humidifier is if it’s badly clogged up by minerals when you use hard water. 

Another negative that you will have to deal with is that the humidifier does produce waste water and so you will need drainage. However on the flip side it has no water reservoir where water can lie stagnant and thereby minimizes the chances of you breeding mold in your air duct and spreading it around your indoor space through your air ducts.

5. Non-bypass Flow-through (Fan Augmented) Humidifiers

This humidifier is exactly the same as the bypass flow through humidifier. However it differs in that it has a built -in fan. The fan sucks air coming from your furnace or your air handler and pushes it out through your supply air duct and into your work or living space.

This enables you to connect the humidifier directly on the existing duct instead of doing a bypass installation. The advantage of this approach is that you can install your humidifier in more confined spaces than you can if you were to do a bypass installation.

This type of humidifier is also known to provide more consistent humidity across your home because of the additional and powerful airflow it generates from its own fan. However you will feel a slight pinch on your electricity bill with this kind of humidifier as these fans run on high voltage. A fan augmented humidifier is pricey compared to other types of humidifiers. 

I have also heard that it can be quite tricky to replace the biscuit as some model specific biscuits are not only expensive but hard to find. This challenge also applies to bypass flow through humidifiers. As for other advantages and disadvantages, they are the same as for the bypass flow through humidifier. 

6. Compressed Air Humidifiers

Compressed air humidifiers are yet another cool mist humidifier. People also refer to them as water atomizers. They work in the exact same way as spray mist humidifiers but in addition to a plastic water pipe supplying water to an electrical control valve there is also plastic pipe supplying compressed air.

The combination of the compressed air and water then breaks the water into ultra fine droplets creating an aerosol that quickly evaporates. Such humidifiers are usually used where high caliber humidification is required like in the textile, wood or paper processing industry or in cold rooms.

Compress air humidifiers share pretty much the same strengths and weaknesses as your spray mist humidifiers. Due to their level of sophistication and the environment they do come with a lot of automation. For instance some have self cleaning nozzles and others are designed to allow you to set different humidity levels in different rooms.

7. Ultrasound Humidifiers

Console based ultrasound or ultrasonic humidifiers operate exactly as the portable ones do and share the strengths and weaknesses but with some added weakness. Console ultrasound humidifiers are normally bigger than portable ones. 

To state the obvious, you connect them to your air handler or supply air duct to spread the moisture they create around the rooms in your building using your ducts’ air stream. However there are some models that come with a blower fan that you connect  to your duct for supplemental air flow.

Your humidifier will need a water source and this has to be soft or treated water to prevent them from spreading white dust around your home or work space. As they have a water reservoir you also need to connect some form of drainage to your humidifier and the stagnant water in the reservoir also poses a mold risk.

8. Gas-fired Humidifiers

Ohh and at last, here is our first warm mist whole house humidifier. From my research I found that they are certainly not as common as cool mist whole house humidifiers. The first warm mist whole house humidifier I came across when researching this post was the Gas-fired whole house humidifier.

I must say, I struggled to understand how they work initially and here is my attempt to put it in layman’s terms for you. This type of humidifier is usually connected to your HVAC or furnace supply air duct using a bypass approach.

It has quite a number of parts. The main part includes some metal heat exchangers, a water tank that looks like a geyser, a steam outlet pipe, an air, gas and water inlet pipe. It also has a drain outlet pipe from the water tank and some kind of exhaust for combusted gas.

To really simplify things, when you turn on the humidifier from your electronic control panel you start a chain of reactions whereby natural gas or propane is combined with air and supplied to a gas burner. 

Then an automated igniter on the gas burner lights up the gas and air mixture which then heats up some heat exchangers that are submerged in a water tank within the humidifier. 

The heat from the heat exchangers is then transferred to the water which in turn boils up and produces steam which exits the humidifier’s tank through its steam outlet into your supply air duct and into your home adding moisture across your home until your desired level of humidity is reached.

Among warm mist whole house humidifiers, people choose gas-fired humidifiers because they are cheaper from an energy consumption perspective compared to electric warm mist humidifiers.

They are not ideal for use with hard water as minerals will build up in your humidifier’s tank and you will often have to open up the humidifier to have the tank cleaned.

Sometimes, the minerals or limescale will build up to a point whereby they damage the exposed parts in your humidifier and you will have to replace these parts and this can get quite costly.

So when you have this type of humidifier be prepared to invest in a water treatment system. That said, even when running it on hard water, as a warm mist humidifier, it will not spread white dust across your home like most cold mist humidifiers do. 

What’s more you also don’t need to worry about mold and bacteria being spread through your air as the steam kills these off. Gas-fired humidifiers offer you intrinsically hygienic humidification. 

The only other thing that may worry you about gas fired humidifiers is their price tag. They are quite expensive to purchase and even to install. However your investment pays off in terms of how much you save energy wise. You can save up 75% on your energy bill if you use a gas-fired humidifier as opposed to an electric whole house humidifier. 

9. Electric Heater Humidifiers

Also known as Immersed heater humidifiers, electric heater humidifiers are set up and work in a similar way as gas fired humidifiers but differ in that they use an element to heat up the water in their tank rather than heat exchangers as I described for gas fired humidifiers in the previous section.

The electric heater element transfers heat to the water in the humidifiers tanks making this water boil and generate steam which is then released into your ducting and eventually into your home using your ducts air flow. 

They use any kind of water but if you use hard water with this kind of humidifier limescale will build up in your water tank and cover your elements and to keep your humidifier working you have to periodically open it up to clean the mineral build up and at times even replace the elements.

To minimize how often you  maintain an electric humidifier due to mineral build up, it’s advisable to use this type of humidifier with a water softening system. Another issue you should anticipate with electric heater humidifiers is overheating. 

This happens if the safety sensors in your humidifier don’t work well and there is not enough water in your water tank for whatever reason while your elements are heating up. The last key thing to worry about when it comes to immersed heater humidifiers is their energy consumption.

They are not that expensive to buy and install but the guzzle through electricity like electric geysers do. So be prepared for a considerably higher electric bill if you go for one of these types of humidifiers. Overlooking their shortcomings, electric heater humidifiers  present you with all the benefits of warm mist humidifiers.

10. Immersed Electrode Humidifiers

The final warm mist humidifier I came across is the immersed electrode humidifier. The way it works is fundamentally the same as your gas fired and immersed heater humidifier. It boils water in a tank to produce steam which is released through a steam outlet pipe into your ducting and thereafter into your building.

The difference however lies in how it boils water to produce steam. Instead of heat the electrode humidifier uses electricity flowing through streams of water to create steam. 

Electric current produced by a set of electrodes immersed in a replaceable tank called a boiling cylinder is carried through the water using the conductive properties of water. Then through a process called the Joule effect the electric current heats up the water to produce steam.

This entire process relies on the conductivity properties of water and so you can only use tap water for it to work. This is because tap water contains all the salts and minerals that give water its conductivity properties. So there is no need to treat your water with this type of humidifier.

However, this means you have no choice but to let minerals build up in your tank and this is where the replaceable boiling cylinder tank comes into play. Over time your electrodes get so covered up in limescale they become ineffective and a sensor on your humidifier indicates that it’s time for you to replace your boiling cylinder.

Normally you will need to replace your boiling cylinder after every 3 to 6 months of regular use depending largely on the quality of water you use. A lot of people go for the immersed electrode humidifier because it’s quite  inexpensive compared to all warm mist humidifiers.

But be careful, you actually end up forking out a lot of money replacing boiling cylinders. Kind of like buying an inkjet printer. It’s cheap but you pay a fortune for ink.

In terms of energy consumption, this type of humidifier consumes as much as your electric heater humidifier and so you should expect a high energy utility bill if you get one of these. The other downside of the electrode humidifier is that it provides the least consistent humidification compared to other humidifiers. 

When you set your desired humidity level it’s always off  by +/- 5% relative humidity compared to +/- 1% to 2% from other types of warm mist humidifiers. Despite these issues, you will still enjoy the benefits of a warm mist humidifier with an immersed electrode whole house humidifier. 

On this note I can say I have now shown you all the different types of humidifiers you are likely to find. Well, at least the main types that are available on the market. If there are any that I missed, please do mention them in the comments below and I will see about adding them to my list here.