Four Things to Consider When Buying a Humidifier

Maintaining a comfortable and healthy home is as demanding as a stimulating full-time job, but it is among the most important things we can do for ourselves.  We make sure our spaces are clean.  We remove our shoes at the door.  We dust our shelves and pay our bills for heat and electricity.  There is no doubt that there is as much to do as there is to pay for.  You may not feel inclined to purchase yet another household appliance that lights up and makes plenty of noise.  Most appliances are on during the day, though an air conditioning unit or furnace may continue to drone at night.  One investment you should still invest effort and funds in is a large room humidifier.

What Can a Humidifier Do For Me?

By humidifying you, it can actually benefit you in a lot of ways, especially if you have some kind of sensitivity to dryness among other environmental irritants.  Local dryness can be uncomfortable if not outright destructive to our skin and sinuses.  If your bedroom or home exhibits some kind of exposure to any dryness outside, then you might find a large room humidifier to directly improve your life, especially if enough dander from pets plagues your general living space.

Most humidifiers are fairly easy to maintain, requiring a generous amount of water every two or three days.  Most tanks store a little over a gallon of water, and humidifiers offer bursts of mist every couple of hours.  When each burst is said and done, that massive amount of water actually dissipates after about 48 hours.  Keeping your humidifier hydrated is the most of what you will need to do in terms of maintenance.  Some humidifiers are so flexible as to allow for the inclusion of essential oils in addition to water, but you should only attempt a sweet-smelling concoction if your humidifier is compatible with such an exercise.  It will need a tray that is almost like the receptacle for pouring detergent into a washing machine.  If your humidifier has a tray, a singular caveat is that you cannot simply pour anything that smells good.  Whatever makes its way into your humidifier must be ingestible and breathable.  Some things that smell good may not be the best to inhale.

Finally, while a large room humidifier may seem like yet another appliance to maintain and deal with, it does not emit as massive a drone as that of a washing machine or dishwasher.  Many humidifiers are silent, and you will not even be able to discern when they emit a burst of mist.  They don’t even need filters anymore, so there is nearly nothing to maintain apart from keeping your humidifier full of water.  Ditch perpetual bottles of moisturizer and sanitizer.  You need only buy a humidifier once.  If this article has interested you in potentially purchasing a humidifier, then here are some suggestions as to what you should look out for.

1. The Water Tank

Size is most important.  It will inform how often you will have to fill the tank, and it will inform how much water you will always have to pour when the tank empties.  The water tank is the most important part of your purchase.  No tank, no water.

2. Coverage

What good is the moisture if it cannot reach you?  Generally, you should avoid putting humidifiers in too large a room for this reason, though some humidifiers are geared toward large rooms.  Some offer so much coverage as to be fit for a living room, dance studio, or studio apartment.  When you are shopping for a good humidifier, consider the size of your space.  Many brands boast coverage radii as to hike the price up, though it may not necessarily be what you need.

3. Maintenance

The best humidifiers are the ones that take care of themselves and leave no messes in their wake.  You should not have to do more than fill your large room humidifier with water every couple of days.  At worst, you might have to buy filters, but many of the modern models do not require you to pay for such trifles.  Make sure you have a device that actually makes your life easier because the allure of a nice color or a sleek design can deceive the most astute buyers.  Perhaps the most prudent step to take is to ensure that the maintenance process is not anything other than nearly-automatic.

4. Noise

While humidifiers are not loud to begin with, you should consider purchasing the quietest of the quiet.  There is plenty of noise in your home already, especially if you have kids, pets, or both.  As helpful as a humidifier might be, a noisy one is not worth much, so invest in silence only!