Hamilton Beach Home Humidifier
by Rachael
(Brighton, CO USA)
My humidifier does a good job putting moisture into the air, but I do have some small issues with it. It is a Hamilton Beach humidifer, and I purchased it for around $80 from WalMart two years ago.
It is fairly compact in size for the amount of area it will cover, which is good. The water tanks are heavy and bulky and somewhat difficult to fill, and they don't seem to last more than 24 hours in our home.
It is also fairly noisy, and it runs pretty much all the time without getting to the point where there is enough moisture in the air to click off. It leaves the carpet around the humidifier feeling wet also.
There is a large round filter which sits inside in about an inch of water, and I worry that with the constant wetness of the materials inside, it will get moldy. The filter also works as an air purifier removing antimicorbials and some viruses from the air, but again, it seems to me that it would broadcast more icky stuff into the air by pushing the moisture through the filter.
My biggest issue with the humidifier is that the filters cost almost as much as the whole humidifier unit to replace, and the manufacturer recommends changing the filter every 60-90 days.
It seems terribly expensive to run at that point, and generally only gets used on the driest of dry days, or when somebody is ill in our home. Otherwise, it does work fairly well in humidifying our home, and I am not looking to replace it just yet.