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After years of garbage humidifiers, I made my own. It cost a tiny fraction of the high end models, has huge reservoir, easy to clean, easy to modify and repair

After years of garbage humidifiers, I made my own. It cost a tiny fraction of the high end models, has huge reservoir, easy to clean, easy to modify and repair. It's a food grade 5 gallon bucket ($3) with a bathroom vent fan ($15) mounted to the lid with a pvc pipe section ($2 maybe) for adapting the fan the wick, a flour sack cloth towel (pack of 10 for $5). A couple of holes in the lid, some creative testing for holes in the cloth (made it a tube that is cut to the height of the bucket) and presto... industrial strength humidifier for about $25 with 3 gallon capacity. I am never going to buy another commercial humidifier ever again. I will tweak this design until it's perfect.

DennisP 6y ago
If you perfect it, I hope you write up instructions and post them here!
- RobertRoberts 6y ago
  I'm not much for blogging, maybe someone else can try it out and do better. I just wanted to share that it's not only possible to make your own, your first try doing a terrible job can be better results than store bought stuff. But it's ugly and a bit loud for most people I think.
  - g8oz 6y ago
    I definitely think people would be interested. Instructables.com would be a good place to share your results.
kortilla 6y ago
I felt like such an idiot when I paid $100 for one and found out it’s basically a bucket with a big wick and a $10 fan (retail!) controlled by a humidistat. There had to be a good $80 markup there
- RobertRoberts 6y ago
  I've been there and I feel your pain. I feel like humidifiers in the store are just vehicles to sell crappy wicks.
- roel_v 6y ago
  If it makes you feel better - my wife insisted on paying 350 euros each for two 'design' humidifiers. Just the replacement wicks they sell are e50 to replace them all. But hey, it does have 5 different fan speed settings...
koolba 6y ago
Do you have a picture of it?
- RobertRoberts 6y ago
  Nah, it's a shameful beast right now.
  - koolba 6y ago
    Honestly that makes me want to see it even more!
    - RobertRoberts 6y ago
      Here's a $15 fan: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Broan-NuTone-50-CFM-Wall-Ceiling-Mount-Bathroom-Exhaust-Fan-696N/100081599 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Broan-NuTone-50-CFM-Wall-Ceiling... Cut 2 holes on top of a 5 gallon (food grade) pale lid and stick this in it. Screw/nail/tape a towel on the other side of the lide making a tube of the towel. Fill 2/3 with water. Plug in the fan. (the fan I bought had an actual 120v wall plug built into it.)
  - TehShrike 6y ago
    So much the better – it will make me more likely go make my own beastly version for my house >-D
    - RobertRoberts 6y ago
      Ha, I described it in a neighboring comment. Go for it, I just based mine design on many other like it: I am more inclined to try a design more similar to this one next time: https://steemit.com/growing/@guanyu/cheap-diy-humidifier-for-grow-spaces https://steemit.com/growing/@guanyu/cheap-diy-humidifier-for... Another design: https://www.dudegrows.com/grow-hack-diy-humidifier-bucket/ https://www.dudegrows.com/grow-hack-diy-humidifier-bucket/ I think this may have been one of the original designs I saw that sparked trying it myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxSLbpAwibg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxSLbpAwibg
fma 6y ago
I use a "swamp cooler" as a whole house humidifier. It's the same concept. Also my cardboard wick doesn't get mold - unlike some other paper based wick humidifiers. I have the steam humidifiers for the small rooms. But my winter has been so much comfortable since using the swamp cooler. I just turn it on a few times a day and within minutes, the humidity jumps a few percentage.
switchbak 6y ago
I have a similar setup but use these cheap fog makers to atomize the water that I push around with a fan. It's cheap, and very effective even for a larger space. I also have the humidifier the article mentions, and found it to be useless for a large area.
faeyanpiraat 6y ago
Air purifiers are the same. A HEPA filter, a fan, and an expensive unnecessary fancy looking plastic box. I've made my own aswell.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
roel_v 6y ago
Well, I thought about building my own, but it's not so easy as you make it seem to get one that is efficient (i.e., not just brute force capacity through size) and easy to use. - How to make it not look like an animal food barrel in your living room, aka WAF, although I do find that term somewhat demeaning as I get older - I used to not care about such things either when I was in my 20's, but nowadays I do, even if it's just because of the realization that people around me care. - How to make a mechnism to easily fill it, without spilling. This is related to size - you can have a huge one so that you only have to fill it every few days, but then you'll need to shlepp around buckets or watering cans. If it's smaller, you need a separate tank, which you now have to hook up to the rest. - How to moisten the wick. It's called a 'wick' because it, well, wicks, of course, but you need a relatively large surface contact area to get lots of water into the wick(s); or you need a pump that will keep vertical 'wicks' wet all the time. - The fans need to be on the top, and large for minimum noise, but the largest Noctuas are only 20cm. But you need air intake from the bottom, somehow, while still maximizing volume efficiency (i.e., you don't want 75% of the volume of the device to be unused because you can only have water in the lower 25% because of the airflow design). - You need something that can be cleaned and filled without too much (preferably no) disassembly, and you don't want moving parts like floats or fragile things like measuring water level with metal strips because those will break within a year or two; or faster if you don't have a water softening device in you house. Overall, I think humidification is a job of proper devices that are part of the indoor climate control system along with heating and cooling, but I don't know of residential systems that combine all, and if they do/would exist, it would be much more expensive than the few 100 at most people want to spend on this, and require extensive plumbing to get installed.
- RobertRoberts 6y ago
  I guess it depends on your goals. I had a whole house humidifier, and it leaked just enough to cause long term damage. And that's as good as it gets for humidifying your entire house. Now, I don't care. I just want to sleep well, and my bedroom is the only room that actually really matters for my skin not to be dry and sleep comfortable. I don't need to add any treatments, chemicals to my bucket system, so I would say it's far and above safer and more effective than all the other systems I've tried.

DennisP 6y ago

If you perfect it, I hope you write up instructions and post them here!

RobertRoberts 6y ago
I'm not much for blogging, maybe someone else can try it out and do better. I just wanted to share that it's not only possible to make your own, your first try doing a terrible job can be better results than store bought stuff. But it's ugly and a bit loud for most people I think.
- g8oz 6y ago
  I definitely think people would be interested. Instructables.com would be a good place to share your results.

kortilla 6y ago

I felt like such an idiot when I paid $100 for one and found out it’s basically a bucket with a big wick and a $10 fan (retail!) controlled by a humidistat. There had to be a good $80 markup there

RobertRoberts 6y ago
I've been there and I feel your pain. I feel like humidifiers in the store are just vehicles to sell crappy wicks.
roel_v 6y ago
If it makes you feel better - my wife insisted on paying 350 euros each for two 'design' humidifiers. Just the replacement wicks they sell are e50 to replace them all. But hey, it does have 5 different fan speed settings...

koolba 6y ago

Do you have a picture of it?

RobertRoberts 6y ago
Nah, it's a shameful beast right now.
- koolba 6y ago
  Honestly that makes me want to see it even more!
  - RobertRoberts 6y ago
    Here's a $15 fan: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Broan-NuTone-50-CFM-Wall-Ceiling-Mount-Bathroom-Exhaust-Fan-696N/100081599 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Broan-NuTone-50-CFM-Wall-Ceiling... Cut 2 holes on top of a 5 gallon (food grade) pale lid and stick this in it. Screw/nail/tape a towel on the other side of the lide making a tube of the towel. Fill 2/3 with water. Plug in the fan. (the fan I bought had an actual 120v wall plug built into it.)
- TehShrike 6y ago
  So much the better – it will make me more likely go make my own beastly version for my house >-D
  - RobertRoberts 6y ago
    Ha, I described it in a neighboring comment. Go for it, I just based mine design on many other like it: I am more inclined to try a design more similar to this one next time: https://steemit.com/growing/@guanyu/cheap-diy-humidifier-for-grow-spaces https://steemit.com/growing/@guanyu/cheap-diy-humidifier-for... Another design: https://www.dudegrows.com/grow-hack-diy-humidifier-bucket/ https://www.dudegrows.com/grow-hack-diy-humidifier-bucket/ I think this may have been one of the original designs I saw that sparked trying it myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxSLbpAwibg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxSLbpAwibg

fma 6y ago

I use a "swamp cooler" as a whole house humidifier. It's the same concept. Also my cardboard wick doesn't get mold - unlike some other paper based wick humidifiers. I have the steam humidifiers for the small rooms. But my winter has been so much comfortable since using the swamp cooler. I just turn it on a few times a day and within minutes, the humidity jumps a few percentage.

switchbak 6y ago

I have a similar setup but use these cheap fog makers to atomize the water that I push around with a fan. It's cheap, and very effective even for a larger space. I also have the humidifier the article mentions, and found it to be useless for a large area.

faeyanpiraat 6y ago

Air purifiers are the same. A HEPA filter, a fan, and an expensive unnecessary fancy looking plastic box. I've made my own aswell.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

roel_v 6y ago

Well, I thought about building my own, but it's not so easy as you make it seem to get one that is efficient (i.e., not just brute force capacity through size) and easy to use. - How to make it not look like an animal food barrel in your living room, aka WAF, although I do find that term somewhat demeaning as I get older - I used to not care about such things either when I was in my 20's, but nowadays I do, even if it's just because of the realization that people around me care. - How to make a mechnism to easily fill it, without spilling. This is related to size - you can have a huge one so that you only have to fill it every few days, but then you'll need to shlepp around buckets or watering cans. If it's smaller, you need a separate tank, which you now have to hook up to the rest. - How to moisten the wick. It's called a 'wick' because it, well, wicks, of course, but you need a relatively large surface contact area to get lots of water into the wick(s); or you need a pump that will keep vertical 'wicks' wet all the time. - The fans need to be on the top, and large for minimum noise, but the largest Noctuas are only 20cm. But you need air intake from the bottom, somehow, while still maximizing volume efficiency (i.e., you don't want 75% of the volume of the device to be unused because you can only have water in the lower 25% because of the airflow design). - You need something that can be cleaned and filled without too much (preferably no) disassembly, and you don't want moving parts like floats or fragile things like measuring water level with metal strips because those will break within a year or two; or faster if you don't have a water softening device in you house. Overall, I think humidification is a job of proper devices that are part of the indoor climate control system along with heating and cooling, but I don't know of residential systems that combine all, and if they do/would exist, it would be much more expensive than the few 100 at most people want to spend on this, and require extensive plumbing to get installed.

RobertRoberts 6y ago
I guess it depends on your goals. I had a whole house humidifier, and it leaked just enough to cause long term damage. And that's as good as it gets for humidifying your entire house. Now, I don't care. I just want to sleep well, and my bedroom is the only room that actually really matters for my skin not to be dry and sleep comfortable. I don't need to add any treatments, chemicals to my bucket system, so I would say it's far and above safer and more effective than all the other systems I've tried.