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In the wintertime just hang your washed clothes on a drying rack, either wall-mount or free-standing or what have you. "Free" humidification I agree

In the wintertime just hang your washed clothes on a drying rack, either wall-mount or free-standing or what have you. "Free" humidification I agree with this. I have tried a number of humidifiers (evaporative and ultrasonic) and they are all freaking maintenance nightmares in one way or another. Nothing comes even remotely close to wet towels or wet clothes on a drying rack with a little fan pointed at them. I sleep with a fan on for background noise anyway. Thick bath towels will soak up enough water to last a whole night or more.

TylerE 3y ago
The problem is just how much water air can hold... humidifying even a small room takes gallon and gallons.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  Can you share your thinking here? That doesn't seem right. A cubic liter can hold 0.017 mL of liquid water at an average room temperature. If I'm borrowing this math correctly that comes to less than a liter of water in an average room at 100% humidity. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%280.023+atm%29*%281+L%29%2F%28gas+constant+*+298+K%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%280.023+atm%29*%281+L%... Certainly, when we look at the tanks of popular humidifiers on Amazon, the tanks hold less moisture than a rack full of wet laundry particularly if there are wet towels. I haven't measured this objectively but commercial humidifiers and the "wet clothes on a rack plus fan" method both palpably raise the humidity in a room.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    A 3 meter cube is 27000 liters. So, yeah that holds about half a liter of water. That’s great if it’s a sealed box, but it’s not. Homes are leaky, and typical HVAC systems will replace all that air at least 5 times an hour. So that’s 2.5 liters, or about 2/3rds of a gallon… per hour. Now of course this is assuming worst case of going from bone dry to fully saturated, but even if you want to raise it 20 or 30% the numbers would be a third of that, but still. Humans are very sensitive to humidity. I don’t doubt your towel setup makes things feel more humid, but if you were to actually measure it with a hygrometer I bet the actual number is changing way less than you think.

TylerE 3y ago

The problem is just how much water air can hold... humidifying even a small room takes gallon and gallons.

JohnBooty 3y ago
Can you share your thinking here? That doesn't seem right. A cubic liter can hold 0.017 mL of liquid water at an average room temperature. If I'm borrowing this math correctly that comes to less than a liter of water in an average room at 100% humidity. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%280.023+atm%29*%281+L%29%2F%28gas+constant+*+298+K%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%280.023+atm%29*%281+L%... Certainly, when we look at the tanks of popular humidifiers on Amazon, the tanks hold less moisture than a rack full of wet laundry particularly if there are wet towels. I haven't measured this objectively but commercial humidifiers and the "wet clothes on a rack plus fan" method both palpably raise the humidity in a room.
- TylerE 3y ago
  A 3 meter cube is 27000 liters. So, yeah that holds about half a liter of water. That’s great if it’s a sealed box, but it’s not. Homes are leaky, and typical HVAC systems will replace all that air at least 5 times an hour. So that’s 2.5 liters, or about 2/3rds of a gallon… per hour. Now of course this is assuming worst case of going from bone dry to fully saturated, but even if you want to raise it 20 or 30% the numbers would be a third of that, but still. Humans are very sensitive to humidity. I don’t doubt your towel setup makes things feel more humid, but if you were to actually measure it with a hygrometer I bet the actual number is changing way less than you think.