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On a tangent note: don’t use ultrasonic humidifiers. Unless distilled water is used, they create a shit-ton of pm2.5 particles. Use evaporative humidifiers (ju
by piskov 10mo ago
On a tangent note: don’t use ultrasonic humidifiers. Unless distilled water is used, they create a shit-ton of pm2.5 particles.
Use evaporative humidifiers (just disks with myriads of small notches for water to cling on and a fan): https://us.smartmiglobal.com/pages/smartmi-evaporative-humidifier-3 https://us.smartmiglobal.com/pages/smartmi-evaporative-humid...
- jborichevskiy 10mo agoAlec from Technology Connections also has a great video comparing humidifiers here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28
- neilv 10mo agoThat Smartmi model seems to have toxic IoT in it. I'm currently using the Vornado EV100 non-IoT evaporative humidifier, and my only complaints are relatively minor, as humidifiers go (consumable wick, fan noise, insanely bright blue LEDs). https://www.vornado.com/shop/humidifiers/evaporative/ev100-evaporative-humidifier https://www.vornado.com/shop/humidifiers/evaporative/ev100-e...
- kccqzy 10mo agoDistilled water isn’t strictly necessary. I use mine with purified water with a reverse osmosis purifier. I periodically test the TDS of the water to confirm it is low. It’s fine.
- piskov 10mo agoI’ve run dyson ultrasonic humidifiers for a few years. The whole appartment was in white dust. Especially evident on some black leather bags in the wardrobe.
- esaym 10mo ago> Use evaporative humidifiers You don't have to buy one either. A suspended wet towel with a fan blowing on it will work very well. If you want to get fancy, have the last inch or two of the towel sitting in a tray of water.
- loloquwowndueo 10mo agoBut then I have to buy the towel and the fan, the tray, something to suspend the towel at the right height …
- dependency_2x 10mo agoThis is cheaper, and the towel and fan can be repurposed. Just buy a 3D printer for making the the suspension part (/jest)
- jgalt212 10mo agoThat's a permanent bachelor design aesthetic.
- Etheryte 10mo agoTurns out young me was on to something, I wasn't just leaving wet towels laying around, I was fixing the air humidity problem.
- beachy 10mo agoMy brother's house in Perth, Australia has an antique air conditioning system in the roof space that works in exactly this principle. 4 blankets that wick up water and have air drawn through them and into the house by a fan. It's in disuse now but I understand they were common and quite effective in the day.
- devilbunny 10mo agoThey're usually called "swamp coolers" and are very effective iff you have very low ambient humidity. Utterly useless in humid climates.
- nvch 10mo agoThe best solution I've found a few years ago is one Venta LW 45 for every 30 m² of space. That's enough to run them on the lowest speed while maintaining acceptable humidity and CO₂ levels. Higher speeds are too noisy. Smaller machines evaporate less. For sub-zero outside temperatures, it's necessary to add at least 5 g of water to each cubic metre of air coming from outside. The recommended ventilation rate of 30 m³/h per person requires to evaporate 4 liters of water per day.
- noitpmeder 10mo agoWhich venta are you referencing here?
- mercnet 10mo agoThey are referencing https://www.venta-air.com/en_us/product/lw45-original-humidifier/ https://www.venta-air.com/en_us/product/lw45-original-humidi... I also have one and love how easy it is to clean.
- SauntSolaire 10mo agoFor $500 it better clean itself
- InsideOutSanta 10mo agoI bought two Ventas well over a decade ago, and they still work as well as the day I bought them. They're an expensive initial investment, but IMO worth it over the long run. They are also mechanically simple, so I trust that if they ever break, I will be able to repair them.
- dalyons 10mo agoThat’s a lot of refilling. You might want to look into a whole house humidifier, I added an aprilaire 700 evaporative to my hvac ducts, it costs a few hundred $. Plumbed in, automatic. So much less screwing around
- mytailorisrich 10mo agoHow did we survive the last 3.5 billion years?
- HappyJoy 10mo agoA lot of us didn't
- SauntSolaire 10mo agoGlad to know that's solved now
- gpm 10mo agoWe didn't have access to modern technology... like ultrasonic speakers? Also we died at a young age. Everyone dying at 40 isn't incompatible with the species surviving but it's what advice like that is usually trying to avoid (and even less extreme outcomes).
- SauntSolaire 10mo agoThe concept of everyone dying at 40 is a myth/misunderstanding anyways - the reality was a lot more bimodal than that.
- gpm 10mo agoEh, here it's more of a simplification than a myth as used in my comment. There are two effects: 1. We've reduced infant (and childhood) mortality. My comment isn't talking about this effect but it did drag down average life expectancy substantially. Including this effect life expectancy at birth in the stone age might have been as low as 20... but as you say the bimodality means this is a deceptive statistic when used this way. 2. We've made it so you on average live longer even if you survive childhood, my comment is really just about this part of the effect. It's still a simplification because saying "on average if you survive childhood you die at 40" isn't the same as "everyone dies at 40" but closer to "adults die at all ages in a reasonable smooth monotonic curve and 40 is about the average age they live to but some get lucky and live to 80 or whatever". But then "don't use ultrasonic dehumidifiers" is like this too, using one won't kill you at some specific age, it will just slightly increase your chance of death every year for the rest of your life however long that ends up being. The number 40 was picked out of a hat, too. It should be right for some areas at some times just by coincidence though and since I was non-specific that makes me right ;)
- dangus 10mo agoThis is pretty crappy one-size-fits-all advice in itself. If you’re willing to use distilled water, ultrasonic humidifiers have their own advantages over evaporative. I’m personally willing to buy distilled water. It’s a dollar per gallon, and we only need the humidifier during a short few months. You can even buy a small countertop water distiller for under $60.
- butvacuum 10mo agoI'm thoroughly unconvinced. Doing some basic research... hard water is overwhelmingly various carbonate and bicarbonates of magnesium, calcium, sulfur, iron, maganese, and aluminum. All of which are essential nutrients and readily soluable in water. The other proposed problem was pathogen aerosols- however I was unable to access anything but an abstract. So, I don't know if they survived being aerosolized, produced more and/or worse pathogen count than evaporative humidifiers, Nor the size of the pathogens. It seems to me the known risk is mostly mechanical (Asthma, exacerbated COPD, etc) and nonpersistent (particles dissolve and are used or excreted via the same pathways as when consumed). With an unknown risk on the pathogen side.
- bsder 10mo ago> If you’re willing to use distilled water, ultrasonic humidifiers have their own advantages over evaporative. Unless you are anally retentive about cleaning it, ultrasonic humidifiers vaporize microbes into the air. There have been loads of studies about this. The only real way to avoid this is to use the humidifiers that are boiling the water.
- dheera 10mo agoI found this too. I wonder why they don't just accept a PUR water filter on the input side. I also wonder why mini-split heating systems drip and pool water outdoors instead of pumping that distilled water back indoors for humidification.
- somat 10mo agoIt's funny in an ironic way because the original purpose of air conditioners was to remove humidity from the air, the mechanism used was to cool the air down thus forcing some of the moisture out. The general public quickly caught on that having cool air was nice in it's own right and that is the main purpose these days. however the dehumidifying function is still sometimes used, people are surprised when their air conditioner turns on at the same time as the heater (why are they fighting each other?) but that is because the system is trying to remove moisture from the air before it is heated. Mainly seen in cars so the windows don't fog up. Probably something wrong with me but I just find it humorous trying to add moisture to a system designed to remove it. Really a reasonable request however, depending on where you live the air can get quite dry.
- ErroneousBosh 10mo ago> I also wonder why mini-split heating systems drip and pool water outdoors instead of pumping that distilled water back indoors for humidification. Do you want Legionnaire's Disease? Because that's how you get Legionnaire's Disease. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Philadelphia_Legionnaires%27_disease_outbreak#Epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Philadelphia_Legionnaires...
- Ekaros 10mo agoDuring summer dehumidification is needed in most areas. And it is really not distilled water. It gathers dust and so on from air. Distilling in more so closed circuit, where as those are very much open.
- throwawaysoxjje 10mo agoYou’d need a reverse osmosis system, not just he charcoal filters like that And the condensate water from an AC evaporator coil is not anything like distilled water, dust/bacteria are also in it.
- wnevets 10mo ago> On a tangent note: don’t use ultrasonic humidifiers. Unless distilled water is used, they create a shit-ton of pm2.5 particles. Not according to my uHoo air quality monitor. I have had one running a few feet from the monitor for over a week and there hasn't been any notable increase in PM2.5 particles.
- Elucalidavah 10mo ago> any notable increase in PM2.5 particles What's your PM2.5 baseline, and did you measure TDS in the water?
- wnevets 10mo agoSince Nov it's been fluctuating between 5-7 ug/mg, with a few spikes hitting 9 and 10. At this moment its a 6. I haven't checked the TDS but when I used a water test strip for an aquarium early this year it was in the hard water range.
- wintermutestwin 10mo agoThanks to this post, I checked my ultrasonic filled with tap water. With it running all night in a bedroom with an open door, morning pm2.5 readings are ~30 and the meter is in the kitchen.
- piskov 10mo agoLast time I checked (brought my sensor to the office to one room with ultrasonic) it showed 101/105 ug/m3 for pm2.5/pm10 In the next room (where there were none) it was 6. Depends on the water, I guess.
- wnevets 10mo agoHow large is the space with the humidifier? My space is wide open and that might be the biggest reason for my lack of increased PM2.5 readings.
- 10mo ago
- marcinpieczka 10mo agoAre pm2.5 particles a problem if they are water soluble? After entering the body they will just dissolve.
- piskov 10mo agoDepends whether you want that stuff in kidneys and what have you. Bigger particles are known to irritate the lungs and even cause asthma (google or ask gpt)
- citrin_ru 10mo agoHard water often contains hard to dissolve minerals. An evaporative humidifier over the time accumulates limescale and it’s very difficult to remove it, you cannot just dissolve it. With ultrasound humidifier all this limescale will be in the air. Admittedly not in all regions the water is hard but if it is then ultrasound humidifier will be a bad choice.
- numpad0 10mo agoDon't use evaporative humidifiers(the motorized wet towel). I don't know if it actually cause legionellosis, but it's not very sanitary, and the sanitizing additives for those are known to be actually harmful. Use boiling type humidifiers (basically just electric tea kettles).
- piskov 10mo agoWater evaporates alomost completely and is changed daily (I rinse both container and disks in the tub with high-pressure mode from showerhead), so I don’t think any contamination is likely. Been doing this for years.
- kjkjadksj 10mo agoDrying clothes indoors is also effective. When I set up my laundry rack rh can surge by 30%. I imagine setting up a tray of water under a ceiling fan might be similarly effective.