Our Experience

We bought this humidifier last winter for our daughter's nursery. I have never before used a humidifier so I cannot compare it to others.

Setup
The humidifier is easy to setup. The three primary parts are the base, motor unit, and tank. Simply set the base on the ground, put the air filter in the big circle in the base, put the motor over that, and then plop the tank on the back.

Operation
Once you plug the unit in, simply hit the On switch and it will start working. Then select your desired moisture percentage (10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, or 50%) and fan setting (one blade, two blades, or three blades). The fan will turn off once the moisture setting is reach or when the tank is empty (which lead to a problem, see below).

In use we kept it at 20% and one blade. The noise is barely audible enough with one blade but any faster and it is a tad annoying. The 20% just seemed a natural setting that wouldn’t be too far out of whack with the rest of the house. The humidifier provides “cool mist” to the room, so of course you’re actually fighting your heating unit and we found the nursery usually felt 5-10 degrees colder than the rest of the house (we do have an older heating/ventilation system, this might not apply to all homes).

Refilling the tank
The first day of operation we had to refill the tank a couple times, but that was in the heart of winter. Once it got going we refilled it about twice a week. The tank itself has built in handle at the top and a screw in no-spill bottom. In order to fill up the tank you have to turn it upside down and try to fit it in your sink or tub, however the ergonomic handle means it is not flat and will not stand on its own. Our sink is not particularly deep so I ended up using a cup to exchange the water. Once you screw the bottom back on it is easy enough to carry, however a bit heavy for the wife. All you have to do now is plop it straight down on the unit and the water will start flowing.

Filter
The filters are downright expensive, and I went through the two provided in one season. However as mentioned before I live in a very old house (built in late 1880s) with a poorly designed air return and currently we do not operate any air purifiers, so the humidifier took the brunt of the air particles in that room. In a normal house I would guess one filter a season, however at $10-$15 a replacement I still think the filter is on the expensive side since a whole new unit is $40-$50 and comes with 2 filters.

Problems
I have found two primary design problems. The first is that the unit is just hard to move around, even when empty. Each of the three parts is completely independent of the others without even simple restraining clips, so moving it is clumsy.

The second problem is more serious. Halfway through the winter the unit just stopped working. After some investigation I determined the contact switch with the bobber that monitors water level had come loose. After taking the motor unit apart and deftly reconnecting the contact (which was pretty darned hard to do), I got it working again. I don’t know if this problem is widespread, but I can see how it would cause others to replace the entire unit.