Humidifiers Reviews

The Product data on this page says "Other items by Holmes". Not sure what that means; this is a Bionaire humidifier with a remote sensor/controller. The feature set it great; it's quiet, cool "mist", no white mineral deposits/dust in the room, etc. But it also requires a complex weekly cleaning, expensive wicks regularly, cannot output much humidity (the wick dries out instead of keeping up) and the wicks are fragile.

The weekly cleaning includes sanitizing the water resevoir, scrubbing out the base, removing and deliming the float, and reassembling all. The wicks are fragile but also are harmed by minerals in the water, so replacements may be needed every month or two, at about $6 per when you can find them.

Humidifier technology still has room for improvement. This is one of the better units out there, due to the remote sensor (so the room is measured, rather than the air around the unit), but it's not just a plug it and forget it model.

It is SOOOO.... noisy!! I should have listened to the other reviews but I figured that Bionaire had fixed the problem by now. Not so. Its so noisy that it is unusable at any fan speed. It rattles and vibrates. Colossal waste of money.

Humidifies well but noisy noisy noisy noisy. Put up with it for two winters. Not doing it again. Wicks go bad quickly too. Will find another machine. Got to!

I bought this unit on the recommendation of a friend. His works fine with no noise issues at all. That said...

...the reviewers who complained about the noise were correct. The unit is very noisy at the medium and high fan speeds, however, the fix if fairly easy. The noise generates from the vibration of the water storage containers against the main unit. I put a bungie cord around mine and now it runs whisper quiet. I can't swear that this is the solution for every unit, but for mine it was that simple.

The unit does a decent job of maintaining a constant humidity level in the area I'm using it in but the claim that it will cover 1700 square feet is a bit exagerated. I'm using it in an area about half that size and it is just about adequate. That may be because the remote sensor, though a good idea, has to stay fairly close to the unit or it loses contact with the unit and the humidifier turns itself off. There's no warning when this happens. You won't know until you happen to glance at the remote unit and see that your humidity has dropped significantly. The task of getting the remote to reconnect with the unit is a pain in neck. I've found the only way to do it is to remove a battery from the remote, wait a few seconds, reinstall it, and then I'm good to go.

In defense of the remote, it does react to a 1% change in humidity so when it's working correctly, it does a good job of keeping the level constant.

So the unit is a little quirky but it does the job pretty well. If you live in a pretty dry area you're going to be filling the water containers every day, but it's a pretty easy task and the containers will stand on their heads in the sink so you don't have to stand there holding them the entire time.

Considering the price, this is a pretty good purchase. But when I build my next house, I'm going to make sure to have some kind of system installed so I don't have to own one of these again.