Humidifiers Reviews

this was our second winter with this unit and i will say for the job its supposed to do it does it ok. its quiet and humidifies ok. in its defense, we do have very hard water and previous humidifiers have been much worse off with mineral buildup than this one (like the vicks ones with the tub of water and then the electrical part that snaps into the top, i like this holmes design much better).

however the plastics on this unit are very cheap. the handle on the water tank is so thin it snapped, so be careful with that. worse, the bottom of the water tank has a cap that screws on and off to fill it. the threads on the tank that the cap screws onto chipped away every time i would put it under the sink to fill it and it bumped into the faucet. luckily, it has not chipped totally away and there is still enough threading left to get the cap on. obviously holmes is doing whatever is needed to keep the price down for better or worse.

other than that, just remember this is a small capacity unit. on low it will run about 18 hours and on high it will run only about 6 (not enough to get through a night and with sick kids you really need it to).

Plastic is low quality, water tank cap broke after relatively short use, had to replace with something more sturdy. Also, water tank is enough for only one night in "low" setting and less than that in "high". The medicine cup is messy and not useful. Better to spend a bit more and get a decent humidifier if you plan to use this more than a few months.

Easy to use product but didn't last very long.
We worked it hard using it every day for almost a year until it died. It was fairly easy to clean unless you let it go too long between cleanings. Once the mineral deposits on the heater head go thick it was hell to chip them off. The medicine cup/arometherapy is a joke. More mess than it is worth, IMNHO. The unit is easy to fill and overall has a clean easy-to-use design, though the water resevoir's handle is not very sturdy and will break if you aren't careful with it. I'm hoping to find something a little more solid for the replacement.

This thing is loud. Fortunately, that was what I wanted. The noise from the fan puts me right to sleep. The tank lasts about 16 hours running on the Low setting. It is easy to fill and has a spring-loaded mechanism on the bottom so it won't drip all over the floor when you carry it to the humidifier.

As far as the filters being hard to find, just search for "HM1700 filter" on Froogle and a bunch come up.

You get what you pay for. It is great for larger rooms, but it definitely does not last anywhere near 24 hours on a fill. Its more like 8. It can be a little loud, but it does work very well, and you can immediately feel the effects.

I loved this humidifier until I broke the tank while filling it. It was perfect for my baby's room -- it provided a lot of moisture in his room (almost tropical) and in the summer, I took the tank off and removed the filter and used the fan noise for his naps (great white noise). I am going to buy another one immediately. If you need to add humidity to a room and like white noise this one is for you -- just make sure you are holding it securely when filling the tank.

I saw that this unit had a reasonable-sized fan and two speed settings, so I thought it might be pretty quiet. But the two settings turn out to be "loud" and "ear-splitting", if you plan to use this thing in a bedroom or other non-industrial setting.

This flaw is unfortunate, he rest of the humidifier is pretty nice.. easy filling and cleaning, nice appearance.

Two years ago I bought one of these units. It worked great for one season. The next winter I followed the setup instructions and started up the unit. The unit heated up for about a minute then gave me the the dreaded two light error. The unit had died. I called Holmes and was told that the problem could not be fixed.

Last winter I went out and bought another unit. It worked well throughout the winter season. At the end of the season I followed the cleaning / storage instructions and put it away.

This morning I setup the humidifier and got the dreaded two light error again. One bad unit is a freak. Two units produced in different years is a more serious problem.

Don't buy this unit if you want more than 1 year of use out of it.

I was horrified by how cheaply made this machine was... even the holmes nameplate was attached upside down.

More than that it didn't work out of the box. The directions were hard to understand. There is no on/off switch.

Please, this is just JUNK.

the first one I bought home leaked about a gallon of water after about a hour...I returned it and got another... worked fine for 5 or so hours... I checked it to see if it was leaking and I went to bed ... I got up in the morning and all the water leaked out all over the floor... could have been a very dangerous situation...