Humidifiers: Simpler is better?
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- Опубліковано 12 січ 2021
- The air. It holds water! And how much it holds matters! A lot, in fact. Sometimes we need to adjust it in the upwards persuasion. Learn why and how in this little ol’ video!
Are you looking for the follow-up where we take apart the Vicks thing?
• Is a Vicks vaporizer a...
And how ‘bout the video on the teeny tiny swamp cooler?
• Personal "air conditio...
Or howzabout a completely new follow-up video I just did?
• Even *more* humidifier...
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“Did you just buy a humidifier and… turn that into content?”
Guilty as charged! But also, it’s been a surprisingly large quality-of-life improvement for me and the topic turned out to be worthy of exploration. I look forward to all the weird towel contraptions you’ll no doubt devise! *On that note! Important extra info lies below!*
I was trying to avoid describing one type of humidifier as universally better than another, but I'm not sure I succeeded. Which kind will work the best for you is very, very situational. What struck me most about the evaporative style is simply how effective it is for how simple it is.
But, a thing that I totally didn't address (and I, for real, pinky-promise meant to but simply forgot) was the cooling effect of evaporative humidifiers. After all, if it's the same thing as a swamp cooler, doesn't that mean it cools a bit? Well.... kinda. It's complicated by the fact that the ability of swamp coolers to cool depends on how dry the air is, so once these things have brought the humidity up to anything appreciable, that cooling effect is very mild. But it is indeed true that the water "stole" some heat from the air in order to evaporate, so some cooling inevitably occurs. I'll talk about this more casually on Connextras: ua-cam.com/video/HfFAiCMLJ14/v-deo.html
And now you can write it off as a business expense! Clever. :)
hi
Fuk I'm not first
Can you do a video on water purifiers? Please
For what it's worth, dry air gives me nosebleeds.
This channel is secretly a scheme to turn Alec's new homeowner costs into tax deductions. Next week: "how do roofs work?"
That's actually not a terrible idea xD
Amazing 😂😂
I just realised why every UA-camr who does nerdy stuff went for the Tesla roof and battery option.
10/10!
And I only now just learned the host's name after many, many videos.
"I bought a humidifier last week."- Now has 4 humidifiers.
Five***
Reminds me of the guy buying one humidifier off of amazon and amazon kept offering him ads for his newfound humidifier collection 😂
If Technology Connections has 5 of them then I guess it works on some people! 😂
Next week it'll be 16
Thank God for steam heat. I've never need a humidifier with my 'fill the air with water' steam heat.
Steam heat runs with the baseboards open until the radiator gets hot enough to close a valve. This dumps a lot of steam into the air around the baseboards. It also means anything cold in the house sweats.
For at least some of them, he clearly bought them used or borrowed them from someone. The ultrasonic one has signs of use.
Light dim decal?! Such a thing exists?! OMG I got so excited I had to pause the video and go looking for some. No longer will I have to put black electrician's tape over the bright-enough-to-burn-your-eyes-out LED displays which sort of, you know, negates the convenience of actually having a display to tell you what's going on. The room air purifier we have is particularly egregious, but I've also taken the tape to routers and computer towers. Thank you soooooo much.
you can also just get a roll of cheap window tint film and cut small squares to fit whatever you need
Ironically, the blue led's on my bedside clock are so dim I can't see them half the time.
Seriously, manufacturers, our eyes just aren't made to see blue light clearly; it scatters too easily, and blends in with morning sunlight. =_=
@@IamCoalfoot WHY DO YOU HAVE SUCH A BLASPHEMOUS CLOCK!?
I was so annoyed at the light in my computer tower's power button I just straight up traced the button and busted out the arduino male female wires to just disconnect them
and so now I have a little band of rainbow in my pc :3
Kapton tape is especially good, without the need to buy a specialized product. With its amber color, it greatly dims blue LEDs. I use it on almost anything with a bright blue LED, and it can of course be stacked if one piece isn't enough.
I like that he just throws in “quicklier” without skipping a beat.
11:20 "its brown"
correction
"its orange with context"
Well done my friend
I see you are a man of culture!
*dark orange
Wisdom is spreading thanks to Technology connections 👌
If there is anything that Technology Connections and Regular Car Reviews have in common, its *HOT BROWN*
"It is brown, and therefore excellent." I agree, dark orange is my favorite color.
brown is still weird....
*with context
I think he has gone black, and he is not going back.
You mean Dark Yellow Red
I think he and Mr. Regular from Regular Car Reviews would get along well with their mutual affection of BROWN 🟤🟤🟤
I had a large humidifier many years ago that had a towel "loop" on a roller. When it ran, a motor rolled the towel down through the water and up in front of the fan. Extremely effective and it held LOTS of water (days). Yes, you could clean the towel (not really a towel but cloth of some sort). The only problem was that once I set it up too high and at night my setback thermostat let the temperature drop below the dewpoint and it rained inside my house. We woke up wet!
As someone who also has to suffer through Illinois winters, and who also has a humidifier set up and running not five feet from his desk, I can 100% agree, humidifiers are a necessity.
Oh god I live in the subtropics of the north island of New Zealand so we all have central dehumidifiers not cooling or heating just dehumidifi.
I feel like everything got so much drier when I moved to Boston, is Illinois supposed to be worse?
A necessity for what?
Try living in Nevada. Its almost always 0% humidity. No matter the season.
@@Supreme_LobsterIt actually helps the air inside retain heat. Water has a very high thermal intertia, I've noticed such a huge difference that my heater runs less than half as often when my air has been humidified. I just run my drier outlet into the house in the winter though, I hate to waste all of that heat and humidity when it's 11°F outside.
"It's Brown, and therefore, excellent."
Technology Connections continues to be a man of refined and elegant taste
it's contextual orange tho
I came here as soon as he said it and I wasn’t disappointed.
This guy and Lindybeige should do a video on the topic of which colour being better: Brown or Beige... I'm sure they could come to an agreement of some sorts ^^
BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN
with an eye piercing display
"It's brown, and therefore, excellent." Definitely one of the best Alec quotes ever. Right up there with So-ny.
That immediately struck me. I think you're right.
Wait, what video is So-ny from? I don't remember that one
@@TheLegoPerson CED part 5 I think.
"Brooooooooooooown" - Regular Car Reviews
The brown video is my favorite of Alec's works
The device you are looking for is a clothes drying rack, what my parents used before we had a clothes dryer (and after too.)
FYI If the console ever fails to maintain the desired humidity level, roll it near a hot air furnace vent to improve the rate of evaporation. Be prepared to fill the tank more than once a day. When mine goes dry I fill both the tank and the reservoir!
But for the desired functionality, you want a clothes drying rack placed in a way that the clothes on top stay wet from another water source, like a bucket or bowl
@@hanneswiggenhorn2023 Depending on the height of the drying rack and the type of material, just the one bowl might be enough. If not, some drying racks have parallel rails, so placing a board across higher rails could provide a platform for a second bowl.
Throughout Europe, drying racks are still super common, more common than dryers.
Also in most of Europe, Luft is a thing. We open windows and doors in the house everyday for 10 minutes, no matter if it's summer or winter. This is to reduce mold.
In your dissection of how to improve upon your humidifier, I reckon rather than add complications like a pump to increase capacity, fine-tuning the wicks to float at near buoyancy might work as a more mechanically simple solution. Like a toilet tank, you could sit the wick on rails and calibrated bouys so it would travel evenly down the water reservoir until emptied. You could probably mock it up with pink insulation foam and some cabinet tracks if you felt so compelled. Thank you as always for an interesting video about things we take for granted!
You could probably use a tank, reservoir system similar to some pet water fountains have.
That may cause a positive feedback loop, though. If the wick dries out, it would become lighter, causing it to sit higher in the water, causing it to get lighter, causing it to sit higher, etc..
Not gonna lie, the term "whole-house humidifier" gives me some serious "full bridge rectifier" vibes.
*F U L L B R I D G E R E C T I F I E R*
WhOOOOOOOLE hOUSe huMIDIFYAAAA
Electrolux
Wait no Boom !
@@calebdrake9953 Lmao
11:20
No, it’s not brown. It’s orange with context.
Nice throwback. 😎
Not fair !
You changed the output colour by observing its context !
As someone who would have no bias towards this issue, I approve the decision to rename "brown" to "orange with context"
@@OrangeC7 but isn't orange just brown without context?
@@renagonpoi5747 brown without context is orange, but orange can remain orange regardless of context, so no
I really appreciate that you explained why the air indoors is so much drier in the winter although the air outdoors might be really humid (>90%). It didn't occur to me that the relative humidity decreases dramatically once the cool outside air is sucked into the home by the ventilation system and heated up to room temperature.
The Vicks Warm Steam Vaporizer IS an Electrode Boiler. That is why it requires descaling quite often if you have high mineral content in your water. It can also be manually descaled, but the boiler chamber isn't really designed for end user maintenance. If there is too much minerals or salt in your water, this thing will spit water all over the place.
"IT'S BROWN, AND THEREFORE, EXCELLENT"
Technology Connections, the American James May
Actually though James is the one who owns all the bright coloured cars, wears super bright running shoes, and is Captain Slow. They're kind of opposites who both really love how things work. :P
Also I'd love to see them do a show together, talking about camping stoves, or wind mill turbines, or ball bearings or something. Would be excellent.
Oh man, this one got me good.
Came for this comment
YES. YES, YES YES.
I think he meant to say dark orange
"It's brown and, therefore, excellent."
Ah, I missed you, Alec.
Excellent advice for buying vintage televisions and hi-if stereos!
Imma going to make one that is completely LED blue and has a wood grain LCD display.
This line just makes me want to see him & Lindybeige together
I'm pretty sure it's just dark orange.
@@whotookgetinthebag You, my friend, are a psychopath.
why is this channel so soothing
I'be been growing mushrooms for almost a decade now, and they for example require a minimum of about 86% humidity to fruit, and close to 91% to primodia pin.
I've used almost every type of humidity, from slashing water on textured ground, to cheap humidifiers, to ultrasonic discs and even low psi high pressure misting pumps.
It is a great point to share how the humidity acts between warm and cold weather, which is why I always have a charging room before my grow rooms where I'll have a diy swamp cooler in conjunction with a heater to add some base level humidity, then the air volume gets pushed past the ultrasonic discs to help it effectively add the bulk of the humidity more easily, since mushroom grow rooms need 6 cycles of air per hour, since mushroms breath oxygen and produce carbondioxide that needs to be removed with a fan, which makes holding high humidity hard since it can be so fleeting depending on outdoor temps.
Something to consider in regards to limescale in humidifiers, the cheap ones can get clogged if you use it excessively, and the safety off switch when they run out of water can get jammed from the scaling, which causes the device to continue operate even without water. This can cause fires if the device is designed to cool itself with the water in it's reservior, and provides a nice electrical fire smell to watch out for.
The best humidiier is an ink bird humidiy meter with a house of hydro 3 disc ultrasonic, in a bucket with a 120cfm CPU fan blowing into it (with a air flow check valvue, aka flap of aluminum) and a timer for 3-4minutes on 6-7min off, this setup will turk a 8x10x8ft room into 86%+ humidity with a 160cfm fan pushing air constantly. I use a float value in there too, and have a flow and psi meter incase a hose breaks
Year later but still. Since you have experience, how do you deal with minerals in water for ultrasonic humidifier? Noone seems to mention it. Do you use distilate only? Or water softening filter? Or HEPA at the air exit port? Don't you have that "heavy" breathing feeling there when air is full of stuff previously dissolved in water?
@@jojustjo370how I deal with it in my ultrasonic humidifier is I prefilter the water through a zerowater filter. Their claims are 0ppm after filtering and project farm reviewed the filter ang got the same results. It's worked great for me so far
"Here's where things get slightly interesting!" is a really good tagline for this whole channel
Yes but actually, yes.
super easy barely an inconvenience ...
@@runnerr000 LOL, wrong channel?
This man's impression of water glugging at 18:05 is first rate.
Yes, how long has he practiced that?
We need bloopers
Worthy of an Emmy at the very least.
Honestly, his sound effect sounded *more* like water "glugging" than the humidifier did!
The mist ones which throw minerals can also throw sodium into your air. I had one for a while and all the natural gas flames in the house turned orange. A lighter inside and outside indicated it was in the air and not the gas, so a little armature spectroscopy let me work out sodium with my HPS lamp as a reference. That was a satisfying day.
Use pure distilled water, that way there won't be any minerals in it.
@@pickledfur spotted the cheese grater connoisseur
@@Cobalt985 :]
Is it bad for you to have sodium in the air?
@@fackloar The main problem is that all of the minerals in the water that evaporates will turn into dust, very very small dust at that. It might be fine, it might depend on the specific minerals in your water, or it might just be a big problem. All the studies so far mainly seem to point out that, yes, if you use an ultrasonic humidifier with tap water you get a massive increase in very small dust particles in the air. It's problem a good idea to stick to the safe side and either not use ultrasonic humidifiers, or use them with demineralised water. Keep in mind, this isn't the same as water-softening, some water softening systems still leave plenty of minerals in the water, just not the ones that cause scale.
When the air is too dry I take a shower.
The only channel where I would say "Oh! Humidifiers! I gotta watch!", and actually mean it.
“it’s blue. Why is it blue?”
Yes, damn it, WHY?!? There goes your night vision, and it’s straining on the eyes. It’s like they get the blue LEDs for free and a subsidy for every LED they can cram into their product.
I believe blue LEDs were the hardest to produce, and the most expensive for a while. That's why they're slingshotting to using them constantly now that they're finally cheap and available. That and most people like blue best.
As far as I'm concerned, the problem's the intensity
It is their higher voltage drop. This helps with the design.
They want to control those 14 LEDs using the fewest umber of processor pins, so they can use the cheapest little micro controller. Today's microcontrollers can set their pins to three states - high or on, low or off, and as an input, which lets the pin float to any value. They can use these three states to make a small number of pins control a large number of LEDs, using something called tri-state multiplexing or charlieplexing. Look it up, but the key point here is that you need the voltage to make the LEDs you are using to turn on to be more than half the voltage of the processor. This is important because charlieplexing will, to light various single LEDs, often end up putting power across two other LEDs in series. If the voltage drop was low, those two would also light up.
Processors generally run on 5 volts, and blue LEDs need 3 volts to turn on. 2 blue LEDs in series would need 6 volts to turn on, so there's no problem. Red, amber and green LEDs run on 1 to 2 volts. If a product wants to use other coloured LEDs, they would use a blue or even a near ultra-violet LED to pump a coloured phosphor. But this is more expensive.
So blue LEDs are used because, for the design, they are cheapest.
@@robertbackhaus8911 Fascinating, thank you!
Unfortunately it's cheaper to build, and since i can't read anything in bright blue (seriously, i have a clock with a blue 7 segment display only for show bcouse its just impossible for me to read), i really miss the old red leds on stuff...
@@Roalethiago Red lenses were used by the military for flash lights, since red light damages one's "night vision" (natural ability to see in the dark with minimal light, anyways) less than other colors, and blue light has been proven to stimulate the brain and hinder the release of melatonin (a chemical that helps you sleep). I'm totally down with "vintage" red on every LED. 👍
Instead of the soap dispenser, you could use a bettix bottle to accurately measure your dosage each time. These are commonly used by brewers and aquarium owners.
Many people may have seen a similar concept to these with mouthwash bottles marketed for kids. You squeeze the bottle and liquid flows up to where it can be measured. This can then be dispensed by pouring out.
also, I read an article a week or so ago that said: new research might show that dry, cold air negatively impacts the native microbe flora in our noses, making it easier for pathogens to get into our bodies and make us ill. I didn't read the study myself but this would definitely make sense to me! Yay humidifiers
"Here's where things get slightly interesting!" Should be a catchphrase on this channel, which I mean in the best way possible.
@@egesanl1 old timey *brown font
Came for the interesting, stayed for the slightly interesting!
That would make it Quite Interesting if it was British
@@moonlad3835 *ahem* dark orange
"adding salt" was a dead giveaway that it's an electrode boiler.
it have two carbon rods with electricity running from one to the other by the salty water.
Anyone here a fan of DiodeGoneWild? MORE SAAAAALT!
@@puckcat22679 its the method used for maintaining the swimming pools,you add table salt,apply the electrical current by electrodes,and voila,you chlorinated water
NaCl + H2O + ENERGY → NaOCl + H2
they also used it to produce sodium hypochlorite from seawater.
Yes it is from the owners manual. I have to go buy one, now. "Mooorreee SAAAALLLLTT"
So basically, a "stinger" heater, like convicts make with an extension cord?
When you use something sometimes advertised as an air cooler to make your heated air more comfortable in the winter, you know you’re living the life
[PHOTO OF DICAPRIO TOASTING AND WINKING]
I have an amazing air humidifier too. It's called a laundry rack, and it saves energy on both drying the laundry and humidifying the air! Neat!
“Quicklier”
“Simulated wood-grain excellence”
Must be Americanish English ;)
I was looking for this comment. Quicklier?!?
"Quicklier" is my second-favorite comparative adverbjective. My favorite adverbjective is "Easilier."
Wordreference . Com says it's not a Word. Every other website says "it is but isn't".
“I traveled to the exotic lands of, Walmart”
It really feels that way sometimes
Its like a safari full of strange evolutionary dead ends.
Outside my house is exotic lands
I had a friend with an expensive Schimmel piano. The room where it was kept had a humidifier and a dehumidifier. That humidifier was a console with a large, slowly spinning, perforated disk. It had one side basically summerged and rotated as a fan blew on it. It reminded me of a small-holed of an old-fashioned bubble blowing machine.
It seemed to work very quickly.
I watched half of this, realised I'd just bought a DEhumidifier, and knew I should probably should watching as I was learning too many unnecessary things.
This guy's brilliant! :D
Nice evaporators will have a couple features these lack:
1) a shallow trough just high enough for the wick to draw from rather than a big basin (reduces "unusable" water volume)
2) a UV light which will sterilize the water in the trough to keep it sanitary for longer periods
@@toastedbuuns13 The one I have is a small (one-room) model. Honeywell HCM-350. (out-of-=stock currently?) www.honeywellstore.com/store/products/honeywell-uv-cool-moisture-germ-free-humidifier-black-hcm-350b.htm
yeah I use A huge one for my house and use RODI water with it but always add anti bacteria stuff because that stuff is a breading ground but not as bad as the real ultra sonics.
@@andspenrob I have that one and I can recommend it. I live in Seattle and it has plenty of capability to keep a 800 sq ft condo comfortable in our weather.
UV lights are off dubious efficacy. The problem is that they can't really work once there's a buildup of limescale. So you still need to clean it regularly (once every 3 days or so). The nice thing about HCM-350 is that many of the parts are dishwasher safe, so it makes it easier to clean.
There's some pricier humidifiers that require much less frequent cleaning thanks to additives, like the Venta LW15/25.
Generally speaking, evaporative humidifiers are going to be easier to clean - but ultrasonic ones can humidify quicker - whereas most evaporative ones have the advantage of staying at 40-60% (ideally you prob. want 50).
@@toastedbuuns13 I got a taotronics that cost about $50 that uses a sonic disc to put the water out. Output is seriously large, like a gallon in a couple of hours. It has changed my life! I usually had once side of my nasal passages clogged all my life until now.
7:46 "I've apparently uncovered something of a mist-ery"
I see what you did there...
I recently moved from the very rainy Portland area to the mountains of the BC interior. I was not prepared for how dry the winter would be.
We managed to find a steal of a deal on a lightly-used Honeywell single [large] room unit, and while the proprietary wicks are ridiculously expensive, they don’t need to be replaced very often because the humidifier has a genius feature: a UV bulb that sits over the water pool just before the wick! It never gets musty, and the wick only develops very faint mildewy smell after a couple months of daily use. You can really only smell it if you bring it right up to your nose, and a good rinse will almost completely get the smell out. I love this thing, it’s so low maintenance and easily keeps our bedroom at 50-60% with the door cracked open.
The fact that you called out the bright-ass LED display lights got me instantly to subscribe. Drives me insane, I feel like a crazy person putting tape on all my electronic devices just so they stop using up my brain's attention pointlessly.
"It's brown, and therefore, excellent."
I love this channel
BBC
oh you mean darker orange?
"This is John... I mean... The Wick."
As soon as i saw it's color i knew he would say something about it. Really like this humor.
That 3 gallon AirCare humidifier is now trending on home depot LOL
Airfare is spewing mold
I did the “wet towel” budget humidifier once when I didn’t have access to a real one - it worked like a charm! Though it required hanging three damp bath towels in a small room…definitely a “cheapskate college kid” solution, but it’s vindicating to see the same thing recommended here!
Got into the humidifier game last year and ended up getting a SmartMi. It's a 4L "smart" model. The nice thing about it is that it doesn't even use wicks. Instead there's a few dozens textured solid plastic discs rotating in the reservoir. The discs pull the water in front of the fan which proceeds to evaporate it. Power consumption is great too: about 8W over 12h to go through the reservoir, or roughly 91Wh/gallon. Very quiet too. The reservoir is one large, square bucket with little to no crannies and nooks, so it is very easy to clean, and the discs can be simply popped into the dishwasher (or hand scrubbed). I also really like the minimal aesthetics of the product. Venta makes similar products, although some of their models have filters and "hygiene discs" that need frequent replacing, and Desert Spring manufactures a Furnace Humidifier, also disc-based and meant to be attached to central HVAC.
"And the fan makes this go even quicklier". You sir, are a treasure.
"That's why they call it John!" I had to pause there cause I was dying at that joke.
just don't kill its dog or it's gonna kill your entire neighbourhood
OH MY GOD!!! that joke went miles over my head XD. so glad i saw your comment lol
Just got theBrown Aircare Large Console you highlighted in this video! They have completely redesigned the interior. I am certain it is because of this video. No longer any tank… 4 wicks and two fans side by side. Even the Blue LED is not very bright! Well Done!
I bought a version of the console humidifier like yours. My rh was 16%!!! I’ve had this humidifier running on high speed for a few hours and already has the first floor up to 40%. I imagine all of the wood work and floors, piano, and guitars will soak up the moisture, so I set it to 55%. After a week or so I’ll set it to 45%. Thank you!
Here in the Netherlands older homes have porcelain water containers hanging on the radiators, which you fill with water so it evaporates when the heating is on. They're pretty old fashioned, but have the advantage of having no moving parts or maintenance. Plus they often have some classy drawing on them, as old porcelain does.
An aunt of mine used to have those here in the UK too.
sounds lovely
In Poland you can buy them still in many hardware stores.
My dad, here in the US, had a portable radiator, he just stuck an old pot filled with water on it.
Now I want one to complement my tulip vase. Are the water containers also white and blue? (Is all white and blue called Delft porcelain?)
"It's Brown, and therefore, excellent."
Brown or, dark orange?
Yes.
Orange with context
same thing
@@andrewsprojectsinnovations6352 Darn, you beat me to it...
As long as it isn't lightish red, we're good.
Surprised you never mentioned those big consoles, similar in appearance to your brown one.
These had a rotating drum with wicking material around it's circumference which dipped in water and the fan... etc, again like your brown one.
I remember seeing a few of these in Canadian homes with electric baseboard heating in the 70's.
My grandma had one of those
"Its brown and therefore excellent"
we used to have one of those in our kitchen when I was young.... I wish I could get one now. And the drum is a much better way than a pump because the whole bottom was full of water. My mom would just dump a bucket of water into the thing every once in a while.
I had one of those years ago and really miss it. Didn't have to buy expensive wicks every year and the wicking material was easy to clean. Progress.
seeing that brown "console" humidifier brought back all kinds of memories from my grandmother's house. I can't seem to find images online of anything similar or remember if it was a humidifier or dehumidifier. I just remember it was really long, rectangular, had some kind of wood grain exterior pattern, and had water and big rotating drum/wheel on the inside.
I recently bought a humidifier from AirCare, mostly because of this video, and it looks like someone there watched this video. Most complaints seems to be fixed. It uses a green, less bright display, has a function to run until the water is over (and warns about it on the display) and the entire upper part goes off for cleaning. =D
Not perfect but it got better, in my opinion. The model I bought is the AIRCARE MA1201.
Thanks for all the information in this video. It helped me a lot since I recently moved to Canada and where I came from we never need a humidifier and I had no idea which one would be a good fit for me.
It wouldnt supruse me if this is a parts bin special product made of things they already have a stock of in the factory
P
"Light dim decal" is a product I didn't know existed and now urgently need.
They are amazing, last week I put them on all the LED and lit LCDs in my bedroom and that night I had the best sleep I’ve had in a long time. Fell asleep faster.
Years ago, I added a small fountain pump to my circa 1990's Kenmore tabletop evaporative humidifier, with tubing leading to small nozzles distributed across the top of the pad.
It makes no additional noise at all and boosted the output of the unit by a factor of about four.
Amazingly high output.
It also has had the added benefit of keeping the entire pad constantly wet, completely eliminating the buildup of minerals on the pad.
Unfortunately, most tabletop models don't have a sufficiently deep or accessible sump to accommodate such a retrofit.
I also set the humidistat to have it run constantly from fall until spring.
Where I live, 24/7 run time is needed to maintain 50% RH in the winter months.
Great video.
You explained beautifully.
I understood a few new things.
Well thank you.
I put a wet towel on the radiator.
I fill him with water every night.
It will start to stink over time, but if it's just the smell that gets into the air and not the bacteria, it's okay for me.
I plan to make a plastic band that I hang on the radiator.
The more bandas, or larger bandas, the more moisture and regulates itself according to humidity.
Ladies and gentlemen and whoever in between, we have reached Clark Kent levels of hair styling in this one.
Only Clark Kent wears glasses.
@@m.degroot6837 well ok this is superman.
Superman in brown suit
I was literally about to comment how great his hair looks in this video
I think his mom did his hair ;D
I live in the Western Rockies, on the line where it becomes technically desert, and the indoor humidity stays at 15% year-round
My grandparents heat their house with a wood stove, so they just put a pot of water on a brick on top of it to humidify their house
And if the pot drip, you can call it a sauna :D
I do this as well. Here in Rural Vermont it's called a "Yankee Humidifier".
Somehow, whenever I get curious about how something works I always find a video here on this channel. Thank you
That whole house humidifier is very similar to the one I have, albeit a bit newer, and mine has two water tanks. Same brand too. Pretty cool to have a detailed description of how it works! I have to change my wicks every two months because of the poor quality water around my community. Even with filters and water softeners, it gets nasty and smells like a literal swamp in a couple months. I thought about installing a humidifier with my new furnace but I was worried about mold in my HVAC system.
The blue light display tangent resonated with me, and i'm glad someone feels the same way. It deserves a whole video.
And that little piece of like static-cling window tint he applied, made it look so much better!
Even worse for clocks. You have to go out of your way to get one with dull red light instead of the bright blue that lights up your entire town.
Here in SE Asia many air conditioning units have the bright light. I can't sleep. Blu Tac helps
Same! I cover all of the lights with electrical tape. I set humidity based on comfort, so I don't need to see the number at all.
Blue LED's are the worst.
A 3d printer would be a great investment for this channel. Being able to test theories could be valuable for content.
I live in Wisconsin and love that we get a taste of all seasons. With that said I always need to use hand lotion in winter because of cracked hands.
Although I recently got a dog so maybe for his sake I will finally breakdown and buy one for us.
Never knew there was so many things to know about humidifiers! Thanks for the info!
Gotta say, as someone who DID grow up in an arid desert, bless swamp coolers! I fondly remember the huge window unit we had. Also remember being a kid and noticing how poorly it worked when it did rain -- love those early science lessons learned through living!
When I was little, we heated our house with wood stoves, so there were cast iron kettles simmering on the stove for this purpose.
We still use them.
We used cake or roasting pans set on the wood stove :)
"Man's greatest enemy is not the devil nor even man, himself, but those darn blue LEDs in home humidifiers"
-Kierkegaard (probably)
At least it's not as bad as it used to be, when blue LEDs first hit the market manufacturers would put them in everything, often it wasn't an indicator or anything it was just a random bright blue light just for the sake of having a random bright blue light
@@RailBuffRob so basically every one if my arduino projects?
hehe blue light shiny....
I had a guitar pedal with a blue LED that did illuminate my face on stage very brightly
@@RailBuffRob I was in Europe in a nice hotel.... the stupid internet TV box... Superbright white LED was ON when in standby. It would turn OFF when the unit was on. 25,000 MCD 10 degree dispersion ice white LED to light up the room at night.
In a previous job we often tested (TV) set-top boxes. One of them we were working on for a while had a tiny surface-mount blue LED. It was so bright that we'd tape over it so we didn't get after-images looking anywhere near it.
Between the common super bright LEDs and the common LEDs that are *on* when the unit is *off* and vice-versa - who came up with that anyway?
I love your videos and the amount of effort you put into each one. I really appreciate all your hard work. Thank you for being you.
A plus to the boiler type is that if one is already using electric heat, the unit is just another source of heat. For my home, the best solution I found was a combination cold/warm mist humidifier. To avoid white dust without having to purchase distilled water, I fill it using water from a Zero Water filter pitcher. (Unlike most filter pitchers, the filter for those removes dissolved solids).
I remember at my grandmothers house they just used ceramic containers hanging on the radiators.....fill with water and as soon as the heating came on, water started evaporating.
They do get gross though.
Same! We also put a pot of water on a wood stove!
That sounds simpler to clean though, depending on the shape of the container. My problem with humidifiers is all the nooks and crannies that if not cleaned seemed to get slimy and gross.
Thanks, you just reminded me I have to fill mine!
I now remember that at my parent's place, we used to have these plastic containers you could hang onto the radiator with hooks and fill them with water. The heat coming off the radiator ended up making the plastic porous and they started leaking. Fun times!
@@allawa we just line dry out clothes inside
11:45 "...with simulated wood grain excellence."
*Clint Basinger has entered the chat*
LGR also joined the chat
That's who LGR is, Robert
21:34 This design was described to me by my grandfather as a "bush fridge" for keeping food cool while camping! Just rigging up a square frame of sticks and hanging hessian across the top and down the sides into a supply of water with whatever you want to keep cool hanging inside.
Your cube wall is inspiring.
I imagine bringing in an air hose + attachment to pneumatically ‘dust’.
"I had a bit of an Epiphany in recent days." Yeah it was January 6th.
You think they'd have a stand alone evaporative humidifier with the ability to be hooked up to supply water, but I guess that starts to get into the realm of those installed ones.
I put one on our forced air furnace. 10/10 would recommend. It's a box that goes between the intake and hot air side of the furnace. It has a honeycomb wick that the water trickles down over. Any water that isn't evaporated drains out the bottom. Thus not harboring mold dust etc. It has a electronic hydrostat as well as a air valve. So you can control when it runs and how much moisture it adds.
Sounds even more simple than a stand alone unit. One moving part is the 24 volt water solenoid
I also built one of the spot humidifiers with a bucket, an aquarium water pump, a 120mm computer fan, and a off the shelf humidifier pad for a furnace. Water tickles down the wik and to the bottom and back up. Works great for the area our orchids are in.
14:24 I love how much this improves the display
I'm imagining a wick that can traverse up and down with the aid of a pontoon float on its sides... Get that super duper tank capacity and no pump required and no drizzle sound. The wick could float to the top when the tank is full then slowly drop down (always keeping its bottom 1" or 2" submerged) totally silently 😁👍
Loved this video!
Smart concept!
I myself began thinking of a rotating wick instead.
@@samerm8657, that's exactly how Smartmi Air Humidifier 2 works! They use several plastic disks with hexagonal pattern to catch more water as a wick, and this disks placed vertically in tank of water and slowly rotated. Works great as an idea, but in this particular unit manufacturer hided from software humidity limit setting, so if you are not kind of person who want install modified apps on your smartphone I would not recommend buying this one.
@DevianrOllam Glad to see I am not the only one who had this rather obvious thought.
When I was a kid, my grandparents had one that was about 4 feet tall with a wick that was essentially a vertical rotating belt. It ran over a fan as it rotated.
@@samerm8657 My uncle has one. Large foam wheel that rotates past the fan. Also great that cleaning out the air. Starts to look like a used air filter.
THANK YOU for the tangent on the unnecessary blue LED lights. I can't STAND LED lights that don't need to be there or that are WAY too bright. Same thing can be said for unnecessary beeps.
Same thing with cheap, panel-mount voltmeters for batteries and such. Not blue, in my case, but putrid neon green ain't much better. Granted, the only one I regularly use I rarely need to use in the dark and it can be shut off, but still. WHY?
I was once in a hotel that had a motion activated light for the bathroom so you didn't have to turn the light on at night... It was BLUE! Literally the worst colour at night! Style over substance
@@philipcorner574 It's not even stylish, because blue LEDs are everywhere, which indicate lack of taste. I personally like green for one color and green/amber or white(dim)/amber. Latter looks more interesting for me
I bought an ultrasonic humidifier a while ago, and it had built-in lighting as an extra bonus. Guess what color scorched my eyes when I turned it on… Who on earth, aside from brothels, wants to use pure monochromatic blue light? It didn't take long before I ordered a set of warm-white LEDs and disassembled the whole damn thing to replace the LEDs. Due to the weird design it was difficult to solder them and I had to fix bad connections twice, but it was absolutely worth it.
Trying to play anything on a 2DS/3DS at night, you almost wish the battery was low. Set the brightness to anything that doesn't hurt your eyes, and to no avail because of that disgustingly bright blue power LED.
That and the display on our cable TV box. They even tried making it dim the panel when it's turned off and showing the clock but... not enough for night. The solution was a piece of X-ray sheet that we flip on top of it to sleep. Still bright enough to see the clock anyway.
that dimming decal looks so incredibly good I can't believe it isn't on it by default...
I have an essential oil diffuser. It is filled with water with a couple of drops of oil added. Sometimes I run it with plain water and it just diffuses water into the air for me! Super convenient, and looks nice too!
Currently watching this while I fill my pre wash detergent compartment on my dishwasher. Love how informative your channel is
Lol, I saw that video, too. I've been telling everyone that complains about their dishwasher that using the "pods" doesn't work as well because there is nothing for the prewash.
I love this channel.
omg so am I LOL
It takes 30 min to fill your detergent how many dishes are you doing?
@@rachelt2415 he didn't watch the latest video about too much detergent apparently
@@rachelt2415 😆
"even quicklier" my new favorite phrase!
I have one of those big brown house humidifiers from Sears from 1970’s. No LED display, but the evaporator belt moved through the water in the bottom then up to the top and back down to the water. Humidity was controlled via a dial, fan speed by another dial. Still working.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! For including metric system (Celsius in this case) in your videos.
>go to friend's house
>he has a humidifier
>pour 2-liter of root beer in it
>leave
Evil
Once upon a time I saw a question on Yahoo Answers.
"What would happen if I peed in a humidifier?"
@@caedisnightingale5575 Evil...Genius
@@deltab9768 Unus Annus pee sauna
@@deltab9768 "this room suddenly smells like my girlfriend's house"
Chief: "what's that?"
Monk: "a humidifier."
Chief: "and what's that?"
Monk: "a dehumidifier."
Chief: "don't they... Kinda... Cancel each other out?"
Monk: "exactly!"
everything in balance
Think about it like this: You can teleport water!
id523a
Lmao
I've always used the weird Vicks one (with no vicks vapor whatevers they sell). The water in my area is pretty hard so it starts without needing any additional salts. And standing above hot steam when sick is lovely.
Ngl, the “it’s brown and therefore excellent” comment caught me off guard and had me chuckling for a solid minute. As a fellow midwesterner who has wrestled with the ultrasonic and boil-ey small humidifiers for years, I will be gleefully taking your advice this winter. Great video!
"they call it John...I'm sorry, the wick"
finally someone note the joke
Surprised he didn't tie it to the recently mentioned "matrix"
Yeah I know right
"To my fellow Midwesterners, Menards..."
Hey, he really is one of us!
He knew exactly where he was going with that before he said it. 😂
Ope™
I lived in the Midwest my whole life, or up until a couple years ago, and we NEVER had a Menards. My grandma's town had one, so I knew of Menards, but we didn't have one within 100 miles. I recently went to visit my parents, now they have 2, 2!
@@keiffitz689 Spotted the Minnesotan / Wisconsinite!
I'm surprised that they opened up locations in my state, West Virginia.
When I was a kid, we had standing radiators for heat... our standard winter humidifier method was a pan of water on top of the radiator.
When we purchased our home with hot water baseboard heat, we got a console humidifier, but ours had two-2.5 gal. jugs, but I discovered that the vents were high enough that I could fill it with 5-gal plus the jugs to provide enough water to get it to run for 24-hours (our house was very dry...).
After we renovated, we ended up putting in one that is installed in the basement and is tied into our Nest thermostat. This unit blows humid air through a floor register and has a direct connection to the hot water supply. It has a "wick" in it, but unlike the wick in the console models, this one has the water enter form the top and cascade down it as a fan draws air through it...
I recently bought a Philips 3000 Series Humidifier and I love it! I had 25-30% of humidity (ventilation system I can't turn off. Ah the joy of renting), this thing gets the room it's in to 40-45, depending on room size. I chose an evaporative humidifier because they don't spew as much bacteria into the air.
"it is brown, and therefore, excellent."
Ugh, FINE, I'll go watch the "Brown" video AGAIN.
Mr. Regular be like "BROWNBROWNBROWNBROWNBROWN"
Pfft, I think you mean it's dark orange
Can't argue with that logic.
The fight against blue LEDs is more of an uphill battle than you think - these things are so popular, they won their own Nobel prize in physics.
It annoys the piss out of me. And it's not even particularly the fact that every appliance manafacturer uses blue leds, but the fact that they're always overly bright and not diffused at all. Some of them are even straight light beams for god's sake... What happened to the days that electronic manafacturers just put normal, nicely diffused led's that just emit enough light to be seen when looked at and not light up any objects in the dark? They're purpose is serve as status indicators for a product, not to be meant for some kind of light show for christ's sake...
@@Aomicplane It's not for lack of complaint, that's for sure. People have been complaining about overly bright blue light indicators on electronics for quite literally the entire 21st century.
@@z-beeblebrox Blue LEDs are usually the worst offenders, but these days they even use other color LEDs that can be as offensively bright. I recently got a coffee machine as a gift, which has both a green LED and red LED. These LEDs are of the SMD kind and are covered by a transparent piece of plastic with 0 diffusing. These literally light the whole kitchen and even part of the living room when the lights are out. Seriously how hard is it for manafacturers to spend like 1 or 2 dollars more on either decent diffusing, a LED which is by itself already diffused (these are actually purposely made to be used as status lights) or if they really want to be cost-saving just a proper resistor?
@@Aomicplane Cost efficient circuit design is actually why they are using such strong SMD LEDs. If they used a weaker LED they would need much more robust AC to DC circuitry, especially in the case of a mains device that does not require a lot of DC power (sub 200ma). Cheap buck transformers tend to flicker LEDs at very low currents, even more so on 7 Segment displays (due to the variability of current draw depending on the lit segments).
The solution to the induced common ground noise/spurious conduction is simple, yet costly on an economy of scale. You'd have to add at least a few resistors and relays, and then, most importantly, deal with the heat generated. This also would involve additional lot testing, different enclosure and PCB specs. Hence, just make that LED "soak" all the current it can to lessen the possibility of flicker, generated heat, and use less components in the process.
@@patricktrudeau1996 - I'm not buying any of that difficulty of design. I believe the super bright LEDs are used because the stuff is coming from China and there is no feedback from consumer to manufacturer.
Awesome video. Thank you for the detailed and personalized explanation!
I really love this channel. Its a deep dive into shower thoughts. Thank you for your hard work!
This is one of my favorite "the boss is out" at-work channels.
Best part: Boss knows, doesn't care.
Seems to make a great difference if you watch videos or work...
The bright LEDs are my bane, I have masking tape over every source I can manage in my living space.
Lol. I thought l had to be the only sane person to do that! Being that you're clearly of a kindred spirit I'll even share my "generation 2.o version" of our masking tape hack.
Instead of JUST tape, I've started adding the little colored paper adhesive sticker labels that are for pricing your stuff at yard sales. You can experiment with different combinations of colored stickers to balance out what is usually a horrible color in LED bulbs.
A little masking tape, a couple of red stickers, a yellow and an orange one here and there.... And voila! I've actually got a pleasantly warm LED light.
FoulOwl ive taken stuff apart and crushed the bulbs
I bought a roll of 5% window tint and put that over them. Some sources I put 2 layers on.
My computer case has a bright white LED behind the power switch that is only on when the computer is on. The case also has a tempered glass panel on the side and vents in the front and back that you can see through.
So let that sink in.
Apparently, that bright LED is the only way I could ever possibly tell that my computer is on. Certainly not the fact that I can literally see the fan running and the other lights inside the case come on. I’ve had that power light long since covered with a piece of electrical tape, as I’ll usually leave my computer running overnight to render/upload stuff.
@@spartan117zm There is a couple power indicators inside the case of mine. on the motherboard. at least I was able to turn off the RGB lights in bios for when the machine is powered down but plugged in.
wait a second. I love this channel so much because it's one rare gem where the presenter just always gets it right; but I think, I did spot some minor incorrectness: it's called relative humidity not because it's relative to the human body, or something, but simply because it's relative to the current temperature. it's not an absolute value .. you charge the temperature and humidity will change as well despite the exact same amount of water dissolved into the air .. hence, "relative."
as someone who once owned one of those console humidifiers i actually had one that was a dual fan setup with a manual humidistat.. the way i got past the float switch problem in it was i had bypassed it with a good piece of duct tape to hold the switch down so when it was out of water the filter could actually dry out. the only problem is that it made it harder to keep track of the water level due to the float switch not shutting the unit off. but thats a little thing you encounter with that.. a generic piece of duct tape.. (when placed right) was actually sufficient enough to hold the switch closed without having to pull the fan apart and completely bypassing it. the thing worked great for years after that