AIRCARE Digital Whole-House Pedestal-Style Evaporative Humidifier (Espresso)

I give this product 5 stars because after a ton of research, I think it is about as good as you will get, so it deserves to be ranked at the top. In terms of doing what it is intended, generate humidity, it is excellent ! That said, there is defiantly room for improvement of a few accounts.As per many other reviews, it is noisy on the higher speeds. Speed 1 is the slowest which is quite quiet, but you know its there. Speed 4 or 5 is about as fast as I like to run it when I am within 10ft of it. Speed 9 is loud, but very effective. I've not had it long, but I plan to run it fairly low during the day when we are near it. At night, while we are quite a way from it, I will run it on a high level. Given the range of noise produced, I thing having nine speed settings if the right number of speeds to find a level you are comfortable with.As per many other reviews, it appears to over read the humidity level. I expect its probably accurate and the humidity immediately around the humidifier is higher that say, 10 for away from it. This is more of a learning exercise than a problem. I have mine set on 50 while my echbee(s) report around 35. It only took a day or two to get the desired effect.The max fill water line is rather close to the top of the water container. I am quite cautious to move it slowly and cautiously when its full to avoid any water sloshing over the top. I have had no spillage to date, but its good to be aware of this fact. I made this comment as I read some people wheel it over to a water supply. I bring the water to the humidifier in a watering can.I do not like the design for refilling it much. Its quite annoying to have to get the little funnel each time you want to refill it, and find a place to store it. I read numerous reviews about people being unable to fill it without spilling water. I have found it easy to fill with a little caution. I have been using a watering can with the sprinkler piece removed. The end of the watering can must not be rested on their funnel as it would be knocked off and result in a mess. I intend to buy a foot of flexible plastic tube to put on the end of the watering can so I won't need the clumsy funnel. One of my reasons for choosing this model was the fact that you did not have a removable refillable container. I am very pleased with my choice and find this approach much better that my previous experiences.The first time I filled it up, I had to get a light so I could see the maximum fill line. This seem quite a pain. Then I plugged it in only to discover it has a small light inside which makes it very easy to see. Plug it in when filling, lol.The two pictures I attached are from two of my ecobee thermostats. The vertical line is positioned at the time I started the unit. The graph shows my indoor humidity shooting up over an hour or two as the outdoor humidity drops,This unit seems to provide a good amount of humidity to a much larger area than advertised. I was planning on getting a second one if I liked this one, but it seems that I probably do not need to.It looks quite presentable and is not an eye sore in a newly renovated kitchen. I also like the exchangeable tile recessed in the top which you can replace. I quite like the one provided though and so I stuck with that.All in all, its not perfect, but its solved all my humidity issues better that all my previous attempts.

We live in northern Colorado, in a 2 story 1200 sq ft home, with standard 8 ft ceilings. The winter relative humidity (RH) in our home would typically run in the low single digits, causing lots of static electricity and other issues. After looking at many humidifier units, and considering a professionally installed HVAC humidifier, we opted for this pedestal style wicking humidifier. We've had the unit for 3 weeks.It's simple to put together out of the box, with simple instructions. I didn't realize when we purchased it that a remote control was an option, but I don't think we'll ever get one. It's easy to fill with water, easy to set controls, and it's fairly quiet at low fan settings. At medium to high fan speeds, it's not what I'd call quiet. Fan settings are from 1 (low) to 9 (max). The noise is a white noise, and ironically, white noise generators are for sale on Amazon (lol). I just checked with a decibel meter, and at 3 feet away at fan setting 1, I measured about 58 db. At fan setting 5 I measured 65 db, and at fan setting 9 I measured 69 db (As i'm typing this review, at 1 foot from the keyboard I'm measuring about 70 db). The db meter indicates 58-70 db as in a "normal conversation" range. If we're in the room with the humidifier watching tv, we turn it down to 1 and never notice it. Above 3-4, we'd begin to notice the fan noise. I personally like white noise. We set the fan speed to 5 or below when we're home, and turn it up to 9 when we leave the house.Filling with water is easy, although sometimes I spill a little on the floor. For the first 10 days typically I would add about 2 gallons of water in the morning, and 2 gallons in the evening. Over the last week, I've been adding 1 - 2 gallons each time I refill the water bath.It took almost 10 days for the whole house to reach about 30-35% relative humidity, and for the first several days we didn't see much improvement in RH. I knew we were adding about 4 gallons of water a day to the inside air, but it took that long to have a measurable impact. The unit's humidity sensor (hygrometer) is on the power cable a few feet from the unit, and understandably reads higher RH than the other hygrometers that I have: 2 hygrometers downstairs, and 2 upstairs. We run the HVAC fan most of the time to circulate the humidified air throughout the house. As an experiment, we turned the HVAC fan off for a few hours, and the downstairs RH increased to almost 50%.After a day or so, the wick developed a light brown-ish color on the topmost air intake side, presumably from minerals in the water drying out, but the wick in that location was still wet. The discoloration was perhaps the top 1/5 of the wick surface area, and stabilized after a few days. After a week, I rotated the wick so that the brown portion was in the water bath, and the brown color went away. The new topmost air intake side discolored again, but the wick was still wet. Running the fan on high probably contributes to the brown color, and now that we've got the house humidified, we've been running the fan on lower speeds, and the brownish area seems to be smaller in size.I've used the bacteriostatic solution occasionally (2-3 times a week), and it hasn't caused the wick to become dry, like some reviews have mentioned. After 3 weeks, we haven't noticed any musty smell.We're very happy with this unit thus far.

I have about an 800sqft appartment that has electric heat. It get too dry. Meter reads 28% in the winter. Nose was dry and i was sneezing alot. I also have guitars that i keep in cases with humidity packs to keep them properly humidified. My packs were drying out in about a month or so. I got this humifier and my packs no longer dry out in the winter months... They are ment to keep the guitars at about 50% humidity. I set tye humidity control to 50% amd run the fan on about 2. This is a louder unit on the higher setting though not to bad on lower settings. i feel my guitar and health r worth it. I fill it about once a day. I dont like the fill port its useless... i just lift the whole unit off the tub base, its easy and no mess is made. Be carefull and take ur time when doing that... it must be lined up good or u could break the plastic inside the unit. This unit leave no white dust in the house like the other types of humidifiers. In fact it filters the air. U will notice it on the filter. I got the unit begining of winter and used it till about mid april on one filter... prob still has some life left in it. All in all i feel this is a good unit. It does my living room and my bed room to within about 5% of the setting on the unit... i have checked this with my guitar humidity gage at various locations. It also does the rest of the app too but not as close maybe within 8% to 10. With a more open layout and a fan circulating u may have better results.