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.

After a few winters of ownership, I am mainly satisifed because I have tried many others, and this , overall, suits my needs. As others have said, it is noisy on anything but Fan setting 1. It sits 10 feet away from me in the center of the home in the living room. It seems to keep humidity levels pleasant. The housing that holds the filter has cracked twice, so it is taped and glued together to retain the element in proper position. I will not go back to a mist unit because they require distilled water unless you want to spend days and hours cleaning crud out of the super fine orifices they need to operate. No Thanks. I preferred this to the two tank style due to just pouring water in the lower reservoir on this unit. I might try the executive model with tanks to see if the fully adjustable fan speed would help but I am hesitant. Haven't found anything that strikes me as better than what I have....glue tape and all.

The AIRCARE EP9 humidifier quickly increases humidity and maintains it. It is noisy if you have the fan speed up high, but quite acceptable at low speeds which one uses to maintain a particular humidity level. One can easily sleep in the same room with the unit on level 1. The humidity sensor does run a few percentage points high, likely because the sensor is on the power cord, not quite a foot away from the machine. I purchased inexpensive hygrometers to verify the humidity levels around the house, and found that I needed to set the automatic humidity level on the machine about 5 percentage points higher than the level I wanted to maintain. Note this machine runs until it reaches the humidity level you've chosen, and then it shuts off. If the humidity drops, it will start up again, allowing one to maintain a set humidity. Very convenient in that regard. It holds a good amount of water, but I prefer to keep the level at about two thirds of the max, to avoid any water spilling when refilling or bumping the machine. It comes with casters, which make it easy to roll the machine to different positions. I like it. I am a musician and have a collection of wooden acoustic instruments, and I also have wood floors throughout my home. A quality humidifier prevents damage and separation of the wood, and is essential in dry winters or when using a lot of air conditioning in summer. FWIW, I have a four level home with an open floor plan and I bought four of these units, only to discover that two units are plenty! I do have one unit relatively near the main HVAC air intake, however, and that may explain the fine distribution of humidity throughout the home. On another note, three units arrived in perfect shape, but one was damaged in shipping. I contacted Amazon and they sent a replacement immediately, although I did have to repack the broken unit and transport it to the local UPS store. Overall, these are nice units, especially when used on the quieter, low fan setting. They look nice, not fancy or expensive, but quite acceptable, and they do the job. Be prepared to get a large water can or big bucket to fill them... I bought a 6 gallon Igloo water container. It works!

I bought this in Jan 2018 after my furnace humidifier went out and the cost of replacing that was overly expensive. After reading many positive reviews, I decided to go with this unit. I did not get one with a remote, but with it's automatic features, I really do not need one. It was fairly easy to assemble and set up and get running. My house is probably about 2,400 square feet with 2 floors. I set the unit in a central area and has been able to keep the house about the correct humidity level during the winter when the gas furnace is running. Some of the back rooms, further away from the unit, do not get the same humidity level, but I believe this unit does a pretty good job, especially for the price. It looks good and the top plastic tile is a nice accent. The humidity sensor/display does seem to read about 5% higher than the actual humidity level. I checked this with a separate hygrometers to make sure of that. No big deal. I wanted it about 40%, so I just set the unit for 45%. I only use the fan speeds below 4. From 4-9, it is pretty loud, but does work faster. I found that leaving it on fan speed 2, it works pretty well and does not make too much noise. The unit shuts off the fan when empty, and has a low speed setting when it is getting low. Filling the unit is easy, and I don't even use the extension piece that came with the unit for the fill door. I do not move the unit to fill the reservoir , but it does have wheels where you could. I just use a gallon container I bought at a dollar store to fill it and make 3 or 4 trips to the sink. It is no problem at all to fill this way if you can walk to the sink and back. I have had this unit over a year and have had no problems. I purchased extra filters, and usually just use one per season, even though the Change Filter (CF) appears on the display. The filters are a little difficult to change out, but not too bad, especially if you only change them once per season. Overall I am very happy with this and it sure saved me $ from not having to replace the furnace humidifier system with would have been more than three times the price of this unit.

We live in bone-dry-winters New England. I've used evaporative humidifiers before the days of ultrasonic humidifiers. The evap-units don't emit any of the particulate dust that the ultrasonic units do, and that dust would get all over the house (and in your lungs!) This unit is easy and simple to setup. The top is 27-inches above the floor, and its footprint is 18-inches square. There are no vents on the top surface, so you can set a vase of flowers, or a lamp, or something on top. It's a nice, large, "infrequent-maintenance size," it holds 3.5 gallons of water when full. Although it's on small casters, I would not recommend you move it when it's full of water since the water will slosh over the top of its internal bucket. It's fairly light - you can easily lift off the whole top section, exposing the water bucket, and water-wick (people call it a filter because it looks like a filter, but it's actually a wick) in the lower 12-inch section. The cover extends down over the lower section, all the way to the base. All of the electrics are in the top 12 inches of the cover. There are no electrics in the lower water-section. At fill-time, I remove the cover, take the lower section to the sink, fill it to a level I am comfortable carrying (weight and spillage) and then I place it back in position and fill it the rest of the way from a container of water. The fan is fine at levels 1 or 2, but it quickly gets too loud above 3 or 4 (it goes all the way to a cyclonic, noisy level-9). I have it in my family room where we spend most of our time, (watching TV, computers, etc) and we don't notice it at level 1. At night I'll turn it up to a level 3 or 4 to help it boost humidity while we're all in bed upstairs and the fan-noise is not an issue - it takes a few days for the humidity to "catch up" to the desired level. If we kept the humidifier in a little-used room like the dining room or living room, I would set the fan at 3 or 4. Anyway - it's attractive, it's not loud, it's easy to maintain, and it doesn't dust-up the house with particulates. Make sure you get a couple of spare wicks AIRCARE 1043 Replacement Space Saver Wick and anti-bacteria treatment Essick Air 1970 Humidifier Bacteriostatic Treatment, 1-Quart

I bought this to use in a two-story house with a basement that is just under 2,100 square feet. Our furnace already has a new humidifier on it, but it just can't keep up on a house this size in Iowa winters. We also have a radon mitigation system constantly sucking air out, which I think compounds the problem. Usually in the winter, even with the furnace humidifier, the humidity drops below 20%. I've had this running on the second floor since I got it and it is able to keep the humidity at about 35-40%. However, it runs almost constantly at speed 6. There are nine speeds and I would consider anything over 4 to be loud. Speed 9 is just obnoxiously loud, but it's there for someone who isn't going to be home or doesn't mind the noise. The higher the speed, the faster the humidity is going to get in the air. It is a cheap, plastic unit but it does it's job. I have only two real complaints about it. The built-in humidity sensor is garbage. It is constantly 20% higher than either of my calibrated hygrometers. So to get 35% humidity, I have to set it to 55%. The other issue is the fill line. It's INSIDE the unit. You can see it if you open the fill door and get on your hands and knees, or maybe if you are 3' tall. So while filling, you have to stick your head down there and look through the hole you're pouring through to make sure you don't overfill it. If you do overfill, it goes everywhere on your floor. I have to fill this about once a day. Lugging a milk container back and forth three to four times is kind of a pain, though. I think some people don't understand what these larger units are for. One guy said it was just a bucket of water with a fan over it. Well, that's kind of what they all are. Although, it's actually pushing the air through a filter that sucks water into it, but it's a pretty simple concept of pushing air through water to get it to evaporate. There is no heating element in these larger ones, not for consumer based units anyway. They are designed to evaporate water slowly and to cover small houses. Those smaller heated ones you see are designed to humidify a single room, that's it. Overall, It's an okay unit for the price. It has a few downsides, but it does the job. If I had to do it over again, I might have purchased the other brand that holds more water and has two removable jugs that you can pull out and refill. That would save me the numerous trips of filling this one daily.

Bought this humidifier two years ago to address a recent rhinitis diagnosis, and upon the advice of my doctor. Our home has a combination of floor radiant heat and heat pumps, so the air gets dry, and so do I. The first season, I ran it at half speed, and it was fairly noisy, and didn’t quite get the job done. I had to perform five complete cleanings over the season. Cleaning involves taking the housing off the base, removing the “filter” brick wick, and scrubbing it out. The base was a tad heavy for this old person. This process took most of half an hour each. Mid season, I chanced the filter brick. We live in Central Maine, so the air gets pretty dry in the winter. We had to fill the tank daily at half speed, and most days, it ran out of water in about 18 hours, more or less. Last season, I progressed the fan speed incrementally, until I could get mostly acceptable humidity levels in our open concept home for the first level. It took turning up the fan to it’s highest setting to stay close to the 40% mark, usually failing that to about 35% on average. The space is about 1500 square feet. This required filling the machine twice a day and more sometimes. It also required more cleaning, and the filter bricks disintegrated progressively over time, requiring an additional brick for the season, for a total of three. The air was more humid than it had been, but I didn’t get as much relief as I hoped for all that work and expense. We have had to supplement humidification by adding a couple of table top misters to get to the much desired 40% humidity level we need. My best belief is that this humidifier would work more efficiently in a smaller home, and the concept of trying to humidify a whole home from one central location is too difficult for this machine. To get it even close, we had to work it to near death, with entirely unacceptable noise levels. Noise was so loud, it interfered with enjoying watching TV in the next room. Further, you would have to work it so hard that it would wear out prematurely, no doubt. For what it is, it’s reliable, works well enough, but it’s a lot of work. The appearance is not exactly high fashion or even modern looking, but it’s not ugly. Looks are subjective, so you decide that for yourself. Bottom line: If you have a small, open home, this will likely serve well, and the learning curve is moderate. Hope this helps.

The humidifier was the answer to our prayers. Moving to an old condo we did not realize that there was no humidifier on the building's furnace. Shortly after the heat was turned on in mid October, my husband experienced a week of nosebleeds. Doctor recommended a couple of humidifiers and this one does the job for the whole condo that is 1830 square ft. It has been a smooth set up and is working very well. We had a bit of difficulty with the funny funnel that is provided and in the end decided to dispense with it.

utilisation pour la maison nous sommes satisfait facile a remplir le filtre fait très bien le travail, aucune poussière blanche d'émis déçu cependant de recevoir une facture de FedEx de 101.05 $ pour le transport quand tu crois que ta livraison est gratuite et que la machine te coute 465$

Très bon appareil, donne un rendement appréciable

Très bon choix de ma part

It woks great but because of the hollow plastic canopy type of construction it really reverberate the sound of the internal motor and fan. Don’t use this in the same room you’re watching TV or trying to have a quiet conversation.