Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased this unit in October of 2016 and ran it virtually non-stop through the end of April. We live in Michigan and I had just finished installing new hardwood flooring through the entire house so I wanted to keep the humidity level up to minimize shrinking of the new flooring. We have a traditional ranch home (build in the 70s) of about 1600 square feet with living room, dinning room, and kitchen on one side, and bedrooms and bathrooms on the other. I do not have an open concept so I wasn't necessarily expecting to get a consistent humidity level through the entire home. I felt that this humidifier performed extremely well and I am very happy with my purchase. I placed the unit in our living room near a center wall about a foot out (between and couch and a chair). I had no problem with the humidistat on the unit. I had a stand alone humidistat in the kitchen and humidity levels were consistently 4-5 percent lower in the kitchen, but that seems reasonable to me. I'm no meteorologist, but I assume that mixing the air up with a ceiling fan would help provide more consistent humidity levels through your home (especially if you moved air in the room you place the unit), but of course the humidity levels were lower in the bedrooms down the hall. The air near the humidifier is naturally going to have a higher humidity level since that is where you are putting moisture into the air, so I don't think you can fault the unit. When I first received the unit, I was impressed with its looks. The entire unit is plastic but it is heavy duty stuff and looks just as good after a season as when I first received it. The entire unit is also fairly light with most the weight residing with the fan at the top of the unit (obviously this changes when you fill it with water). It basically comes in two parts: the bottom reservoir that holds the filter and water, and the fan and exterior housing that slips onto and over the top of that. I was a little worried when after only 4 weeks the unit told me to replace the filter, but I simple flipped and turned the filter over and it lasted me until April. Bonus that the replacement filter is very affordable costing less than $20 on Amazon Prime.AIRCARE 1043 Replacement Space Saver Wick The unit itself looks good and blended well with our new dark flooring and furniture. The engineering is very simple and effective. This thing has a very powerful fan, which I love, and can make a lot of noise, but you have 9 speeds to choose from which is great. Even at a 4-5 speed, this unit put plenty of moisture in the air on dry days (enough to keep up with out running continuously). If you set the thing for say 50% humidity, it seems to get up to about 52-53% before it shuts off and maybe lets the humidity level down to 48% or so for a few minutes before it turns back on. The only gripe I have is that it needs to be filled so often, but at 3.5 gallons, I feel like complaining about this would be complaining that the unit works too well. If your home is dry, this thing will put a lot of humidity in the air quickly which means you will need to refill more often. I actually like the design for filling the reservoir and with a decent pitcher with a spout, I was able to minimize any spillage. Also, this humidifier sits on casters so if you have hard floors like myself, you can roll the sucker closer to your water source if that is easier than filling a gallon container up more than once to tap off the humidifier. I used the EssickAir Humidifier Bacteriostatic Treatment Essick Air 1970 Humidifier Bacteriostatic Treatment, 1-Quart maybe once or twice a week (the instructions say to use it every time you fill your reservoir, but that seemed like to much work) and had no issues with mold or stale smelling water. And I easily have 4/5 of a bottle left of the treatment. The floor did great and everyone one in the family noticed that our skin didn't dry out so much this winter. I am glad we made the purchase.