Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I use to run about 4 - 5 of these things when I lived in overseas in the military during the dry winter months (electricity was free for us). Our TDS was around 70, so adding salt was absolutely necessary in order to get it to steam. I will say, if you add too much salt this thing will cough up boiling hot water on whatever it sits on, so you have been warned. Follow the directions and add just a little at a time, wait 5 minutes, add a little more until desired results are achieved. If your water is already very hard, you may not need to do this at all. I know this product is the cheapest humidifier out there, but one of the most expensive to run. I just checked it with my whole home electric usage meter and it runs about 500 watts an hour! Here is an example: If you were to run this 24 hours a day for a whole month being charged .12 cents a kilowatt hour. 500 x 24 x 30 days = 360,000 watts or 360 kilowatts for the whole month x .12 = $43.2 to operate for the whole month! So you can see where this could add up for you. Well that is not it. As you can see in the pictures, the rods (whatever they are made of), are brand new, this was fresh out of the box. Over time they start to corrode and oxidize. Now I am not suggesting you do what I do, but if you use a T27 torx bit, one can unscrew the top from the rod housing to access these rods (obviously unplugged), and clean out the rod housing, and gently scrape off the oxidation with a sharp knife or razor, rinse and put back together. This has allowed me to slightly extend the life of these humidifiers significantly. I was able to get maybe 12 months out of one humidifier before it was completely trash. I would perform this maintenance about once every 3 - 4 months depending how the unit was performing. You will also note that with in time, there WILL be some black particle precipitate in the tank. This is the oxidation material from the rods, I would just pour it into the toilet and refill the tank and add salt. Oh, I might add that once you add the salt to the tank during daily operation, you do not have to keep adding it every time you have to fill the tank. If you do, your unit will be coughing up boiling water. If you use this in a smaller room and are getting condensation on the windows and exterior wall and are looking to keep your humidity at bay. Consider a outlet timer. I would use the timer in the bedroom, 1 hour on 1 hour off. Lastly, do not leave these units unattended. One of my units started smoking. Once I took it apart to see what was going on, it seemed that the corrosion was so bad where the electrical cord met the unit, it created somewhat of a short or corrosion bridge between the wires. Again, I used these things units until they were completely trash. I just wouldn't leave this in a baby's room overnight or leave it plugged in and leave the house. Also with the use of outlet timers, you can ensure that this unit will not operate in your absence. Our bedroom timer would turn off at 6:00 AM and resume operation at 9:00 PM. Again, once I have to clean my humidifier, I will post pictures that will illustrate what I speak of above.