Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

UPDATE DECEMBER 2022: So one year after buying my larger LW45 unit, which now lists for an astounding $500, the gear box went bad. A quick search online revealed that this is not an unusual problem with Ventas, which may explain the cut in warranty from 10 years to 2. But even though I'm still under warranty for another year, and even though I have to perform this repair myself, I'm struggling to get the part from Venta. And even in the best case scenario, I will still have to pay $13 for the shipping. I'm now on my fifth email exchange with them because my receipt from Amazon isn't enough! I needed to register the humidifier with Venta, even though nothing in the box makes that clear when you receive it. Plus: the serial number has faded from the poorly printed paper label that's inside the humidifier where--you guessed it--there's constant humidity. So Venta wants to charge me another $25 for the replacement gear box which I then I have to switch out myself. This is AWFUL customer service even for a bargain product, and we're talking about an all plastic humidifier that costs $500. With that in mind, I'm cutting my review from three stars to one--I can't recommend this based on poor reliability and so-called customer "service" that won't honor a warranty with another year left on it. Over the years, I think I've tried every humidifier technology out there to deal with the dryness in my apartment during NYC winters. I could never get the output volume I needed from various ultrasonics and I hated the maintenance to avoid white dust. I thought an expensive Boneco steam unit started out very positively--but I ran into reliability issues and the boiling of water to produce steam was fairly noisy compared to ultrasonics. The past couple of years, the Honeywell evaporative wick humidifiers have given me good service, but the wicks themselves--at least the Honeywell brand, which I found to be far superior--were not always in stock when I needed them. So this year, I took the plunge and went all in on Venta Airwashers, which use evaporative tech similar to the Honeywell, but don't need replaceable wicks. To properly humidify an average size 2BR apt, it takes one large LW45 Plus unit and two smaller LW25 Plus units. Here are the pros and cons you should know about. CONS It is NOT an effective air purifier. While it's marketed as "washing the air" as it humidifies, leaving the impression that you get two appliances in one as a potential justification for the high price, this is not the case. The Wirecutter has researched and document fairly minimal purifying abilities, certainly nothing close to an actual air purifier, and these findings seem borne out when I rinse the unit for cleaning. The high price has no real justification. The overall build quality and actual parts are very similar to my Honeywell units which were less than one-fifth the price. (And the Honeywell units included a UV light to kill bacteria in the water that the Venta lacks!) The one big difference is that where the fan in the Honeywell pulled air past a large wet wick, the fan in the Venta pulls air past plastic discs that slowly rotate in the water. The discs themselves are not motorized--they're just on a spindle and it is simply the air being circulated by the fan that causes them to move. Sure the rotating plastic discs are an added cost to manufacture--but FIVE times the price?! Not even close. Venta slashed its previous warranty coverage of 10 years--which at least gave some justification for the high price--to 2 years. This applies to both the newer Comfort Plus units and new stock of the old style unit. Not exactly a sign of confidence in their own product. The Venta is very slow to humidify at first. How slow? The Venta welcome sheet packed in the box tells you to allow 7-10 DAYS... that's not a typo... for air to be properly humidified, which means getting humidity levels between 40-50% Supposedly, once you've reached proper humidification, it will maintain it easily. I haven't owned my units long enough to know, and we're still not in the driest, coldest days of winter. We shall see. If you live in a climate that has a cold winter, I'd say the estimated coverage per unit is WAY overstated. I'm currently in the midst of the coldest, driest part of the NYC winter season--temps in teens and 20s--and I have to keep my three Ventas running 24/7 just to maintain humidity between 30-35% in a 2BR apartment. That's one LW45 Plus and two LW25 Plus, and my square footage is well below the claimed estimated coverage. But even with 3 units running, it never gets past 35%, unless it's a warmer and/or wetter day outside. Wow... with that list of cons, you're probably wondering why I haven't returned my Ventas. Here are the pros, the reasons you might want to buy and keep a Venta. PROS Finally, humidifier maintenance that IS a breeze--refill the water once per day, rinse the discs and bottom "tank" half of the unit once every week-10 days, then add a 3 ounce dose of fairly cheap water treatment when you refill from empty. That's it. I hate the look of having humidifiers in the room all winter, but since it's essential, I really prefer the clean, minimal looking, square box of Venta's design. This is super subjective, of course, but I like that it doesn't look like a humidifier and "disappears" better into the room. Zero maintenance costs other than the water treatment, which you only add during the weekly rinse out and refill. Some of the maintenance chemicals and wicks needed for other humidifiers really add up over time. With the exception of the highest fan speed, it's super quiet. At the highest speed, you're definitely aware of a small fan running, but it's more like white noise. I'd recommend the newer Comfort Plus models over the original units, even with their higher price tags. Their coverage area is higher than the original model, plus it's a real convenience to have an Auto setting that will control fan speed based on how close or far you are to the target humidification. And there's Manual control, too, if you'd prefer that. That's the good and the bad when in comes to Venta Airwashwers. I deducted one star for the inexplicably high price and an additional star for poor performance as an air purifier and slow performance, at least initially, as a humidifier. However, the minimal work and cost for maintenance could make this my favorite humidifier over time. I hope you find this review helpful in making a buying decision for yourself.