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Product Details
- Binding
- Kitchen
- Brand
- Bemis
- Feature
- Humidifies 1,900 square feet; 9 gallons of output per day
- Label
- Bemis
- Publisher
- Bemis
- Studio
- Bemis
- ItemDimensions
- Height:1340
Length:2250
Weight:1800
Width:1870 - PackageDimensions
- Height:1350
Length:2280
Weight:1740
Width:1900
Editorial Reviews
Spacersaver style whole house evaporative humidifier, spacesaver unit is designed to bring the ideal amount of humidification to an entire house without taking up much room. Unique top airflow allows for placement against a wall or in a corner, humidistat provides precise humidity control, 2-speeds with quiet nighttime setting, refill light, automatic shutoff, 8 gallons of output per day, humidifies 1900 sg. ft., 9-gal. water-holding capacity, easy-fill front reservoir, Bemis patented super wick, removable power pack for easy cleaning, ez-roll casters, 18x121/2x21, 17lbs. Color-white.
Pros-
Very Easy to refill - No screw caps or tanks to carry.
Quiet in low mode
Large water reserve
Cons-
Lid is hard to get on right. Takes some time and patience, but you don't have to take it off to refill the unit.
It is loud on the high setting.
What a disappointment! The unit only has two speeds, and the high speed is LOUD. Now, I know that in order to put a lot of moisture in the air you have to have a pretty good fan blower, but this was ridiculous. Much louder than the H12 I'd had before. Also, the humidity setting only scrolls up, so you have to cycle all the way through to get back to the lowest setting. I guess that's really more of a minor annoyance, but it was disappointing nonetheless.
But the real problem was that the unit just plain didn't add moisture to the air. We left it running all night, and barely any water had evaporated by the next morning. In looking at the unit further, there is a major design flaw- unlike most humidifiers, which draw air into the unit through the wick (where it then picks up moisture), in this model the air is drawn in near the top, and also expelled at the top, while the wick is lower in the unit, so the majority of air just bypasses the wick.
I am returning this unit, and will have to bite the bullet and purchase another H12 console unit. I already own a Honeywell HCM-300T, but it's only rated 3 gallons per day and used in my bedroom at night. I am waiting for it to "die" because I don't like the fact that the cold air blows out of the BOTTOM of the unit, making an unpleasant draft on the floor. I did consider the Honeywell 6011i but don't like the fact that it has two water bottles (less convenient), and also the air blows out the side rather than the top. Bemis will get my business after all, but I can't believe they produced an inferior model like this.
Another problem is that the filter was in place rather than in a sterile package, so it was dirty on arrival.
First of all, no more holding awkward containers precisely under the tub's water spigot--with this humidifier, just fill a bucket and pour it in--SO much easier!
The low speed is very quiet and still puts two to three gallons of water into the air daily. (The high speed is loud as people have said, but not any louder than the Lasko's speeds 2 and 3. And the Laskos' low speed was much noisier). On low, this humidifier keeps the room between 45 and 50%.
I like that this humidifier has a large reservoir to hold the water, so I could, in theory, skip a day in refilling it (Something I often did with the Lasko). I haven't skipped a day though, because it is so easy to refill. Ah!
As to the other complaints, since I am always refilling it, I'm hoping not to run into problems with the shut-off. The "set the humidity you want" button does only scroll up--but who cares? You set it once and leave it (or, at least, I do...). The wick holder is very wimpy, as Nick has said. Overall, it's still awesome because ease of use and performance are tops in my book.
Also Amazon got it to me in three days or something--crazy fast! Thanks, Amazon.
The high fan setting is too loud when anyone is in the same room, but the low fan is pretty quiet.
The top has to be put on right so air doesn't leak past the wick. The wick holder plastic top tab should on the fill side of the top divider.
At the low fan setting, this unit puts out about 2 or 3 gallons a day, depending on how hot and dry my house is. For my 1900 sq. foot house, I use two units, one for the living room and on in the bedroom. Without a humidifier, my house gets plenty dry in winter when the furnace is running. This humidifier adds moist air and helps prevent sinus and flu troubles.
This is the best type of humidifier for constant use. One wick usually lasts all winter. We have hard water, and the wick gets encrusted with calcium after a few months. I flip the wick over after a couple of months of use to get more usage.
First off, the device to shut the unit off when it's empty is very, very poorly designed--that is to say, it doesn't work. I've tried any number of different ways to put the lid on to get this thing in place. The only way I've found to get the machine to turn back on after taking the lid off is to give it a good, solid "techical tap" to jiggle the auto shutoff lever.
The good news is that you can refill the humidifier without taking the lid off. The bad news is that if you don't refill it in time, the only way to reset or override the auto shutoff is--you guessed it--a good, solid thwack.
Given the number of times I've had to hit this machine, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my motor now makes a very distinct putt-putt sound.
Other assorted complaints I have with this humidifier:
-The high setting sounds like a hurricane or a jet engine. Overkill much?
-The filters seem to only last for a month or so.
That said, I really like that I can just roll the thing over to my sink and fill it with a hose. This is by far the easiest humidifier I've had to refill. I just wish I didn't have to abuse it to make it turn on.
Easy to fill. Just roll it over to the bathroom and use the handheld shower massager to fill it fast. You can also screw a hose adapter on to your kitchen sink and cut an old hose to 4 ft length to fill it really fast. I used a quick release adapter so I didn't have to screw the hose on.
Holds 6 gallons and will dump 6 gallons in to the air over a 24 hour period, which is nice because I only have to fill it once a day (before bed usually). It's nearly silent on low mode. Hygrometer is accurate and easy to set. I usually set it for 50 and it will shut off when the house gets to 55% (it's a little off). Running it on high will dump a lot of moisture in the air quick. I just wouldn't want to sit in the same room with it running on high.
I've had this one for at least 5 or 6 years and it's reliable, easy to fill, great automatic function, runs long time. I gave up on the heat-type humidifiers and the ultrasonic. They are a pain in the butt compared to something like this (and won't humidify an entire house).
Cleaning is a snap, about once a week you can just pour some humidifier cleaner in it and the anti-bacteria stuff, hit it with a sponge and rinse it out.
Automatic float function can be damaged if you're not careful with it. It's basically a foam block at the bottom with a piece of plastic going up to the float switch.
Oh one more thing...I've owned many humidifiers and always end up coming back to evaporation type humidifiers because they require the least amount of care. One thing to avoid...do not ever buy the type of evaporative humidifiers with the removable bottles (like the bigger BEMIS and Essick). I've owned a couple different of this bottle style and one thing is always certain, The bottles are a pain to fill, eventually leak, or come defective from the factory (holes on seams).
This console humidifier doesn't have bottles. Just a big open container. It has wheels and is easy to roll. I highly recommend you get this style if you can roll your humidifier to a bathroom or kitchen. For kitchen, get a garden hose adapter and a 5ft length of hose, and you'll fill it quick with no lifting. As I said before, I have a hand held shower nozzle in my bathroom next to the living room. I just roll this thing up to the tub and fill it with the hand held shower nozzle then roll it right back.
One more thing...since moving to D.C. the tank has stayed very clean after running 3 weeks pretty much non-stop. When in New England (also on town water there) I found it would crud up (brown gunk and sometimes mold) and the filter would gunk up quicker up there too. I suspect how much cleaning you have to do might be tied to the quality of your tap water. You could use distilled water but that would be a pain to buy, take home and fill.
Cleaning: I haven't had to clean it yet (the tank) this winter. The rest could use some dusting (as you can see by my pics). I should probably use humidifier cleaner but I don't. I bought Spray Nine cleaner (Home Depot as it and some hardware stores. I spray the whole interior tank, let it sit for ten minutes and rinse out in tub with hot water. Spray Nine is the best cleaner I've used and it will clean anything with a soak. Just make sure to rinse it really well with hot water so you don't get foam when you fill the tank again. Oh and don't clean it with the Spray Nine when the wick is in there or it will be foam city and you will have to throw out the wick.
I know this is a lengthy review, but there are so many crummy humidifiers on the market and this one is the best I've owned. I couldn't quite make out from the package how the controls worked hence my detailed captioned pics and review. I hope this has helped you decide whether or not this is the unit for you.
Tony
I ordered this because I hoped its high capacity would humidify the whole house. I hoped that it's described easy-to-fill reservoir would actually be as large and easy-to-fill as described. Ultimately, both hopes were fulfilled, but it was not as easy to get up and running as I'd hoped.
When I received the first unit I eagerly assembled it. The wick fit easily in place, but the fan unit is a pain to attach. Fortunately, there's an easy to remove grate on the front to let you pour fresh water in, so during normal, day-to-day operations it won't be that big of a deal. I filled the reservoir with six gallons of water (you're only supposed to fill it to 5.5, but the instructions recommend overfilling the reservoir the first time to moisten the wick properly) and plugged it in.
The fan spluttered, the display flickered, and the whole thing went dead before I had even turned it on. Nothing I did brought it back.
(One star off for DOA.)
Amazon's return process was easy, and I printed out the return labels and started to get ready to send it back. It seemed a shame to waste all that water, though, so I decided to hold off repacking it until the new one arrived.
I'm really glad I held off on returning it. The new one arrived with a working fan unit and a resivoir with the insides in shambles; the wick casing was crushed, the float bobber that turns the machine off if there's no water left was detached and the parts needed to re-attach it were nowhere in sight.
(One star off for a second inoperable unit.)
I had with a fully assembled, no problems reservoir from the first one and a working fan unit from the second, so I put them together and that's what's running here now. One giant disaster of a humidifier is going back to Amazon on Monday.
The cobbled together unit is highly effective, easy to operate, and as easy to refill as tripping on a bucket. If you can pick up a gallon of water, you can refill this in a few trips. I considered taking a further star off for the issue of noise on speed setting 2, but that would hardly have been fair: all fans on high are noisy.
I can't recommend this to anyone else because of the two DOA units. What you get is clearly a gamble. If the fan unit lasts then it's exactly what I'd hoped for and I'm pleased enough despite the initial problems to give it three stars on its merit as a humidifier. The difference in humidity in this house is palpable, which is exactly as I'd hoped.
However, we've used it for a weekend and so far, so good.
Here are some of the highlights:
-low speed is quiet enough for sleeping in the same room
-high speed is loud
-snapping top and bottom pieces together was tricky, but filling it is easy
-floor around unit stays dry
-wheels are handy for moving it
Best of all, we used to get headaches from the dry air. Other humidifiers didn't seem to help.
We haven't had any headaches since starting it up! Granted, it's only been 48 hours, but that's a long stretch for us lately!
I have since gotten an Air King 3-Speed Recirculating Humidifier #9915, and while it doesn't have all of the features of this Essick for roughly the same price, it is much more sturdy and has been very effective at doing it's job.
We have the "loud" fan mode going during the day to get the humidity up and then cut it back to the quieter speed for sleeping. I have something set up to measure the humidity several feet away, which always measures lower than the built-in reading. However, within a couple of minutes we see the humidity improving, so I don't mind that the built-in measurement seems overly generous. At least it's working!
The instructions for assembling it could be better. That would have gone more smoothly if I'd made sure I had all the pieces in sight before I did it. I wouldn't have left out a somewhat critical part the first time, but in the end it all came together. 8-)
Fairly easy to fill, clean and maintain. It's considered "whole house" but we bought it to stabilize the humidity in my music room for my piano, and it's placed about 10 feet away. (There's a Piano-Saver already installed in the piano, but it couldn't seem to keep up with a house heated by a woodstove.) It's reasonably quiet. The humidity level on the display is very accurate: the reading in the room taken by my piano technician was exactly the same as what the humidfier was set.
The only thing I'd change would be to have the front grate on hinges and a bit easier to open and close during filling. As it's currently designed, you remove the front grate via a small tab and then have to have everything perfectly aligned in order to snap it back in.
I did some research, and decided that I wanted to go with the evaporative type humidifier. No steam, no mist, no white dust everywhere (like you get with the ultrasonic humidifiers). This unit was especially attractive to me because it holds so much water. And, you remove part of the top panel to fill it - no more lugging a tank to the bathtub. I only have to refill it every 3 or 4 days (or longer, depending on how much I use it). I also liked that it turns itself on and off depending on what humidity level you want.
Yes, the high speed is loud, but that doesn't really bother me since it's at the other end of the house. And, as other reviewers have mentioned, it can be a bit tricky positioning the lid (that holds the fan), but again, not a big deal as you do not need to remove that part to refill the tank.
I've been using it for a month now, and I'm very pleased with it. Replacement wicks are also available on Amazon.
We researched on-line and we thought this one was the closest to what we were looking for.
Suppose to be adequate water storage and "quiet" night time setting. We have to refill every 3rd night and the night setting is far from quiet. But, like a noisy ceiling fan, one can get use to it.
Pros: Easier to fill
Cons: Noisy
They are easy to care for. You should purchase a humidifier Bacteriostatic treatment and put a small amount in each time you refill the humidifier (Read directions on the Bacteriostatic treatment label).
I clean them only once per year. They are easy to clean.
I replace the wicks once per year. Some persons might prefer to replace the wick twice a year.
I have tried many humidifiers and none have satisfied me with their performance before I tried this.
Yes - as others have indicated in their reviews, you need to set it on 'high' if you want to get a good volume of water into the air and yes, it is a bit loud. But I don't personally find that to be a problem. I have one in my bedroom which periodically starts and stops throughout the night, and I have just gotten used to it.
For this Christmas, I'm buying one for my Mother who has been complaining about the dry air in her house.
If I had small children in my house, I'm not sure I'd use this approach, because I'm not sure Id' want the Bacteriostat in the air they breath - even though its a very, very small amount.
PROS; digital readout easy to set, wick lasts a whole winter with the use of a bacteriostat on every refill
CONS; flimsy wick frame it is easy to break off a retaining clip, the float mount is also very flimsy, on my 2nd
unit I used Liquid Nail to add strength to the mount. My local Ace Hardware has wicks for a better price than
the internet.