Vornado Ultrasonic Whole Room Humidifier

I live in Chicago where the winters get very cold and very dry. I finally decided to do something about it a year ago and bought a humidifier. I went through a series of 5 humidifiers before I finally came across the Vornado Ultrasonic, which has been the best by far.

I started with a cheap Holmes humidifier that basically boils water and creates steam. The problem is that the heating element gets caked with residue and needs to be cleaned just about every other day and it's very difficult to clean. It also tends to give off a rather bad odor.

After returning the holmes, I purchased a Vornado evaporative humidifier. What I've found is that evaporative humidifiers simply don't create enough moisture. The first Vornado was a bust.

My next attempt was a Sharper Image Ultrasonic humidifier, which is very simple to use, easy to clean and provides a good deal of moisture. Unfortunately, much of the moisture simply falls to the ground right around the machine. I wasn't 100% sold.

I returned the Sharper Image unit to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and found two typically expensive ultrasonic humidifiers on sale for half off. One was the Air-O-Swiss Ultrasonic Humidifier http://www.amazon.com/Air-O-Swiss-32838-Ultrasonic-Humidifier/dp/B000J4I4RI/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1262363031&sr=1-7 The other was the Vornado. I decided to get them both with the intention of returning the one that I did not like as much. The Air-O-Swiss is a very elegant looking machine with lots of controls and settings. At the top, it has a plastic piece which lets you control the direction the moisture flows (it can go two directions at once). I found that it had the same problem as the Sharper Image unit, but I placed it on a 2' plant stand, directed the moisture to either side and that seemed to keep the moisture from settling on the floor.

The Vornado Unit's settings were slightly more complicated for me to figure out, but we're talking the difference between 2 minutes and 5 minutes here. The Vornado uses a fan to push the moisture further up so that it evaporates in the air BEFORE it hits the ground. PERFECT! I don't have to put it on a stand or worry that I'll find water seaping into my hardwood floors. Where the Air-O-Swiss is super quiet, the Vornado has a fan (that pushes the moisture up) and thus makes a bit more noise. I personally don't find the noise distracting at all and neither does my wife. Noise aside, it is the fan that really makes this the perfect humidifier because this is the ONLY humidifier of the many I tested that actually seems to get more moisture into the air than on the ground. I wound up getting two Vornado Ultrasonic Humidifiers for my 1800 square foot condo and have noticed a substantial improvement. I highly recommend this product.

One last thing... both the Vornado and the Air-O-Swiss have filters, which is nice because you want to be filling your home with clean moisture.

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