We bought this unit to help humidify our house in the winter. Past experiences with cool mist humidifiers were poor having to clean mysterious brown gunk off the electronic innards was disturbing. If you're like me, you'll pretend you don't see the brown gunk. This strategy works great until the gunk becomes a pulsating biohazard that threatens to move about on its own. Warm mist humidifiers don't seem to have this problem. The Vicks Vaporizer looked a bit wimpy, but with itchy skin and static electricity zapping about, anything was better than nothing. Besides, it's cheap.
First, the unit puffs out warm odorless steam as advertised. The manual says you have to add salt to the water to really get the steam going and warns vaguely about blowing fuses if you get carried away. This made me curious, so I got out my Kill-A-Watt power meter (very cool gadget by the way) to see how much juice this thing used. Turns out it REALLY matters how much salt you add. The vaporizer was puffing steam like crazy, and using over a kilowatt of power. I emptied and refilled the water, adding the maximum recommended amount of salt (1/4 teaspoon). Steam production was still fine at a more reasonable 450 Watts.
Since I had the power meter hooked up, I wondered just how efficiently the Vicks produced steam. 450 Watts running all night is enough to want my money's worth. So, I performed a test. I filled the tank with exactly 192 ounces of room temperature water, added the salt, and plugged it into the power meter for the night. By morning it was done and the power meter read 0 Watts. There was still quite a bit of water in the tank, which I measured to be 50 ounces. The power meter said 3.15 kilowatt-hours (kWh) had been used. So, it took 3.15 kWh to vaporize 192 50 = 142 ounces of room temperature water. Is this reasonable? I calculated the energy required to vaporize 142 ounces of water as:
Energy to raise 142 oz from 21.1 C to 100 C = 0.37 kWh
Energy to boil 142 oz at 100 C = 2.53 kWh
Total = 2.9 kWh
So, the Vicks is about 92% energy efficient. Not bad.
Our electricity costs 8.3 cents per kWh, so the vaporizer costs me 26 cents per tank.
I'm very happy with the Vicks considering the price. Rather than spend much more on a big unit, I'll just buy a couple more of these.
To summarize:
The Good
* Uses no energy when tank runs low. Good for safety and economy.
* 92% energy efficient (about 26 cents of electricity per tank).
* Except for the steam itself, no outside surfaces get hot.
* Has a little light on top so you don't bump it in the dark.
The Bad (minus 1 star)
* Can't vaporize a full 1.5 gallons. Leaves about a quarter tank.
* Black particles appear in the tank. They don't stick to anything and rinse away easily. I suspect these are some electrolytic byproduct from running electricity through the salty water.
I've been using these for 4 years now. I've purchased four and only pitched one (though I'm about to replace the second one I purchased because it's not putting out the steam it's 4 years old). (I number them so I know which older/younger.)
Pro:
They're cheap! I can purchase 10 of these for what it would cost to purchase a nice ultrasonic humidifier.
No gross filters. No funky chemicals.
When it doesn't work or gets gross, I'll pitch it.
Supposedly warm mist grows less bacteria than cool mist (verify this, I read it several years ago and may be wrong).
Cleaning is easy. Warm vinegar removes the scale that builds up over time.
Con:
I have to refill them about 3 times a day.
Though the company does not recommend it, I pretty much run them 24/7 when at home. I unplug them before leaving the house no need to start a fire.
Here in Nevada the humidity is extremely low. With three of these running my home feels warmer and the humidity gets up to 33% (still really low). The humidity helps both my skin and my sinuses.
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We've had a few of these for years. Don't run them all the time, but when we use them they work perfectly. Any sputtering is caused by the quality of the water. You do have to rinse out the reservoir every so often. If the water gets too low or too gunky it will sputter. Completely expected in a vaporizer. The night light feature is nice.
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I used to use these humidifiers every night, and they do put out a lot of nice warm moisturebut they are a pain to fill, a pain to clean, and with my water I have to add salt. After a while the output goes down and it starts to bubble/overboil and spit. Don't use this for an everyday humidifier, I never would for everyday, but I would spend the 12 bucks to get one for a week or two's use if I got sick. I do not know if a cool mist humidifier like the one I just bought would do so well for a cold.
The Vicks models are cheap to buy and cheaply made...not for long term or heavy duty use.
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There is an area next to the night light on top of the unit where you can add medicated/scented oil to be mixed in with the steam.
Pros:
I am very sensitive to noise when sleeping so I have been searching for a very quiet humidifier. I have bought 5 humidifiers, all different brands and prices (all more expensive than this one), but they were all too noisy for me.
It is easy to clean. I get hard water in my area, but the mineral does not stick to the tub, so I can just rinse it out. When I opened up the unit trying to clean the internal components (not recommended by the manufacturer), I noticed the electrodes (used to heat the water) are made from some ceramic-like material, and the mineral does not deposit on them as much (other humidifiers have stainless steel electrodes or plates that seem to collect mineral). I was able to use a spoon to scrape off some mineral on the electrodes and pour out the loose flakes of mineral that are trapped inside the electrodes' containment area. I normally clean out the mineral every 6 months (and I use this humidifier every night).
Cons:
No shut off timer. It shuts off automatically when water gets to a minimum level. If you want it on only for a couple of hours, instead of all night, just pour in less water.
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The wick works just fine although it plainly had been in its box, folded in half for quite some time. I had to re-shape it, put it in a small box, and leave it overnight in the box to make it sufficiently round to fit my humidifier. I have had no problems with it since then. I was impressed considering the age of my humidifier.
