As colder temperatures develop, less water evaporates into the air, which is often why you find yourself with dry skin and the occasional bloody nose during the winter. At least I know I do… Your house becomes dry—even though it’s mostly sealed—throughout those long winter months. And that’s why many think about installing a humidifier for the winter, especially if you have kids that you’re worried about or if there are adults in the house who are more likely to snore with dry air. (Again, I’m guilty of this.)
Deciding what air humidifier to invest in is important—and you just shouldn’t be thinking about the right choice for the winters. Buying a humidifier involves other options: warm or cool air, portable or stationary, how noisy the machine will be. I’ll take you through a few of these steps in your journey to find and purchase a humidifier for your home.
Portable or Permanent?
This really is going to depend mostly on the size of your house and where it’s more likely to be dry and where it’s most likely to develop mold—because dehumidification issues are serious, too, and can cause health problems if left unattended.
If you just want to humidify your house in the winter, go portable. That’s my recommendation. That way you can move it around the house both for usage—where some rooms feel especially dry—and also for storage, so you can get that thing out of the way once the dry air stops.
Warm or Cool options?
Again, think about whether you’re going to want to use this humidifier in the summer or not. In hot months, there’s nothing worse than something putting warm air in your house. A cooler option will be super handy in that case.
What’s the noise level like?
With automatic settings, the humidifier will be able to turn on and off based on the moisture in the air that it detects. So this might mean that your humidifier turns on abruptly in the middle of the night—and I know that’s not good for kids and babies, let alone adults.
What I do? At the store, ask for an outlet. Get the thing out of its packaging and plug it in. See what the noise level is like. Realize that you’re going to be in a store that might be pretty busy, so if you think it just might be a little too loud, then it’s likely it will be too loud once you get it home.
How easy is it to change the filter?
Depending on the quality of water in your home, you’ll have to change the filter from time to time. So what does that process look like? It differs from machine to machine, but you want to make sure that A.) you can easily purchase filters throughout the life of the machine, and B.) that it’s not a difficult process. Same goes with refilling the water: if it’s hard to get new water in there, look for a different model.
Another great idea is to filter the water with a common water filter before you ever get it into the machine. That way you’re sure that the air you’re breathing isn’t contaminated or carrying any particles that are harmful.
