[tofof]

This is an art project and nothing more.

Humidifying only 600 square feet, the size of a studio apartment, takes about 5 gallons of water per day in winter. [1]

The reservoir on this object looks to be no more than two gallons, and I would be truly shocked if it requires even daily refilling. If it actually moved enough water to make a difference, it would be a fundamentally flawed design in requiring multiple complete fillings per day, carting entire gallons to it (as you can't simply take the reservoir to the faucet). In fact however, I would be shocked if it made any measurable difference at all.

It speaks volumes that no information about the rate of water consumption and no measurement figures of RH are present on the page.

1: https://www.generalfilters.com/support/humidity-calculator.h... (settings: St Louis MO values for outside temperature and humidity. Inside 74, 50%, 8' ceilings, standard 0.5 air changes, 1 fireplace)

[peteretep]

> 600 square feet

Maybe most people already know this, but I only learned it recently: you can go (approximately) from sqft to sqm by dividing by 10, presumably because 1m = 3.28ft and 3.28 squared is ~10. So 600sqft is about 60sqm (55.7)

[raverbashing]

It's a bit easier if you think "the other way", so 1ft ~ 0.3m or squared it's 0.9m2 so, divide by 10 and take 10% off and you get the ft2 -> m2 (or multiply by 10 and add 10% for m2 to ft2)

Still approximate

[JohnJamesRambo]

When I finally got a hygrometer I was amazed at how useless the powered one gallon air humidifiers are. They often can’t raise the humidity percent a single point with the hygrometer right by it in my rooms.

If you want to really humidify a room it takes a big industrial sized unit. They had them in the rooms in our Colorado Airbnb cabin and they were totally necessary in the dry mountain air if you didn’t want to wake up in pain from dried out mucus membranes. Very loud and used many gallons of water in a single night.

[cameldrv]

When I was a kid in the eighties we had these huge “console” humidifiers that held maybe 15 gallons and had a rotating belt and a big fan. Seems like they stopped making these in the nineties in favor of the useless tiny things.

[jcims]

My grandpa used to have the exact same thing.

You can still buy smaller versions of, they are called 'evaporative humidifiers' and use a paper element with a fan. They are slower to adjust humidity but leave zero haze.

[exclusiv]

I have a rather small Honeywell cool mist that works well. I use it in our bedrooms and have taken the humidity up 20% easily. This is in the mountains where it's drier than the desert in the winter.

[IndrekR]

This may also indicate insufficient air exchange (high CO2 level) in your bedroom.

[jcims]

They ‘cheat’ a little by lofting liquid water which then evaporates. We have a water softener and the cool mist humidifier left a smoke-like particulate floating in the air (i think it was either salt from the softener or minerals from the water)

[mfkp]

Yes, that's the minerals in the water. Using distilled water prevents this.

[TeMPOraL]

I discovered this when doing a post-assembly indoor test of a Luftdaten air quality sensor I built[0]. I kept it running for few hours and then looked at the data, and saw some ridiculously high levels of PM2.5 and PM5 in the evening. I've decided to investigate it. Over the next two days, I figured out that the increased levels happen at times when our air humidifier is running, which led me to discover that those ultrasonic air humidifiers essentially atomize everything that was mixed with/dissolved in the water - and we were using filtered tap water with ours. With distilled water in the humidifier, the sensor did not show increased particulate levels.

We've mostly stopped using the humidifier now, because I can't find a source of distilled water that doesn't involve buying plastic bottles.

--

[0] - https://luftdaten.info/en/home-en/

[mfkp]

I've encountered the same issue (high plastic bottle waste along with high cost). Short of boiling your own water outdoors to avoid polluting the indoor air, it's challenging to find a source for bulk distilled water.

[jcims]

We also have a air purifier that watches for particulate and they would battle each other constantly lol.

Moved to an evaporative humidifier, my air quality appliances now operate in peace.

[devtul]

Oooooh, so that is the cause of my apartment being hazy?! Just moved to a new place, air humidity can get around 10% and since I don't enjoy being tazed by my sofa I bought a small humidifier from Amazon, both I and my wife noticed what seems to be a cloud in our living room.

[jcims]

If it's a cool-mist type humidifier, definitely.

I grabbed an evaporative one from the local big box hardware store and zero 'smoke'. You should get some bacteriostat and you'll have to replace the paper elements every now and again, but it's way better.

[IndrekR]

> Humidifying only 600 square feet, the size of a studio apartment, takes about 5 gallons of water per day in winter.

This heavily depends on the ventilation as well. With ERV HVAC[1] it is much easier to keep higher humidity level as some of the moisture is reintroduced in the heat exchanger.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_recovery_ventilation

[bootlooped]

I think it would depend a lot on how much air is moving over it, and the temperature of that air. The surface area of it is pretty large (the whole thing is pretty ginormous also...). The reservoir size is an issue.

I share skepticism about this being used in any serious way. An ultrasonic humidifier is going to be smaller, probably cheaper, and run laps around it in terms of output.

[physicles]

A word of warning: ultrasonic humidifiers used with tap water create high levels of indoor air pollution: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51859262_Indoor_par...

Disclaimer: I work for a company that makes low-cost air pollution sensors.

[rubatuga]

Debatable whether salt crystals are considered air pollution or simply a problem with the specificity of the PM2.5 definition. Note that this isn't a problem with using distilled water, which is recommended for all humidifiers.

[physicles]

It's not just salt though. In some countries, the tap water isn't safe to drink, so it's probably not safe to breathe.

Also, as another poster pointed out, humidifying a large room in winter requires several liters of water per day. The cost of distilled water would quickly dwarf the cost of the humidifier itself, so other types of humidifiers besides ultrasonic (namely evaporative ones, where the main danger is mold, which distilled water doesn't help you with) are more economical.

[TeMPOraL]

Not to mention ecological. I mean, in Poland, I can't find any sensible source of distilled water other than buying 5L plastic bottles of it. I've briefly looked into devices that could make distilled water, but all that I've found was some industrial-grade hardware that costs more than reasonable for personal use.

[IndrekR]

I have a small under-sink reverse osmosis system for that. Was ~250€. I think it is made in Poland. There are several like that around.

[haarts]

Which company? I'm interested in these sensors.

[physicles]

Kaiterra. Our main consumer product is the Laser Egg.

[tofof]

For a similar surface area I think you could just fill your bathtub to an inch deep and wait for it to evaporate. You'll wait a long time, and your bathtub will get gross, just like this object will.

And with the point being power-free, the air is going to be static or nearly so around the object (or bathtub). If it's supposed to get a boost from moving air from a forced-air furnace, that's cheating -- because in that case you could just install a similarly passive flow-through humidifier on that same furnace and be done with it, save perhaps an annual pad change. Many use no power, just the same "capillary and evaporation" as this - except with actual calculations underlying their specifications.

[himinlomax]

60m² is very large for a studio appartment.

Based on your numbers, 1 gallon would be enough for a 10m² bedroom.

[mothsonasloth]

Correction: This is a "hipster" art project

Shouldn't even be on Hackernews