Reviews of Vornado Ultra1 Whole Room Ultrasonic Humidifier

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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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The Vornado whole room ultrasonic humidifier works great. It is cheaper than the Air O Swiss and is quieter. Maintenance is a problem. The manual calls for a weekly time consuming ritual. Scraping off the mineral build-up is a chore. Finding a mineral replacement cartridge is difficult. I will probably try another product next year.

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We've tried a few different humidifiers and found that most of them break quickly, are loud, or have some other problem. This Vornado unit at first seemed perfect. It was quiet, did a good job of humidifying a large area and had a good filter that prevented mineral dust from building up in the room. However, after about a month it would randomly start leaking all of its water out. Vornado replaced that unit under warranty with a new unit and the same thing started happening after a month or two.

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I purchased the Vornado humidifier based on general reviews on the internet. Used it for one week, and returnerd it to Sylvane. The number one problem with this unit is humidstat it does work, but it is off by as much as 15 percentage points. So if you set it for a desired humidity of 50%, it will mist until the humidstat gets to 50%, but the actual humidity in the room will be somewhere around 35 or 40%. Number two problem advertised as "whisper quiet". While the unit is not "loud", it is also not "whisper quiet". Bottom line when you pay $200+ for a humidifier, you expect it to work correctly. I will add that Sylvane made it pretty easy to return the unit, with prompt credit to my credit card.

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This humidified well for 1 year and then would not turn on. It is fairly noisy but humidifies well. The weekly cleaning is a pain in the neck. The black interior makes cleaning even more difficult. My unit would not turn on after 1 year. The company exchanged the unit for a new (maybe refurbished) at no charge although I had to pack up the unit and take it to UPS. The new unit worked for 1 week and now does not turn on. In sum, noisy and not reliable.