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I have the predecessor that was black in color. It's 3 years old and still works great. Definitely evaporates lots of water into the air. The reservoir must be filled 2 to 3 times per day depending on how often your furnace comes on. It's somewhat of a chore but I get used to it. Keeping the household humidity at 60% or better surely makes lower thermostat settings tolerable so it's a money saver in that regard. The unit uses about 100 watts during its intermittent runs.
Mine is so accurate that it is almost perfectly synchronized to furnace operation. Furnace comes on and shortly thereafter the Lasko humidifier starts up. Furnace shuts off and shortly thereafter the humidifier shuts off. I presume the same accuracy is maintained in this newer white model.
These do use disposable paper filters. I use 2 per season. Cheapest source for the filters is direct from Lasko. I bought a box of 10 for $50 right after I bought the humidifier and I've got about 5 filters left. Even if you throw away about half of them, you'll save money compared to single filter prices at brick and mortar stores. The shipping was free at the time. Maybe it still is.
Humidifiers require periodic maintenance. These Lasko's are no exception. Each year, I sit the thing in the bathtub and fill it's reservoir with vinegar/water and let it run about 30 minutes. This dissolves or loosens the mineral deposits. After rinsing, I then fill it with a bleach/water solution and let it run about 30 minutes to kill mold spores and dormant bacteria.
That yearly demineralizing/disinfecting is somewhat of a chore but I only have to do it once. That's enough to get me through the entire heating season.
All humidifiers require some maintenance--even the ones connected directly to your furnace. I've read operator's manuals for most every one of the furnace mounted units and some of the maintenance procedures are complex and labor intensive compared to the little bathtub routine I've developed for this Lasko.
When I think I will install a furnace mounted unit I search the internet and read the reviews and realize why I put up with this Lasko cleaning routine. Many of those furnace mounted units require demineralizing and disinfecting just like the Lasko--except that I can put the Lasko in a bathtub and keep the mess contained. If I had to rinse and clean a furnace mounted unit, I'd have to use a wet/dry vac to sop up the spillage all over the basement floor, I'm sure. On top of that mess, it seems that furnace mounted units die at an early age due to mineral deposits that can't be controlled.
When the temperatures drop to about 15°F or below, our furnace runs a lot. The more the furnace runs the more the Lasko humidifier runs. I'm sure I have to fill the removeable reservoir 3 times a day or more. It seems to be sized so that a full reservoir lasts about 8 hours. That's enough to get a full night's sleep. Actually, the removeable reservoir holds about 8 hours worth. There's another several gallons in the base to supply the unit with water so you can easily stretch it to 12-14 hours between fillings. I do it all the time. It's just that if you stretch it to 12 hours or more, you'll have to fill the removable reservoir 1.5 times to completely "fill 'er up" again.
All in all, I don't think I could live without a humidifier. We feel warmer, the children cough less while sleeping, there's no static electric sparks when we touch objects or each other ... it's worth the hassle, I think.
This unit says it will do a 3200 square foot home. I guess that's so, but, it's quite nicely sized for homes smaller than that because it won't have to run on high to do the job. Buying the biggest humidifier means you can run the fan on low so it's as quiet as possible.
Once a year I also take it apart to clean the dust from the fan blades and the vortex shroud. This isn't absolutely necessary but it makes it look new again. About 6 or 8 screws removed lets the thing come almost entirely apart for cleaning.
So, a humidifier takes some work no matter what type you get. For a household humidifier, I like this Lasko but I've also got a wife and kids to share in the task of refilling it 3 times a day.
I'm a home handy man so I'll be able to replace the motor in this thing when it goes bad. I don't think it will cost much.
Lasko sells parts and that's what I truly love! Unlike other companies, Lasko actually has parts available and they sell them at reasonable prices.
We use Lasko ventilation fans year round as a sleep aide to produce "white noise." I've got a remote controlled fan that I've come to depend on. After about 4 years of daily night time use, I needed a motor for it last year and, sure enough, Lasko sold one to me and the cost was about 1/3rd that of a new fan.
For the home do-it-yourselfer types, Lasko is the only way to go because they sell parts. Other companies, like Holmes, don't stock any parts at all. Once the complete Holmes unit comes from Taiwan or Sri Lanka to your store's shelf, that's it--you can't get a part even if it was missing from the package before you bought it.
Lasko has a respectable warranty and they don't charge a fee. Holmes and other companies like them charge you a fee that they call "handling" just to get a warranty remedy. That "handling" fee is usually 2/3 or more the cost of a new fan. In other words, you have to pay to return the defective item to Holmes, you also have to pay that "handling fee", and then they might send you a replacement. Lasko doesn't do that. I think that they do require that you ship the item back to them at your cost.
This is a recirculating type of humidifier so it doesn't throw white dust all over everything. The other type of humidifier uses heat to evaporate water (like a distiller) and in the process, all of the minerals of the water become airborne grey-white dust. I don't like that idea. These recirculating types just trickle large quantities of water through a paper filter. The filter retains the minerals.
I remember as a kid, about 45 years ago, I used to sit on my grandmother's floor and enjoy the breeze from a "ottoman" style fan and it had the name "Lasko" on it. I used to think it had something to do with Alaska. I presume it's the same company--still making fans and things that circulate air.
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Our house is so well insulated that the furnace doesn't run often enough for a furnace-mounted humidifier to work well in our 255 s.f. house. As a result we've tried a number of different kinds of portable humidifiers.
The ultrasonics don't put out enough volume. Nor do the spray mist ones. The warm mist ones have a very high operating cost. For a couple of years we used a wick-and-fan humidifier that had plenty of capacity and ran quietly. The problem was that the wicking filters were expensive ($16 each) and rapidly lost their capacity: a filter that would wick 5 gallons a day was down to 1 gallon a day within two weeks. So even this solution cost us almost $1/day for filter replacements.
The Lasko Recirculating Humidifier seems to have solved this problem: instead of water being wicked up by the filter, the filter is wetted from the top by a little built-in aquarium pump much in the way that furnace-mounted humidifiers work.
We've been using this humdifier for three weeks now. It is slightly noisier (even on its lowest setting) than our old one; but the noise is not objectionable, and the volume of water being put out has not decreased at all.
I can't speak for the longevity of the product, but its operating costs should be very low, and its technology is exactly what I've been looking for for years.
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This is my second one of these. The first one performed well but quit working after 3 years. It was inexpensive so I bought another one. I bought a cheaper model this time that didn't have the LED displays the first one had. This one just has a knob with no readout of setting or room humidity. The reason I did that was the LEDs on the first one quit working after about two years. I figured this simpler one would be less likely to fail who knows?
I keep it in the master bathroom and fill it twice a day from the tub. It uses a lot of water which is what I want it to do, but without the convenience of the adjacent tub it would be a pain all these portable ones probably have this problem.
I keep it on the medium fan setting and it seems fairly loud for the first few days but now I'm used to it and I don't notice it coming on and off.
The area around the unit remains dry so it works well as an evaporative humidifier which is what you want it to do. It puts moisture into the the air, not the floor. I keep it on a bath mat to catch the drops that result from the filling operation.
My bedroom ceiling and wall joints have quit coming apart in the wintertime like they did before I added this humidifier so it does the job well.
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For some reason I find many of the 1-star reviews of this product frustrating...almost all of them can/should be attributed to human error and not defects in the device itself.
Yes, if you hold the jug by the one handle water can leak from the valve at the end. Guess what? It has two handles. Use the one at the other end and it doesn't leak at all....use the top handle only when loading the thing into the unit itself.
Yes the little pictograph at the far end says you press the little spring-loaded lever to fill it at the tap. But the entire lid also unscrews to fill using a larger source (like a bathtub).
If you can fill a glass with tap water and not smell the nastiness within, great. Fill that glass then let the water evaporate from it completely. Repeat. Eventually that glass will smell (and look) REALLY bad from the contaminates left behind by the water. This is the process your humidifier goes through daily on a large scale. This is why they have filters. The nastier your water is, the more you have to change filters and clean the unit; and if your water smells, then there's absolutely nothing ANY humidifier can do to help you with that problem. If the water rings your toilet or sink drains, you're going to have problems with any device that is built to evaporate water.
Is it noisy? It can be; it has a big fan that runs to pull the moisture through the filter. It also has 3 speeds and the lowest isn't objectionable. It also has a humidistat so it will run automatically. No, it doesn't have a digital gauge and a build in hydrometer, so you will have to buy a hydrometer ($3, walmart) and play it by ear; here's a hint: Crank it to the max; watch the gauge over the course of a day. Dial back a bit. Repeat until desired humidity level is reached. Why is this is a difficult procedure?
If you find that your humidifier isn't humidifying your house like you would like it to, instead of spending 10 minutes writing a review on Amazon bashing the unit, spend 5 minutes googling for "humidifier placement" and discovering that placing the unit near a cold-air return will allow it to humidify the entire house instead of just the room its in.
Its built from plastic, not solid oak, so yeah, you don't want kids playing near it; but there's a lot of things in my house susceptible to damage from small children. This thing is the least of my worries.
I've had this unit for 2 weeks. Its not flawless, but i don't think its deserving of some of the criticism being delivered here. There's no such thing as a device that's immune to operator error. The only thing these people should really be faulting Lasko for is not being able to read their minds or providing a user manual that's 200 pages thick (which then nobody would read and Lasko would go out of business trying to print).
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I've only had this for one week, and I came very close to sending it back because of the noise. It is effective in putting water into the air, but the fan is really loud. There are three fan settings, and it's reasonably quiet at the lowest setting and you can have a normal conversation when near it. At the middle setting I have to raise my voice, and at the high speed I would have to start yelling. At the lowest fan setting, it puts about 2.5 3 gallons of water into the air per day, or about 1/3rd of it's rated capacity. I've decided that 3 gallons per day into the air is enough to be a benefit and I will keep this unit. I plan on only using the lowest fan speed and I leave it in a room where I don't spend much time.
As another reviewer pointed out, humidifiers are rated in gallons per day of water into the air. The rating has nothing to do with the size of the water storage. This Lasko is rated for 9 gallons per day (using the high fan speed), but storage capacity is 3 gallons plus 1.5 gallons for the refill jug, for 4.5 gallons total. I like the fact that I can have this running continuously while filling up the jug. Since I only run this on low, I only have to fill it once a day, which is great.
There are some design problems with this humidifier. First, the housing is made of flimsy plastic, and seems like it could break easily. This flimsy plastic also forms the mount for the fan and fan housing. The fan on my unit was not centered within the housing, and the fan blades were extremely close to the housing on one side. With the fan on high and sometimes medium speed, the fan blades would hit the housing and make a terrible racket. I was able to loosen the 4 screws that hold the fan and slightly reposition the fan so that no longer happens at any speed. From the other reviews, it seems like a common problem with this model. My comments on the noise above are for the sound level AFTER fixing the mounting problem.
The other design issue I have is with the refill jug. There is a recessed/retractable handle (good), but the shape of the top is rounded, so it will not stand upright on its top. Since the jug is refilled from the bottom, it would be nice if it stood upright. If the handle is retracted, it will stand lopsided on its top however, so this is just a minor annoyance. There is a valve on the bottom of the jug that is only opened when installed in the unit, and when depressed manually while refilling. This spring loaded valve is just plastic mating with plastic, and is not water tight. So if you carry the jug right side up by the handle, water will leak out the valve. It's not too hard to carry the jug upside down since there is a handle on the bottom too. I just refill and carry upside down, and then turn it right side up while over the reservoir of the unit; it still spills some water if I'm not careful, but it's acceptable.
There is a little plastic window in the side of the unit that has water trickling down when the fan/pump is on. This is to tell if the water is flowing, and it also makes a pleasant sound; can only hear it with fan low and even then the fan sound dominates. Nice little feature though.
The controls on top are for fan speed (1, 2, 3 and off), plus a humidity level. It shuts off when the humidity reaches the set level, and turns back on when it falls below that level. There is a green led that lights up when the humidity level is met. I tested to make sure this works, but living in dry Colorado, I expect it to be on all the time.
Mine came with 4 casters to make it easier to slide around. They work fine, but I had to press so hard to install one of them that the receptacle (flimsy plastic) cracked slightly.
