I started writing this roundup of WIRED’s humidity updates in New York City during the second-longest drought on record. In November my radiators crashed, blasting my 100+ year old Brooklyn house with heat. And according to my indoor air quality monitors, my humidity was hovering at 32 percent. The inside of my nose was as dry as my skin. My houseplants needed more watering than usual. Brooklyn’s Prospect Park had a wildfire that required more than 200 firefighters. All this means that it was a desert.
And dry insides aren’t just chapped lips or dry noses. According to the recommendation of Harvard’s School of Public Health, indoor humidity can reduce the spread of Covid-19. The ideal indoor humidity should be between 40 percent and 60 percent. And research suggests that high ambient humidity and warm temperatures also prevent the spread of influenza. There’s a lot those little humidifiers can do.
And anyway, the first abandoned appliance I see on the stairs in my neighborhood is a small, low-temperature heater. Often, they are left with a Paddington Bear-style label with the words, “Still working!” I also see them thrown in the trash. And I, too, am guilty of throwing away more than one humidifier. I stop when I can’t clean the deep brown film from the bottom of their thighs. I start with good intentions, filling them with the recommended distilled water, but eventually I will switch to the tap. I got better and cleaned my storage humidifier thoroughly with water and citric acid, bought from a spice store. However, minerals in water are a problem. If you have hard water, your humidifier may produce a film of white dust; this is why most models recommend distilled water or come with filters. And I went through a whole winter of dry heat because I didn’t want to deal with a humidifier.
All humidifiers in this review were tested in my 100+ year old apartment with the heat on. I was looking for easy-to-use humidifiers that could fill a medium-sized room with the right amount of humidity. I didn’t want to carry jugs of distilled water up my stairs; I also wanted something that was easy to maintain. I wanted a committed and stable relationship with my vaporizer. Maybe you want that too.
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