Best Room Humidifiers: Buying Guide & Reviews

Last Updated on April 5, 2021

In the picture above, the soft fog in the air is humidity on any spring or summer morning before the sun comes up with its haunting and mysterious beauty.

When you want the best humidifiers for any room of your home you will surely want the top-rated ones available for providing moisture. The humidifiers for your bedroom are reviewed below along with the humidifiers for your baby. Humidifiers will provide steam water vapor for increasing the relative humidity in your home. Read more about it at the link if you don’t fully understand relative humidity.

1. Humidifier Benefits for Your Home

Humidity is the quantity of water vapor in the air that is foggy, hazy, and looks like steam. Humidity is usually higher in the summer as I can attest to living in the Midwest USA.

In the dryer climates, such as mountain and desert states, humidity is almost nonexistent. High humidity makes you feel damp and muggy feeling sticky-clammy.

In the wintertime, humidity is lower, and homes should have humidity levels from 30- to 60-percent. We can’t do anything about the outdoor humidity however. You never want your humidity to be either too high or too low that can cause breathing and skin problems.

Humidity too High

This will produce condensation on your windows. The house will feel as though you are living in a Turkish bath making it hard to breathe and the air will feel suffocating as though there is no air. It will cause mold spores that you cannot see and mildew that you can see. Bacteria will grow, and dust mites love it. Those with asthma, allergies, COPD, and emphysema will suffer and other respiratory problems can develop.

Humidity too Low

When you don’t have enough humidity in your home, skin becomes dry and cracks. Your nose feels stuffed up and the mucous becomes dry and hard. Eyelids itch and coughing will occur when your throat is too dry. Dryness causes static electricity for hair to fly, doorknobs to give that uncomfortable shock while clothing clings to your body.

For the best health at all times, have your house humidity set for providing comfort without suffering the effects when your home moisture is too low or high.

2. Differences Between Humidifiers, Vaporizers, and Diffusers

Many people think humidifiers and diffusers are the same. Each unit listed here has its own distinctive benefits. The only similarity is that all three types produce moisture. However, an ultrasonic diffuser only emits a small amount of vapor with or without essential oils added to the water.

There are three types of units to release vapor. The humidifier adds valuable moisture to the air inside your home. The diffuser uses essential oils to make the air smell like heaven with a small amount of moisture that is not as plentiful as a humidifier or vaporizer. Some brands use a tray for adding medications and essential oils.

With the vaporizer, you can put medication or essential oils in specific brands made exclusively to do that. The medicated vapors help babies and others when they have a cold or the flu. Alternatively, you can run it with only water.

3. How to Choose the Suitable Humidifier for Your Home

You want to select the appropriate top-rated humidifier where you plan to use it and for what purpose. When you live in a dry arid climate you will need humidity for sick babies, kids, and adults too. Humidifiers will eliminate the static electricity in the air in your house.

These are the topics you will want to think about before purchasing a humidifying unit for the most benefits.

Best Performing Humidifiers

The best humidifiers for performance will give you the gallons of water used over 24-hours. The brands will give you the square-feet of area they will cover and humidity levels they perform at.

First-Class Features

Both warm- or cool-mist can be produced by ultrasonic humidifiers depending on the brand you choose. The warm-mist units use the heating element inside to warm the cool water you put into it to about a safe 104-degrees F. It would scald a child if tipped over. It might be more practical to use a cool-mist device around infants, pets, and the elderly.

The cool-mist humidifiers use cold water for a cool mist. Remember that the warm mist will become cool once it hits the air.

Exceptional Design

Where you intend to use your humidifier is important to know. Your first goal is to know if it will fit the area where you plan to use it. You will need to measure that area to see if it will fit. You don’t want it to be in foot traffic area to tip over or cause someone to fall.

The humidifier you choose should have handles for a larger unit and all of them able to be carried to your sink for refilling the water tank. Lightweight ones are easy to pickup and carry at the sides.

Useful Gauges

You don’t actually need the two instruments or meters discussed below, but they are handy for measuring humidity and controlling it to the desired level. The devices are also called gauges for calculating humidity.

These gauges whether analog knobs or digital buttons are convenient devices and are inexpensive as separate wall units or as a part of the humidifier built in.

Some unit hygrometers show the humidity level and will shut the humidifier off automatically. Humidistats are important since a unit without a gauge will continue to put mist into the air until you shut the unit off manually.

• Hygrometers measure the relative humidity in the air. It needs to know the temperature of the room to give the measurement.

• Humidistats regulate the relative humidity in the air. You set the device to the level you want your moisture to be and it does it for you without you needing to guess what it is.

Both meters can be purchased as separate units to attach to your wall.

Most of the best room humidifiers will have a humidistat to regulate the humidity in your house at affordable prices.

Guidelines for Choosing the Right Home Humidifier

The comfort of your home will be greatly improved when you use a humidifier to meet your needs. Use the guidelines below for selecting your ideal humidifier for you and your family.

Square Footage Area of Coverage—a portable or room size humidifier will keep your level of humidity comfortable and will not cost you an arm or leg or your first-born child! Some people don’t understand how to measure square feet, so I’ll help you with that. If your room to be humidified is 12-feet long by 15-feet wide, multiply both numbers: 12 x 15=180-square feet. Just use the dimensions: 10 x 12 or 15 x 15 or whatever your room size is and multiply with the answer there for you.

Sound Levels—table top units are fairly quiet. Warm-mist units will produce some hissing and boiling water sounds. A floor console unit should be ideally placed away from bedrooms because they are somewhat noisier. Table top units are not exactly whisper quiet, but they never kept me awake. Kids sleep right through a slight noise—it is soothing.

Water Type—I prefer not to use tap water from the sink faucet in humidifiers or diffusers because it is loaded with minerals and lime scale. Your units will need more cleaning maintenance to remove it. Distilled water is cheap at only about $1 per gallon at most stores. Plus, using distilled or purified water means no one breathes in those minerals. Tap water with the minerals will leave a white dusty deposit on furniture or floors wherever it sits.

Humidifier Capacity—does not mean the amount of water the tank will hold. Capacity simply means the amount of mist sent into the air you breathe. The table top units have a smaller tank size than the console type, so they will need to be filled more each day for a 2-gallon output capacity humidifier. The higher you set the unit to mist, the more water it will use. You might want to put it on the low setting.

Warm- or Cool-Misting—humidifiers are your personal choice. Remember that the warm mist can burn people if it falls over. If you like the warm-mist with medication containers, check out some of the brands that function this way shown below.

More Features—are available with units having mist adjustments, 360-degree turning nozzles on top, timers for hours to run and shut down, essential oil or medication trays on specialized models, night lights, and a LED display screen for being easy to read, and to automatically shut off when the water is low. Higher-end models will have humidistats built in.

Operating Cost

The electricity used to run a humidifier is negligible. It’s about the same each month as a 50-Watt lightbulb around 10 cents!

Cautions for Your Safety

Be sure to buy a humidifier or vaporizer that shuts off automatically when the water is low or gone. Some models will beep to let you know when the water is low needing to be refilled. Transparent bodies on humidifiers will let you see the water inside.

The best humidifier for baby means never putting it so close to your young toddler or baby that he or she can pull it down on themselves. Be sure the cord is not easy to reach by them. If you use a warm-mist, it’s even more important not to be close because they will be scalded from the hot water in the tank.

Warranties and Customer Service

It’s always nice to buy from a reputable company that offers a 1-year Warranty or more. It gives buyers confidence that if something goes wrong they can have it replaced. A positive customer focused team is always best for when you make phone calls. Be sure the company provides a toll-free number or live chat and even a contact us button.

Top 5 Best Humidifiers for Your Requirements

Tips for the Best Results Using Your Humidifier

• Do not put the unit too close to wood furniture, walls, or electronics. Do not put essential oils directly into the water; use the pad instead for the units that offer the oil tray. Do not use hot water—only use cold water.
• Use distilled water for the best performance of the unit. Tap water has minerals and lime scale to clog up the unit and is hard to get off. It also produces white dust on your furniture and floors.
• The moisture that goes up into the air must fall down—that’s gravity. To eliminate wetness on your floor, carpet, or furniture, put a flower pot bottom under the humidifier.
• The humidifiers reviewed here do not use batteries.
• Always unplug the unit from the wall before filling with water and cleaning.
• Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for how to clean your humidifier.

Final Thoughts

I hope this guide and reviews have been a helpful insightful for you when looking to buy the best home humidifier for winter and summer. Furnaces running in the winter dry out the air in your home. Conversely, air conditioners in the summer remove humidity in your home as well. Humidifiers are wonderful to have in times of emergencies when kids have colds. Maintain your humidifier and it will last for many years.

When it concerns your health, knowing the relative humidity level in your home, office, business, basement, or warehouse is essential. If you have a small green house for plants in a dry climate, a few humidifiers would benefit those plants for them to be happy.

You are welcome to leave comments and questions below and I will reply to each one of you. Happy Shopping!