Hot or cold humidifier?

Nicole Guy CRR

New Member
Wanted to know your thoughts on a hot or cold humitifier? What's the benefits of hot verses cold? I have a helix in there to regulate the heat. A suction fan to pull put stale air and a fan to circulate the air. But humidity is low. They are in thier own room so I can make it realy humid.
 
By "hot" humidifier do you mean a vaporizer? It creates water vapor by boiling the water. Measure the temperature of the steam...it could be a lot hotter than you want and could harm plants or your cham if it happened to be right in the stream. I don't like worrying about this. Also, the heated water will grow bacteria faster.

A "cold" humidifier (ultrasonic) creates water vapor using a very rapidly vibrating disk that nebulizes the water, not heating it to make steam. The nebulizer disk gets warm, but doesn't really heat the vapor much. The vapor is usually about or just below room temp. I've used them for years on all my cham setups without any problems with temps. If you have basking lights on during the day the temps will recover pretty quickly.
 
By "hot" humidifier do you mean a vaporizer? It creates water vapor by boiling the water. Measure the temperature of the steam...it could be a lot hotter than you want and could harm plants or your cham if it happened to be right in the stream. I don't like worrying about this. Also, the heated water will grow bacteria faster.

A "cold" humidifier (ultrasonic) creates water vapor using a very rapidly vibrating disk that nebulizes the water, not heating it to make steam. The nebulizer disk gets warm, but doesn't really heat the vapor much. The vapor is usually about or just below room temp. I've used them for years on all my cham setups without any problems with temps. If you have basking lights on during the day the temps will recover pretty quickly.

Bacterias should be dead by the time the water is boiled.
So, Hot humidifier should actually be more sanitary than ultrasonic humidifier.
But, it does raise the ambient temp somewhat. That is why I love Steve's idea on using it only for winter.
 
Get a Hot/Cold Ultrasonic Humidifier, and have the best of both worlds.:)


I have this model, and it works great!

http://www.airoswiss.net/AOS7142.aspx?DepartmentId=34

I find that even when using the heat option its not very hot. Since the unit uses Ultrasonic technology to shatter the water into such small particles there is not much for the heat to hold onto. The unit also pre heats the water to sterlize it weather you choose the hot or cold setting.

You will also find that a room with a higher humidity in general will hold temperatures better, since the hot or cold has something to hold onto.


-Jay
 
What Steve said unless you have a Cham with RI. Then you use warm mist until its over it. Get a decent one that gives you the option of warm or cool. All the cheapie $40 ones don't last long and burn a ton of electricity. I did a audit on a $40 warm mist Vicks and the Swiss hot/cool one I eventually got. The Vicks used a lot more energy. IE much more expensive to run. I calculated it at close a little over $1/day something like $1.10. So in a month or two all the money you saved on that cheap one is being paid to the electric company.

A decent like Air-o-Swiss is a good investment. Otherwise, I use the Crane animal series for cool mist only. Cheap and if you use RO water (you need to) then they will last a long tme.
 
We've been using a cold humidifier up until a week ago. It really wasn't working well after several months. We found that with the ambient temp. and the consistant watering and cleaning, our humidity levels are around a consistant 70-72. We have a fan that circulates the air in the rooms without being directed at the Chams to insure bacteria levels are down. You can't be too careful, so we clean and change soil, pull out any leaves that don't look healthy, remove dead feeders quickly, etc.

We're looking into another humidifier (cool) for the winter months when our heat source will begin to dry the air.
 
A humidifier is a appliance that increases humidity (moisture) in a single room or in the entire home. There are point-of-use humidifiers, which are commonly used to humidify a single room, and whole-house or furnace humidifiers.. :)
I have an Crane Humidifier which Produces cool mist that is safe for children.
 
Back
Top Bottom