Surprisingly Useful Humdifier Hack

Like many here, I handle humidification challenges by humidifying the room I keep my instruments in. Not only is it good for my ukes, it's good for me. But one of the challenges I've had is that my tap water is very hard (high mineral content). That means I've been bedeviled by white dust, which is the mineral content of the water. It gets all over everything and is a pain to clean up. It's also rough on my humidifier.

I've considered using distilled water, but I go through a gallon a day during peak heating season. That's a lot of water to keep on hand. My most current humidifier recommended using "distilled or filtered water." Hmmm... filtered.

So I bought one of those Britta pitchers ($16.99 at Target) and filter the water before putting it in the humidifier. The difference is HUGE. I get almost no white dust. It takes a bit longer to fill the humidifier (I need to fill the pitcher twice and the filtering is slow), but it's more than worth it in a cleaner room and far less cleanup.

I hope this simple idea helps fellow hard-water sufferers. I was really surprised at how a very small investment of time and money made such a difference.

Sounds like you're using an ultrasonic humidifier. If so, switching to a wick/filter type will eliminate the white dust while allowing you to continue using your tap water.

kkimura said:

Sounds like you're using an ultrasonic humidifier. If so, switching to a wick/filter type will eliminate the white dust while allowing you to continue using your tap water.

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Good point, I am using an ultrasonic humidifier. I stopped using evaporative/wick humidifiers because the wicks would fail too quickly (become hard/not absorbent) and the cost of replacing them outweighed the benefit.

RichM said:

Good point, I am using an ultrasonic humidifier. I stopped using evaporative/wick humidifiers because the wicks would fail too quickly (become hard/not absorbent) and the cost of replacing them outweighed the benefit.

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Yes, wick replacement is an additional expense. I go through two a year. Adding a cap full of water conditioner seems to help. The ultimate solution is moving to a tropical place. Maybe Hawaii. Until then we have to filter or treat our humidifier water to keep our ukuleles healthy.

I also had the Wick filters not lasting long & went to the ultrasonic type humidifiers, which generate a lot of the white "mineral dust." One of my other hobbies is my saltwater reef aquarium. I had purchased a SpectraPure reverse osmosis/de-ionization unit (MPS-25) for making basically distilled water that I then mix with the salt/trace elements. This will make 25 gallons of distilled water per day. A lot of times, you can purchase them used on aquarium forums for not a lot of money. I think I paid about $125 for it new about two years ago on sale. I have it connected to a "Y" spigot on the cold water line for the washing machine. For every gallon of fully distilled water, it also generates about 1.5 gallon of semi-distilled water. I'll use the fully distilled water for my aquariums & guitar/ukulele humidifiers plus the two ultrasonics in the house, and the semi-distilled I use for watering the house plants and other stuff. No more mineral dust issues.

Just a thought/suggestion.....

gtomatt said:

I also had the Wick filters not lasting long & went to the ultrasonic type humidifiers, which generate a lot of the white "mineral dust." One of my other hobbies is my saltwater reef aquarium. I had purchased a SpectraPure reverse osmosis/de-ionization unit (MPS-25) for making basically distilled water that I then mix with the salt/trace elements. This will make 25 gallons of distilled water per day. A lot of times, you can purchase them used on aquarium forums for not a lot of money. I think I paid about $125 for it new about two years ago on sale. I have it connected to a "Y" spigot on the cold water line for the washing machine. For every gallon of fully distilled water, it also generates about 1.5 gallon of semi-distilled water. I'll use the fully distilled water for my aquariums & guitar/ukulele humidifiers plus the two ultrasonics in the house, and the semi-distilled I use for watering the house plants and other stuff. No more mineral dust issues.

Just a thought/suggestion.....

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Cool, that's a Brita pitcher on steroids!

on my humidifier, I turn the wick upside down when it gets build up, and then when that side gets building, I soak it in citric acid.
Same stuff used to descale a coffee maker.
Then I can keep reusing the wick.
So far the wick has been going for 2 years.

The utrasonic's dont put out enough water for me. I'm going through 6-8 gallons a day right now.