Look, man. If you're at a bar, and the dude randomly starts going off about humidifiers, and it DOESN'T take a weird segue into his ex, or conspiracy theories, you, my friend, have had a pretty good bar encounter.
@@Frank-bc8gg Your comment made me think of something (I'm going to go off on a random tangent but bear with me lol ) and it's the strange feeling some people get when they are experiencing something outside of it's normal parameters. Like how weird everything looks when it's completely foggy outside, or how strange a usually bustling building looks when it's empty (like an abandoned Walmart), or when you see someone completely shaven for the first time when you've only ever seen them with a full beard (there are videos of young children crying when they see their shaved dad lol). I know you said you find enjoyment from chatting with a bartender after closing or a teacher after class, but for some people, moments like those feel strange and even disturbing because when we are so used to experiencing something a certain way and then experience it with something drastically changed about it, it kinda feels like we've stepped out of reality for a moment and for some people that can be a pretty uncomfortable feeling. I'm kind of one of those people lol so seeing the colorful lights off on his background in this video is kind of unsettling because it's the exact same room with the exact same stuff and the same person but with those lights off it feels uncanny.
You know, I didn’t wake up today expecting to watch 53 minutes and 53 seconds of video about air humidifiers but i’m here now and I’m honestly fine with it. Time well spent.
@Michel Jeandillou all three even, I didn’t know that the Vick’s humidifier is just an electrode boiler but now that I do, I know for sure that I’m never buying one now. I’m already lucky to have survived playing with mains power as many times as I have so there’s no way I’m testing that luck once more. Plus, I know a scam when I see one. Why would I go spend money on a bowl and a death cable when I’ve already got a bucket, extension chord, and scissors on hand? Just in case anyone needs to hear this, everything I said after the word plus was a joke. Do not under any circumstances try to jerry rig your own electrode boiler, mains power is not a joke and I should have died from playing with it.
@@br33zy771That's unlikely - it's all brick and concrete. We had some wooden partitions (it's a 1940 building), and when we tore them apart, the studs were as good as new. Yes, it's quite dry during the heating season.
@@Nighterlev hillcrestmgmt.com/signs-of-low-humidity-how-to-fix-it/ i can post link after link saying it's not good. Not only is it bad for wood and parts of your home, it's bad for people too.
I had two things: a belt-style humidifier, and parents who did not care about anything. It was never cleaned, ever. As a child, I took it upon myself to clean it, when the air blowing out of it smelled like dirty wet socks, and I opened it to find the continuous 'filter' sponge covered in orange slimy goo.
Yeah mine litterally just boiled water to evarape and got orange lime too and it litterally boiled the orange lime too it was super gross. It was CVS branded
Between the release of this video and the last one, I replaced my central forced air humidifier filter for the first time since it was installed 15 years ago.
@@DariaM00re usually the nozzle, solenoid, or water T tap off gets closed and it stops getting the thing wet in that time. Also they should be taped off your hot water. One reason scale builds up in water tanks and coffee makers is that some minerals loose water solubility with temperature increase.
"If you have condensation on your windows, you have too much humidification" Me, living in cheap Japanese flat: I get condensation on my windows from breathing.
12:00 That's backwards. In the US we used to build houses intentionally drafty to prevent moisture buildup in or on the walls. Modern high efficiency houses aim to be as air sealed as possible with very good insulation and moisture control in the walls. When the house is sealed you can control the quality of air coming into the house by bringing it through filters. Heat exchangers, heating or cooling the incoming air as desired with the outgoing air help with energy efficiency. Having sealed houses also helps with pest control. Basically cheap houses are built drafty with random air coming in wherever. Premium houses aim to be sealed with a integrated system to control air quality within the home.
Flying Sunbeam Radiant Control Toasters! Automatic beyond belief! It comes on automatically when you leave your computer alone, no need to press any pesky buttons.
To expand on the "belt type" concept a little: The ancient console humidifier I had in the '80s didn't have a belt, as such, but I could see how the system it used could have been set up to have one instead of the rigid structure mine had. This is going to be a little wordy, since I'm trying to describe something that would better be shown in a picture, but basically, the water reservoir had a vertical rotating drum in it, kinda like a miniature Ferris wheel--the one in mine was about, say, 80% of the machine's height in diameter (it was about the same size as your modern woodgrain unit) by maybe eight inches wide. The edge of the drum was covered with an absorbent plastic wool material, sort of like a softer Scotchbrite. It would rotate slowly through the water at the bottom, and then the rotation would bring the wet part in front of a fan mounted at the top; this would cause the water caught in the absorbent material to evaporate, and the rotation of the drum would then carry the dried-out part back down into the water. So, same basic principle as the console unit you have, but it got the water from the reservoir up to the fan by mechanical means. The capillary-action wick thing in modern units seems like it's basically the replacement for that arrangement, probably dreamed up in order to eliminate a moving part. On the plus side, the surface of the drum being constantly dried out again by the fan meant that no given patch of it ever stayed wet long enough for anything to grow on it (as long as the machine was running), although the water reservoir did still need treatment to keep _it_ from getting manky. We had a bottle of stuff kind of like you would treat a fish tank with, which you were supposed to throw a capful of in the tank whenever you refilled it. It would run for about a day on any sane setting. On the minus side, it had that extra moving part, and eventually the mechanism to turn the drum wore out in mine, causing a shrill bad-bearing noise that made it unusable in any room where someone was trying to sleep, and really annoying anywhere else. Hence, I suspect, why they don't make them that way any more.
Yeah, ours had a belt that was made up of something like foam but harder. The bottom gear was in the water and the 3 foot wide "belt" would slowly rotate picking up water and a fan would blow through the belt releasing water into the air. Belts would last a couple years and then you'd just put in a new one. My chore as a kid was to fill the thing up with buckets every few days.
This is fabulous and we always love the follow-up times with you. And thank you for clarifying what kind of Technology Connection your personal care device makes... I'm sure many of us were thinking one thing and we all feel validated and seen even if that's not where the future video was going. :-D
26 years ago, a Vicks "Cool Mist" vaporizer nearly killed my twin sons. It failed and started to burn. It had 3 "fail safe" devices which all failed. It was pulled off the market shortly after that.
Crazy.. my buddy was living with his grandpa with his little brother and they were 8 and 4 yrs old and his grandpa's way of humidifying a room was to shut the water off to the water heater and open the pressure/temp release valve and collect the water in a bucket until it stops dripping out of it then turn the water heater up all the way. Then with the valve open, would release steam eventually and humidify the room,,, well one fine day with the water off and all valves closed to the house thr pressure / temp valve's spring popped off and shut the valve closed and dropping the safety release in the tank.. about 2 hours later my buddy and his brother in the room next door to the water heater get blown through the wall of their bedroom to the outdoors while they were in their beds asleep.. and his brother lost his hearing and most of the skin on his left leg and my buddy got 3rd degree burns on half of his body.. but time heals most wounds and so did the 4 milion dollat settlement they got after somehow winning when they sued the water heater manufacturer... fun story......,
@@Z-Ack I don't understand. How did they successfully sue the water heater manufacturer. I cannot believe they were operating the device under specified conditions.
@@Z-Ack Well, your buddies grandpa is a idiot. Making a pipe bomb from your water heater to make the house humid? Sounds like a very safe idea. This is why we have warnings on everything.
@@MindALot I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not familiar with all of the intimate workings of a water heater, but I'm guessing that they could sue by saying that the water heater should have had more failsafes in place and shouldn't have even been allowed to be operated in such a manner.
New construction here in Canada (at least where I live) *requires* a vapour barrier - usually taped/sealed plastic sheeting or closed cell foam - between the inside of the house and the structure of the house/insulation to reduce the ability for condensation to form on cold structural surfaces from interior humidity.
@@sexygreger Here in sweden, and i suspect in Canada too, the answer is "it depends" but no, for the most part it is not a requirement (except in "wet rooms" bathroom, shower etc) instead it depends greatly on what the wall is made from and how it is built. For some types of walls you do need a vapor barrier, others not.
Reading this comment suddenly had me reading it in Mike Holmes’ voice, with little additional tidbits from his home improvement shows also playing in my head...
@@Dracounius in Germany it's an absolute requirement for newly build dwellings to meet energy standards. That usually means adequate insulation, vapour barriers and as an option for even lower engery consumption: water and heat recuperation from air recirculation and forced outside air.
Re: High humidity. I remember a documentary about problems in an extremely cold region. They showed a house that had to be abandoned because condensation inside the insulation froze and turned into solid ice, destroying its effectiveness.
I've seen a 1 to 2 inch layer of ice build up on the inside of double paned glass when I was stationed up north while in the military. so ya, I could totally see that happening.
@@Reversed82 Vapor barriers mostly eliminate the problem assuming construction methods to get the vapor barrier airtight. You can calculate if the wall construction method will have condensation issues using the tools on this site: www.ubakus.com/en/r-value-calculator/ but all that goes out the window if you have a hole in your air control layer that just lets moist air blow through onto cold surfaces.
Lol back handed compliments seem to flood this guy's videos anywhere he posts them. Not sure If I should feel bad for him or just enjoy the synergy of this extremely niche RUclipsr with his savage fanbase. I'm only confident that I'm entertained by both
Had an impeller humidifier when I was a kid (30+ yrs ago). It was interesting to pull apart and examine as a kid. The motor unit sat atop the tank and had a rotating spindle (Hollow) that would draw water up the internal faces of the spindle to vents at the top of the spindle located at the junction of a flat disc where the rotational energy would expel the water and draw it outward along the face of the disc to a ring of plastic combs which when hit at velocity with water would cause a fine mist, this would build up in the top portion of the tank until the force pushed it out of a rotating directional horn located on the top front of the tank where it would be expelled as a soft cool white cloud-like mist that would quickly fall to the floor where you had to keep a towel or bathmat on the floor to prevent slipping and falling. This was a very simple, as far as I know low cost per hour to run as the motor was well geared yo reduce the amount of energy required to create the correct amount of rotational energy required to produce a mist. This was also very safe as I did pull the top off while it was running many times as a child and would sit the motor unit upside down and allow my GI Joe’s to get flung off its carousel of death like nature and still I was never injured.
We have a 3 phase dehumidifier at work, I think it's basically that, a giant kettle. I forget how many kw it's rated at but it's kind of comically overkill. Problem with that unit though is it spends more time cleaning itself than actually humidifying so it barely outputs anything.
@11:00, it's why we put the vapor barrier on the "warm" side of the wall. So here in the north USA, that means the inside of the wall, basiically just behind the sheetrock. And in the south they put it just behind the siding. Your old home (like mine) probably doesn't have a vapor barrier, but then it also likely has a lot of airflow in the walls to dry things out.
Wow! I don't think I've ever seen you in an ordinary T-shirt. It's quite the adjustment. Also, can't wait for more humidifier facts... which is not a phrase I ever thought I'd say.
I remember as a kid having one very similar to the one on the right. It was on the floor and I tripped and landed my hands on the jet of steam. My palms bubbled, ballooned and turned reddish purple. the best relief was cooling gel from the hospital which calmed it for a few minutes, also sitting at the sink for hours running water over it to make it burn less. It was terrible for about half a day and was the most pain I've experienced. Boiled hands. Moral of the story: Be careful where you place your humidifiers.
Regarding the too-tight house sealing: you are correct. This is especially an issue with places that are humid because of mycotixins (mold spores) being able to build up within the home. Also VOCs released from cooking remain in the home far longer unless you have an outside vent. Fireplaces can have dangerous backdrafts because a house is too well sealed to permit proper air-exchange. I crack a window when using my fireplace to prevent this. Changing your furnace filters regularly (standard is 3 months, I do it every 2 months during allergen season) is very important to remove these particles from your airflow.
So interesting. This video feels just like sitting with my mates and shooting the breeze about technology. Considering I can’t sit with my friends and do that in lockdown, this was great content.
I saw a video about how even a slight increase in CO2 levels causes all sorts of cognitive difficulties. Makes me quick to crack open a window when i'm slightly warm, even if it's -15 out.
So, my apartment doesn’t have any fans and is fairly cheaply made, impossible to get maintenance on, etc. I didn’t realize co2 was a risk when the air is stagnate and that kinda freaks me out.
So for that: talking about and breaking down HRVs and ERVs would make a lot of sense for these videos, aka a technology to combat the stagnate air in the home.
On the space station they were worried about CO2 pockets developing in random places that people would then float in to, so it's filled with fans. Mind you, now I'm thinking about how I'm all like "I'm gonna get shit done!" as I walk home, relax a bit at home, then can't be bothered
Reminds me of Disney After Dark. Back in the 1980s, the Disney Channel experimented with pornography after the Disney Channel went off the air for the day. I didn't see it as I was just a kid and was already in bed.
Technology Connections always feels like it was filmed right and early in the day after a hot cup of coffee and some freshly squeezed orange juice! Technology Connextras feels like it was filmed bright and early in the morning after a night of heavy drinking and regretful decisions! I love it so much
Piggybacking on this, I enjoyed the discussion about the economics and efficiency of whole house furnaces. If gas or the heat pump is cheaper than electricity, the evaporative humidifier makes a lot of sense. The vaporizer style might be a good choice though if you don't need heat/humidity in every room; still might be cheaper/more responsive
That’s like saying you heat your house in the middle of the winter by boiling a pot of water. Dedicated evaporative cooling systems (cooling tower) will evaporate 2 gallons of water per HOUR for 15,000 BTU. Evaporative humidifier will evaporate ~1 gallon of water per DAY. It’s not even a comparison. To add further perspective, average homes have ~70,000-90,000 BTU furnaces in areas that require a humidifier. Evaporating 1 gallon of water over the course of a day is about 315 BTU per hour. Your furnace will need to run ~ .3% longer to account for an evaporative humidifier. Opening an exterior door to the house one time will make a larger difference.
@@cynic5581 I appreciate your post, but we can do better together. Let's see how much energy we're really talking about: > That’s like saying you heat your house in the middle of the winter by boiling a pot of water. No, it's not. It's saying that all heat sources / heat sinks add up. But let's calculate and find out how much of a difference it makes. > Dedicated evaporative cooling systems (cooling tower) will evaporate 2 gallons of water per HOUR for 15,000 BTU. Heat of vaporization for two gallons of water is 19300 kJ, or 18293 BTU (wolframalpha.com) So this cooling tower would be 18293 BTU per hour. This number is for cooling a whole house. > Evaporative humidifier will evaporate ~1 gallon of water per DAY. It's important to note that the rate of evaporation varies depending on the humidity of the air. While the air is dry, evaporation will pull out more energy until reaching an equilibrium, if it is able to catch up to the humidity setpoint. The humidity in the house is also in equilibrium, via a gradient, with the dry air outside and lowered by the removal of humidity from central heating, causing the humidifier to work to catch up. A humidifier's output is also more than double your value. I'm finding these online (airconditionerlab.com/best-evaporative-humidifier/): (Room) 2.6 gal / 24 hour, vornado evap3 4 gal / 24 hour, vornado evap40 (Multiroom) 12 gal / 24 hour, aircare ma1201 (Whole House) 17 gal / 24 hour, aprilaire 600 These are maximum rates: the humidifier might not be working this hard. But we can't assume that evaporative humidifiers will evaporate only 1 gallon per day, when I'm finding max outputs minimum 2.6 times that, and maximum 17 times that. > To add further perspective, average homes have ~70,000-90,000 BTU furnaces in areas that require a humidifier. This is a tricky one, since these are BTU/hour output ratings, but the furnace is not always on. There's also a variety of fuels and efficiencies, but for simplicity I went with a natural gas furnace at 82 percent efficiency, which costs $14.02 to output 1 million BTU. This gives a price per BTU of 0.00001402 cents. (homeguides.sfgate.com/much-cost-run-gas-furnace-62819.html) Evaporating 1 gallon of water over the course of a day is about 315 BTU per hour. While whole-house humidifiers will be much more than this, taking the 1 room humidifier at 2.6 gallons over 24 hours, that comes out to 25000 kJ, or 23695 btu, which is 987.3 BTU/hour. For comparison, this is about 19% of the output of a 1500 Watt space heater running at full heat. Using 18 cents per kilowatt hour (higher than New York State, lower than New Hampshire) that gives 94 cents, or about a dollar a day. Using the price per btu of the furnace, it would be 33 cents per day. But less responsive than the space heater. > Your furnace will need to run ~ .3% longer to account for an evaporative humidifier. Opening an exterior door to the house one time will make a larger difference. Not sure how to estimate opening the door. By my calculations, the evaporative room cooler would cost $1 a day if counteracted with an electric heater in the same room. Less if you wear a sweater and let the furnace take care of it :)
The tight envelope you talk about in American construction is finally being addressed, newer mechanical codes that are slowly being adopted by each state and require small cassette energy recovery ventilators to force the exchange of outside air with inside. You can retrofit your home system for one of these ERVs, but new construction will require it for R occupancies.
When you get to the NES, just say something like "...and I don't know what this thing is but I saw it at a Goodwill and it seems almost every RUclipsr has one of these in the background." RAGE! ;)
Saw the thumbnail, stopped scrolling for “best humidifier” and clicked because this guy looked like a guy who has spent a lot of time thinking about humidifiers
2 points: The impeller models were a bit loud - I remember we had one - it was round, and had a little motor-driven spinny-thingy in the middle. And you could dramatically improve the console unit by mounting the wick on a floating 'raft' that allows the bottom of the wick to be submerged, and will naturally follow the water level from as high as you want to fill it, all the way to the bottom of the tank.
Correction: few houses are well-sealed. It takes quite a bit of deliberate effort to air-seal a structure (I know, I'm doing it) and most homes are pretty leaky. And when you do thoroughly seal a house, you install an Energy/Heat Recovery Ventilator, which brings fresh air in from outside, passes it through a heat exchanger to absorb the energy in the outgoing air, and pushes it into the house. Tightly air-sealing a house is very important, as it allows one to determine where fresh air comes in, which means we can clean it up and heat/cool it with the outgoing air, instead of letting random dirty hot/cold air come into random places. Why aren't more houses tightly sealed? It costs more, of course! Aside from the cost of the HRV/ERV, it takes a fair amount of labor, and some materials, to seal every little gap on the envelope. On my new shop I'm building, I sealed every seam in the plywood sheathing, I sealed the area where the sheathing and framing meet the foundation, I used gaskets and sealant on every wall penetration, I taped every seam on the rigid exterior foam insulation, and I was careful about not tearing the Tyvek over that. I'll seal the drywall where it meets at the corners once I get that far. All of this would cost more if I was paying someone to do it.
He's more right than wrong in the video. Few older houses are well sealed.. Newer construction is a different story. 2 part foam has been cheap and easy to apply during construction for a long time, and before that homes were dense packing cellulose or blown fiberglass behind vapor barriers. Energy standards were driving homes in cold climates to tighten up back in the 90s. Air exchange was only ever tackled in places that burn dino farts - and that was only a "don't blow up the house" concern not an air quality concern. HRVs/ERVs arent yet common (outside of high end construction) because they're fairly new to the US and not mandated - where as high R value is and has been for a while. That said: I sprayed the envelope of my mid 50s home with ~14 inches of foam and did pour in foam into the wall cavities. We have gas here, so I also needed to replace the HVAC and hot water heater with fresh air breathers. ERVs are great for air quality, but if you have range hoods or exhaust fans in general prepare to have a relay driven damper to allow makeup air in - granted HRV/ERVs may have come a long way but when I went shopping I couldn't find a unit that would keep positive pressure when you start actively exhausting. A gas dryer is always going to use space air for combustion, so you need to make sure your not going to create enough negative pressure in the space and blow up your house - which again requires either air makeup or putting your laundry room in its own envelope that isn't airtighted. ...and just wait for the sticker shock when you go to replace the filters in your air exchanger. Why do all this? Because happy wife is happy life, and my wife wanted to walk around the house barefoot in shorts in February.
Why Tyvek and not Zip? Cost? And to the commenter about sealed structures being unhealthy. Source? Depending on where you live, the outside air can be very much polluted. Better to clean the air you bring in to a sealed structure.
@@davidkafka2452Here's a decent overview: www.cpsc.gov/Safety-Education/Safety-Guides/Home/The-Inside-Story-A-Guide-to-Indoor-Air-Quality As mentioned in the video and in other comments, is is counter intuitive that the outside air might be cleaner than inside - but as a country we've come a long way from the 1970s city smog and acid rain atmosphere.
@@davidkafka2452 I have a strong dislike of OSB, which is what Zip is made of. I get that it's got a coating, but I just don't trust all of that like I do plywood. I live in a wet area with significant mold concerns. I also like having a redundant WRB in the form of using both taped rigid foam boards and Tyvek. I installed a (real) rainscreen over the foam too, so everything can dry out if/when water gets past the siding. I used Zip Liquid Flash in some areas, mostly to coat the window rough openings (I also used Flexwrap on the sills, over the Liquid Flash, because I'm ridiculous). Yes, cost too, and availability. Though plywood shot up in price right before I bought all of the sheathing. But mostly I don't trust Zip in the very long term, and it hasn't been around for a long time.
Living in Ireland with relative humidity of 80% year round hasn't been a great winter. Wet WALLS and mold was a huge issue before getting a desiccant humidifier which also takes the edge off of the cold nights. It's a constant battle though
My grandmother had a belted unit. There was a foam belt that ran down through the water then back up over a blower and drum. Because it drew the water up through a moving belt, it could hold a couple days worth of water at a time. while not being much bigger than your console unit. It always stunk of mildew and you did get the dripping sounds more as the tank emptied, but the water would mostly just run down through the foam and they were SUPER effective.
This series of videos has made me weirdly fascinated with humidification, I ordered a hygrometer and I'm going to be experimenting with all sorts of DIY humidifiers and see what systems are the most efficient so thank you for giving me a new project to keep myself busy with while I go insane in this tiny apartment room
I love this! He went to the trouble of publicly recognizing his mistake, and then promptly clarifying it by explaining the truth of the matter. Nowadays, we can't even expect that kind of integrity from CNN or the New York Times (sad, but true)!
@@DavidLindes I always learn something watching his videos. I meant a school teacher. He seems like he's genuinely interested in his subject and there aren't many school teachers left that do.
@@bvs56 Fair enough... And indeed, schools could use better (and in particular, more excited) teachers in lots of cases. Then again, maybe schools aren't really the right paradigm at all? A work that provides food for thought on that topic: www.ishmael.org/books/if-they-give-you-lined-paper-write-sideways/ :)
4:05 _Literally_ yes if your room is already at temp. My room was _constantly_ 78F+ at ~20-30% humidity. I got an evaporative humidifier and set it at 60%, and the temperature, while it was coming up to %, _dropped_ to under 70F. Now that it's at humidity, it STILL only gets up to ~75F instead of 78-82F due to the increased heat capacity of the room. Evaporative humidifiers quite literally _help_ with reducing the temperature. If only by increasing the heat-sinking ability of the surrounding air _without_ increasing the temperature through energy waste. Though with as quickly as the humidity leaves the room when I open the door, it _still_ helps reduce the temperature.
"I think all of you have seen all of them, which is very dumb" You clearly underestimate your audience lol I've watched all of them and get unreasonably excited when I get notified of a new video
In old stories, there is often mention of "Jack Frost painting designs on the windowpanes" - meaning frost forming on the inside of cold windows. Frost is formed by humidity condensing on the glass, and as it condenses from gas to solid, it crystallizes in feathery shapes. In old houses, the humidity came from human breath, water evaporating from food being cooked, or from house plants, and nobody tried to *add* humidity to indoor air, although in summer they might *de*humidify it.
Im from Florida. We spend 10 months fighting full saturation air at 90⁰F unable to open the doors and windows. That being said i do love a good well designed smoking room! My tobacconist had this whole cold air Xchange system in his shop. The humidor had its own temp and moisture regulation system. This guy loves tobacco more than I do, obviously he conditions tobacco in humidor my favorite so far was Dunhill "Nightcap" aged about 10 years. I think Peterson now owns Dunhill and a few other companies. Best part of shop is the "the back of the back". This is where he keeps the good stuff. He's got about 6 burbon barrels. A couple are undergoing the perique process (they sit on elevated feet above a catch pan) he uses timber blocking and long clamps to push down on the packed leaves. 1 of the barrels is 3 years old, the other 2 are in process of being filled w a couple different leaves.
I'm thankful that someone else can relate to my experience of trying to convince people that during the winter all this focus on efficient everything doesn't really matter if you just have electric heat anyways... But then I'm reminded how grown adults don't understand the basic concept of conservation of energy... And then I look around and am reminded that people flat out don't even believe in science as a concept let alone taking the time to understand any of it... Wow... That got deep quick.
Answer is simple. In the summer use an evaporative humidifier to get humidity and cooling. In the winter use one of the electrode boiler type to get humidity and heating.
Actually, quite false. For a brief time from mid may to mid June you get the dry heat. Then the north american monsoon comes in, as it is now, and pulls a crap ton of moisture from the Gulf of California, Mexico, even the Gulf of Mexico to give rain. The humidity is very high right now... and it is 110 during the day with the humidity. It's lovely. After mid september when it cools down it gets drier and is perfect until the next summer. That being said, that winter dry is where some folks might light the humidifiers if they have health issues.
The thing about swamp coolers. I was raised in Eastern Washington which is mostly a very dry desert-like area. Rattlesnakes and tumbleweeds were quite common. My parents always had a large in the wall type air-conditioner. The last one I remember got so cold, you could see the ice start to form on the inside of the machine. I knew of no other machine until I got a job further East where the temps got way over 104º F often. My boss invited me into his house one day and I saw his air-conditioner and walked up to it. I notice it wasn't blowing very fast but the air was very cool and humid. I really liked how comfy it felt. He told me this a swamp cooler and its what we use around here. He took me outside to show me how it worked. My mind was blown to only see a garden hose, some filter like material, and a fan. No compressors, or any stuff you see in the common A/C units. I wanted one to take to Western Washington but he said it wouldn't work over there because it's so humid in Seattle. Swamp coolers work great in dry hot weather. I was so disappointed as I thought everyone in Western Washington should experience the feel of a super cool swamp cooler.
Yup, had a Belt/Drum style humidifier growing up. Picture a water-wheel with an open-cell foam belt around it, dipping into a water tub below. Worked well. I have installed an Reverse Osmosis unit for our drinking water, and am using it successfully with my ultrasonic unit right now, with no noticeable white dust due to the water purity. Good for my CPAP Humidifier as well.
You should definitely get a 3D printer. I need to hear your thoughts and rants on 3D printing. I built one a while back and it's an excellent tool for making cheap plastic parts.
I'm not Alec but I got really into 3D printing for a good 18-24 months, built several of the things, and found it to be a generally useless hobby which just generates a lot of plastic waste and makes your house smell bad. If you have a very specific idea in mine beforehand (eg: cosplay, miniatures, etc) then it may be useful for a limited time. Getting into it just for the hell of it or thinking "I can make so many things" tends to lead nowhere.
I just found out a local library by me has a 3d printer, that is fairly cheap to use. I think that is a great idea as now I can play if I want to, but I don't have to worry about any of that, or the smell and sound going all night.
There are also printing services, like individuals on 3DHubs. These work well except when you want to iterate over a design or get very precise tolerances like fractions of a mm or thousandths of an inch. Still, it is a good option!
@@JamieBainbridge I'm here solely because we have the same last name and that's rare, however, I do enjoy 3D printing despite it being fairly useless for personal use outside of novelty
My parents had a belt-type humidifier. Given that it was a fan blowing air through a wide moist foam belt, the belt was very good at accumulating dust. After running a season, you could pull a thick layer of dust from it. I also owned an impeller-type humidifier at one point. It's like a centrifugal pump, except it throws the water into a comb-like structure designed to make it spatter into small droplets. Larger drops just go back into the tank, while smaller ones follow the air being fanned out the middle. The air-fan was part of the water impeller, of course.
I think it was, and still is, quite clear that you sent the message that the 'best' humidifier is the one that happens to work for your unique situation, which may or may not include hard water.
The impeller units drew water from a reservoir up the hollow center of a swiftly spinning plastic disc which flung the drops onto a circular comb like structure that surrounded the disc. The water was pulverized by the comb into a fine mist which was expelled by a small fan. They worked well, put out a lot of water for little power, and covered the entire room with a fine white dust consisting of whatever minerals were in the water.
The belt style humidifiers were just another evaporative type. They had a large wide belt of whatever material that slowly turned around pulleys that took it down into the water tank and back up again through the fan air stream. When I was a very young kid our local bank had one in the lobby. I remember watching it with fascination while my mom did whatever transaction at the teller.
I feel like I’m at a bar and a guy has randomly started going on a tangent about humidifiers.
I'd listen if it was this guy.
I love tangents, those are my shit
I'd love to bump into Alec at a bar to ramble for a few hours lmao
Look, man. If you're at a bar, and the dude randomly starts going off about humidifiers, and it DOESN'T take a weird segue into his ex, or conspiracy theories, you, my friend, have had a pretty good bar encounter.
I miss drunken rants at bars.
The background feels so sad with the lights off.
It's like the show has stopped and now we're just depressed drinking here thinking about our decisions...
...and I don't even drink
Yes, and the cold white light also dosen't help with that
I don't mind it, feels like a nice chat with a friend who is a bartender during closing or a teacher after class.
yeah, b'coz the humidity is high
@@Frank-bc8gg Your comment made me think of something (I'm going to go off on a random tangent but bear with me lol ) and it's the strange feeling some people get when they are experiencing something outside of it's normal parameters. Like how weird everything looks when it's completely foggy outside, or how strange a usually bustling building looks when it's empty (like an abandoned Walmart), or when you see someone completely shaven for the first time when you've only ever seen them with a full beard (there are videos of young children crying when they see their shaved dad lol). I know you said you find enjoyment from chatting with a bartender after closing or a teacher after class, but for some people, moments like those feel strange and even disturbing because when we are so used to experiencing something a certain way and then experience it with something drastically changed about it, it kinda feels like we've stepped out of reality for a moment and for some people that can be a pretty uncomfortable feeling. I'm kind of one of those people lol so seeing the colorful lights off on his background in this video is kind of unsettling because it's the exact same room with the exact same stuff and the same person but with those lights off it feels uncanny.
You know, I didn’t wake up today expecting to watch 53 minutes and 53 seconds of video about air humidifiers but i’m here now and I’m honestly fine with it. Time well spent.
@JACK all CAPS You are not alone 😶😉
Yeah, but it sure was just what I needed.
Same
Right with you on that!
@Michel Jeandillou all three even, I didn’t know that the Vick’s humidifier is just an electrode boiler but now that I do, I know for sure that I’m never buying one now. I’m already lucky to have survived playing with mains power as many times as I have so there’s no way I’m testing that luck once more. Plus, I know a scam when I see one. Why would I go spend money on a bowl and a death cable when I’ve already got a bucket, extension chord, and scissors on hand?
Just in case anyone needs to hear this, everything I said after the word plus was a joke. Do not under any circumstances try to jerry rig your own electrode boiler, mains power is not a joke and I should have died from playing with it.
We've got to get this man some humidity, he's spiraling.
Yeah I kind of want to give him a cocoa break, pat his shoulder.
Probably could get a local hvac company to put one in and do a review on it like normal. Could get it for much lower cost.
Petition to get alec some moisture
Spiralling like the profile picture?
Petition to get him some meth
Mommy, that man isn't wearing a suit jacket. I'm scared, mommy
THAT'S WHAT IT IS! I COULDN'T PUT MY FINGER ON IT!
It's like when you see someone who you only ever knew with a beard and they sheer it off eventually. Like---who tf are you, child?
|-O-|
The lack of set lights and backlighting is also quite offputting.
@@Coastfog
Or, when you know someone that uses glasses all the time, and suddenly they show up bare-eyed. It's freaky.
One day this man is gonna dive too deep into common household technology knowledge and go insane.
Wait.. I thought he had already gone on that ride lol. Idk how he popped up but, I'm subscribing 😂😂
I think that was when he started this youtube channel, he had a more sane channel before this in the olden days
You mean Temple OS sane?
Go insane? Go? It's too late for that.
Man goes lovecraftian kind of insane from looking at printer circtuit boards all day
Me, living in a humid environment and never worrying about dry air: "THIS IS FASCINATING, MUST WATCH MORE"
Damn just came out of the jungle and am having the same issue.
Indeed. Why would anyone wish to make living wetter or colder than it already is?!
@@nvo7024 cause if your humidity level is much below 40% it can actually damage your home
@@br33zy771That's unlikely - it's all brick and concrete. We had some wooden partitions (it's a 1940 building), and when we tore them apart, the studs were as good as new. Yes, it's quite dry during the heating season.
@@Nighterlev hillcrestmgmt.com/signs-of-low-humidity-how-to-fix-it/ i can post link after link saying it's not good. Not only is it bad for wood and parts of your home, it's bad for people too.
I feel this video is just an acknowledgement That the more technical you try to get, you open the can of worms the same amount
Engineering in a nutshell.
i like the "I'm going to have a breakdown," vibe
sorry
I had two things: a belt-style humidifier, and parents who did not care about anything. It was never cleaned, ever. As a child, I took it upon myself to clean it, when the air blowing out of it smelled like dirty wet socks, and I opened it to find the continuous 'filter' sponge covered in orange slimy goo.
That's fricking gross. Glad you stepped up as a kid. Benefited you and your families health
Yeah mine litterally just boiled water to evarape and got orange lime too and it litterally boiled the orange lime too it was super gross. It was CVS branded
So your furnace is running. Well sir, I suggest you catch it.
classic. Should not be abscent in any comment section.
No sir my furnace is not 'running' it's burning, it Burns! with the Heat of . . . uh I dunknow like six or seven logs
😎 cool guy 😎
LOL!
It running off with the fridge
“This year has just been... a year.”
Sir, it’s January 12.
Longest 13 days I have ever experienced. *sigh*
he probably meant 2020. in the off-chance that this was a joke, consider myself r/wooshed.
@@jrpstonecarver lol
@Podkova I seem to be able to write _2021_ consistently about the middle of February.
@@UncleKennysPlace I overcompensated the other day and wrote 2022
Between the release of this video and the last one, I replaced my central forced air humidifier filter for the first time since it was installed 15 years ago.
Who won? :-)
They can rust out your furnace longterm
😱
I have to ask, how delicious was the old filter?
@@DariaM00re usually the nozzle, solenoid, or water T tap off gets closed and it stops getting the thing wet in that time. Also they should be taped off your hot water. One reason scale builds up in water tanks and coffee makers is that some minerals loose water solubility with temperature increase.
When you think about it, people are also humidifiers.
Also heat generators
Yeah, humidifiers that run on water and tacos.
"If you have condensation on your windows, you have too much humidification"
Me, living in cheap Japanese flat: I get condensation on my windows from breathing.
I'm now waiting on him to buy some people on Ebay and take them apart.
:(
12:00 That's backwards. In the US we used to build houses intentionally drafty to prevent moisture buildup in or on the walls. Modern high efficiency houses aim to be as air sealed as possible with very good insulation and moisture control in the walls. When the house is sealed you can control the quality of air coming into the house by bringing it through filters. Heat exchangers, heating or cooling the incoming air as desired with the outgoing air help with energy efficiency. Having sealed houses also helps with pest control.
Basically cheap houses are built drafty with random air coming in wherever. Premium houses aim to be sealed with a integrated system to control air quality within the home.
Ya, usually fresh air is a consideration. I've been following the building trends for years. Because I'm a fan of passive houses.
It's weird to see an absence of a brown jacket and the scenario turned off.
it is cool to see that hes lost lots of weight since the start of his channel!
@@Aleph-Noll It's actually kind of rude to discuss someone's weight.
@@Aleph-Noll actually it looks like the loss is a bit... out of proportion? for a lac of a better word
@@PeterFabian I think it looks like he's been getting gains in addition to losing weight!
You mean a dark orange jacket?
"Personal care device might lead you down the wrong mental path..."
Incoming new channel Technology Connections After Dark!
Sounds like a screensaver collection
Technology Connections OnlyFans
owo
Flying Sunbeam Radiant Control Toasters! Automatic beyond belief!
It comes on automatically when you leave your computer alone, no need to press any pesky buttons.
@@eDoc2020 YES!!!!
To expand on the "belt type" concept a little: The ancient console humidifier I had in the '80s didn't have a belt, as such, but I could see how the system it used could have been set up to have one instead of the rigid structure mine had.
This is going to be a little wordy, since I'm trying to describe something that would better be shown in a picture, but basically, the water reservoir had a vertical rotating drum in it, kinda like a miniature Ferris wheel--the one in mine was about, say, 80% of the machine's height in diameter (it was about the same size as your modern woodgrain unit) by maybe eight inches wide. The edge of the drum was covered with an absorbent plastic wool material, sort of like a softer Scotchbrite. It would rotate slowly through the water at the bottom, and then the rotation would bring the wet part in front of a fan mounted at the top; this would cause the water caught in the absorbent material to evaporate, and the rotation of the drum would then carry the dried-out part back down into the water.
So, same basic principle as the console unit you have, but it got the water from the reservoir up to the fan by mechanical means. The capillary-action wick thing in modern units seems like it's basically the replacement for that arrangement, probably dreamed up in order to eliminate a moving part.
On the plus side, the surface of the drum being constantly dried out again by the fan meant that no given patch of it ever stayed wet long enough for anything to grow on it (as long as the machine was running), although the water reservoir did still need treatment to keep _it_ from getting manky. We had a bottle of stuff kind of like you would treat a fish tank with, which you were supposed to throw a capful of in the tank whenever you refilled it. It would run for about a day on any sane setting.
On the minus side, it had that extra moving part, and eventually the mechanism to turn the drum wore out in mine, causing a shrill bad-bearing noise that made it unusable in any room where someone was trying to sleep, and really annoying anywhere else. Hence, I suspect, why they don't make them that way any more.
Much easier to post a link with the picture
@@webmasale unfortunately, my time machine is broken, so I can't go back to 1985 and take one.
Yeah, ours had a belt that was made up of something like foam but harder. The bottom gear was in the water and the 3 foot wide "belt" would slowly rotate picking up water and a fan would blow through the belt releasing water into the air. Belts would last a couple years and then you'd just put in a new one. My chore as a kid was to fill the thing up with buckets every few days.
That sounds to me like a small form factor graduation tower (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduation_tower).
We had one too. like a 2 foot narrow hamster wheel dipped in a tub, inside a console. late 70's early 80's
This man REQUIRES the finest level of humidity. No compromises, the best or nothing.
The "Scruffy, unprepared version" looking fresh, and younger somehow?
i think its the white shirt making him look younger and brigther compared to the heaviness and seriousness of the brown jacket
He's lost a lot of weight recently.
the one takeaway i got from this video is how colour grading can also be apart of someones brand
Browwn
The more you look at the background, the more you question how much time he spends meticulously dusting it...
This is fabulous and we always love the follow-up times with you. And thank you for clarifying what kind of Technology Connection your personal care device makes... I'm sure many of us were thinking one thing and we all feel validated and seen even if that's not where the future video was going. :-D
Holy smokes, it a wild @DeviantOllam ! I don't if I'm more surprised to see your comment, or to find out that you watch these channels
@@CatHerderCam Well I think I'm right if I say that we indeed are nerds and enjoy nerdy things and discussions.
@@CatHerderCam been a patron for a while now, yeah. 😁👍
@@goldcd hahah, that would require an even larger turntable on my part but i like where your mind is going =)
@@CatHerderCam my brain always does the same thing too. I literally stared at @DeviantOllam's profile pick and was like "why do I recognize that?"
26 years ago, a Vicks "Cool Mist" vaporizer nearly killed my twin sons. It failed and started to burn. It had 3 "fail safe" devices which all failed. It was pulled off the market shortly after that.
Crazy.. my buddy was living with his grandpa with his little brother and they were 8 and 4 yrs old and his grandpa's way of humidifying a room was to shut the water off to the water heater and open the pressure/temp release valve and collect the water in a bucket until it stops dripping out of it then turn the water heater up all the way. Then with the valve open, would release steam eventually and humidify the room,,, well one fine day with the water off and all valves closed to the house thr pressure / temp valve's spring popped off and shut the valve closed and dropping the safety release in the tank.. about 2 hours later my buddy and his brother in the room next door to the water heater get blown through the wall of their bedroom to the outdoors while they were in their beds asleep.. and his brother lost his hearing and most of the skin on his left leg and my buddy got 3rd degree burns on half of his body.. but time heals most wounds and so did the 4 milion dollat settlement they got after somehow winning when they sued the water heater manufacturer... fun story......,
@@Z-Ack I don't understand. How did they successfully sue the water heater manufacturer. I cannot believe they were operating the device under specified conditions.
@@Z-Ack Well, your buddies grandpa is a idiot. Making a pipe bomb from your water heater to make the house humid? Sounds like a very safe idea. This is why we have warnings on everything.
@@MindALot I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not familiar with all of the intimate workings of a water heater, but I'm guessing that they could sue by saying that the water heater should have had more failsafes in place and shouldn't have even been allowed to be operated in such a manner.
I had one that burst into flames next to me.
I love the uncutness of this. This is my inner monologue most of the time.
New construction here in Canada (at least where I live) *requires* a vapour barrier - usually taped/sealed plastic sheeting or closed cell foam - between the inside of the house and the structure of the house/insulation to reduce the ability for condensation to form on cold structural surfaces from interior humidity.
Im pretty sure its the same in Sweden, or atleast it's been standard for a long time.
@@sexygreger Here in sweden, and i suspect in Canada too, the answer is "it depends" but no, for the most part it is not a requirement (except in "wet rooms" bathroom, shower etc) instead it depends greatly on what the wall is made from and how it is built. For some types of walls you do need a vapor barrier, others not.
Reading this comment suddenly had me reading it in Mike Holmes’ voice, with little additional tidbits from his home improvement shows also playing in my head...
@@Dracounius in Germany it's an absolute requirement for newly build dwellings to meet energy standards. That usually means adequate insulation, vapour barriers and as an option for even lower engery consumption: water and heat recuperation from air recirculation and forced outside air.
Yes that’s absolutely required in the USA too. But if there’s any leaks it could still cause serious problems.
Alec looks like "yesterday was party hard" xD
This is how we party in the russian club. Dawai comrade. Lets go
Oh n deutscher nutzer. Hallo
@@marvinkurzmanowski5645 Ebenso hallo ;-)
@@lindendrache8998 yo wie läufts
By party hard you mean he went to bed at 9pm instead of 8:30pm
Re: High humidity. I remember a documentary about problems in an extremely cold region. They showed a house that had to be abandoned because condensation inside the insulation froze and turned into solid ice, destroying its effectiveness.
Yup. Vapor barriers are important.
I've seen a 1 to 2 inch layer of ice build up on the inside of double paned glass when I was stationed up north while in the military. so ya, I could totally see that happening.
@@joshuahillerup4290 don't vapor barriers eliminate the problem caused by high humidity indoors? or can the gradient be too extreme in these cases?
@@Reversed82 Vapor barriers mostly eliminate the problem assuming construction methods to get the vapor barrier airtight. You can calculate if the wall construction method will have condensation issues using the tools on this site: www.ubakus.com/en/r-value-calculator/ but all that goes out the window if you have a hole in your air control layer that just lets moist air blow through onto cold surfaces.
@@slidewaze I remember one really bad winter when I woke up to a window being frosted on the inside and going like "fuck, this is the real shit"
After this, I really appreciate the quality of writing, production, and editing on your main channel.
I appreciate both. This more casual style has its own appeal for myself.
Lol back handed compliments seem to flood this guy's videos anywhere he posts them. Not sure If I should feel bad for him or just enjoy the synergy of this extremely niche RUclipsr with his savage fanbase. I'm only confident that I'm entertained by both
Had an impeller humidifier when I was a kid (30+ yrs ago). It was interesting to pull apart and examine as a kid. The motor unit sat atop the tank and had a rotating spindle (Hollow) that would draw water up the internal faces of the spindle to vents at the top of the spindle located at the junction of a flat disc where the rotational energy would expel the water and draw it outward along the face of the disc to a ring of plastic combs which when hit at velocity with water would cause a fine mist, this would build up in the top portion of the tank until the force pushed it out of a rotating directional horn located on the top front of the tank where it would be expelled as a soft cool white cloud-like mist that would quickly fall to the floor where you had to keep a towel or bathmat on the floor to prevent slipping and falling. This was a very simple, as far as I know low cost per hour to run as the motor was well geared yo reduce the amount of energy required to create the correct amount of rotational energy required to produce a mist. This was also very safe as I did pull the top off while it was running many times as a child and would sit the motor unit upside down and allow my GI Joe’s to get flung off its carousel of death like nature and still I was never injured.
What happened to those?
And we used to have a desk or box fan nearby that kept the floor from getting wet.
still available
This video gave me "chilling in pajamas, sipping hot chocolate and talking about » you know, stuff...«" vibe and i love it
This is a perfect description
Ok
It’s like watching Mariah Carey implode. We’ve got you mate. Stay strong. Sleep, eat, chill, shower. Emerge the beautiful butterfly you usually are.
I'm honestly disappointed in the lack of mention of the good old cast iron pot of water on the wood stove.
we need a follow up video
That is the method I use.
We have a 3 phase dehumidifier at work, I think it's basically that, a giant kettle. I forget how many kw it's rated at but it's kind of comically overkill. Problem with that unit though is it spends more time cleaning itself than actually humidifying so it barely outputs anything.
My friend had a huge tea kettle on his word stove.
😂That's not what most people have as an option--but, yeah. It does the job.
@11:00, it's why we put the vapor barrier on the "warm" side of the wall. So here in the north USA, that means the inside of the wall, basiically just behind the sheetrock. And in the south they put it just behind the siding. Your old home (like mine) probably doesn't have a vapor barrier, but then it also likely has a lot of airflow in the walls to dry things out.
Covid has shown us what all our favourite youtubers look like when they can't go to the barber in 6 months.
The barber?
@@jakobvanklinken Barber does also scalp hair in the US. U German?
Also - exactly what I thought. Somewhat comforting to see all those people who have Covid Hair, just like me.
*Me, who has been growing his hair since 2018:* Huh? Covid hair?
Topic suggestion: Analog TV channel scrambling.
And (potentially more interesting) de-scrambling!
Still waiting for the Teletext video
@@AgiBla98 that one has already been done
@@MrSimber1 It was but it was a while ago
@@yogurtfluff1 he did CC but not teletext
Wow! I don't think I've ever seen you in an ordinary T-shirt. It's quite the adjustment. Also, can't wait for more humidifier facts... which is not a phrase I ever thought I'd say.
It took me a couple of minutes to realize that this was the same background, just with the lights off.
I remember as a kid having one very similar to the one on the right. It was on the floor and I tripped and landed my hands on the jet of steam. My palms bubbled, ballooned and turned reddish purple. the best relief was cooling gel from the hospital which calmed it for a few minutes, also sitting at the sink for hours running water over it to make it burn less. It was terrible for about half a day and was the most pain I've experienced. Boiled hands.
Moral of the story: Be careful where you place your humidifiers.
Regarding the too-tight house sealing: you are correct. This is especially an issue with places that are humid because of mycotixins (mold spores) being able to build up within the home. Also VOCs released from cooking remain in the home far longer unless you have an outside vent. Fireplaces can have dangerous backdrafts because a house is too well sealed to permit proper air-exchange. I crack a window when using my fireplace to prevent this. Changing your furnace filters regularly (standard is 3 months, I do it every 2 months during allergen season) is very important to remove these particles from your airflow.
"... I think that all of you have seen all of them..."
But I have seen all of them.
This is the content we really want ;)
So interesting. This video feels just like sitting with my mates and shooting the breeze about technology. Considering I can’t sit with my friends and do that in lockdown, this was great content.
I really like seeing the more casual, less "in character" video presentation!!
It’s like when you hear news anchors talk without their news anchor narration voice!
I would like a deep dive in the stagnate air in homes and their negative health effects.
I saw a video about how even a slight increase in CO2 levels causes all sorts of cognitive difficulties. Makes me quick to crack open a window when i'm slightly warm, even if it's -15 out.
@@audpicc I wonder how useful some CO2 monitors could be (from the cheaper variants, $35-ish), to help quantize air stagnancy.
So, my apartment doesn’t have any fans and is fairly cheaply made, impossible to get maintenance on, etc. I didn’t realize co2 was a risk when the air is stagnate and that kinda freaks me out.
So for that: talking about and breaking down HRVs and ERVs would make a lot of sense for these videos, aka a technology to combat the stagnate air in the home.
On the space station they were worried about CO2 pockets developing in random places that people would then float in to, so it's filled with fans.
Mind you, now I'm thinking about how I'm all like "I'm gonna get shit done!" as I walk home, relax a bit at home, then can't be bothered
Technology Connections... after dark.
Sounds like a screensaver collection.
TV-MA
Reminds me of Disney After Dark. Back in the 1980s, the Disney Channel experimented with pornography after the Disney Channel went off the air for the day. I didn't see it as I was just a kid and was already in bed.
Adult Swim version.
Technology Connections always feels like it was filmed right and early in the day after a hot cup of coffee and some freshly squeezed orange juice! Technology Connextras feels like it was filmed bright and early in the morning after a night of heavy drinking and regretful decisions! I love it so much
Turns evaporative air conditioning on in the middle of winter as a humidifier and battle the heater.
Piggybacking on this, I enjoyed the discussion about the economics and efficiency of whole house furnaces. If gas or the heat pump is cheaper than electricity, the evaporative humidifier makes a lot of sense.
The vaporizer style might be a good choice though if you don't need heat/humidity in every room; still might be cheaper/more responsive
That’s like saying you heat your house in the middle of the winter by boiling a pot of water.
Dedicated evaporative cooling systems (cooling tower) will evaporate 2 gallons of water per HOUR for 15,000 BTU. Evaporative humidifier will evaporate ~1 gallon of water per DAY. It’s not even a comparison.
To add further perspective, average homes have ~70,000-90,000 BTU furnaces in areas that require a humidifier. Evaporating 1 gallon of water over the course of a day is about 315 BTU per hour.
Your furnace will need to run ~ .3% longer to account for an evaporative humidifier. Opening an exterior door to the house one time will make a larger difference.
@@cynic5581 I appreciate your post, but we can do better together. Let's see how much energy we're really talking about:
> That’s like saying you heat your house in the middle of the winter by boiling a pot of water.
No, it's not. It's saying that all heat sources / heat sinks add up. But let's calculate and find out how much of a difference it makes.
> Dedicated evaporative cooling systems (cooling tower) will evaporate 2 gallons of water per HOUR for 15,000 BTU.
Heat of vaporization for two gallons of water is 19300 kJ, or 18293 BTU (wolframalpha.com) So this cooling tower would be 18293 BTU per hour. This number is for cooling a whole house.
> Evaporative humidifier will evaporate ~1 gallon of water per DAY.
It's important to note that the rate of evaporation varies depending on the humidity of the air. While the air is dry, evaporation will pull out more energy until reaching an equilibrium, if it is able to catch up to the humidity setpoint. The humidity in the house is also in equilibrium, via a gradient, with the dry air outside and lowered by the removal of humidity from central heating, causing the humidifier to work to catch up. A humidifier's output is also more than double your value. I'm finding these online (airconditionerlab.com/best-evaporative-humidifier/):
(Room)
2.6 gal / 24 hour, vornado evap3
4 gal / 24 hour, vornado evap40
(Multiroom)
12 gal / 24 hour, aircare ma1201
(Whole House)
17 gal / 24 hour, aprilaire 600
These are maximum rates: the humidifier might not be working this hard. But we can't assume that evaporative humidifiers will evaporate only 1 gallon per day, when I'm finding max outputs minimum 2.6 times that, and maximum 17 times that.
> To add further perspective, average homes have ~70,000-90,000 BTU furnaces in areas that require a humidifier.
This is a tricky one, since these are BTU/hour output ratings, but the furnace is not always on. There's also a variety of fuels and efficiencies, but for simplicity I went with a natural gas furnace at 82 percent efficiency, which costs $14.02 to output 1 million BTU. This gives a price per BTU of 0.00001402 cents. (homeguides.sfgate.com/much-cost-run-gas-furnace-62819.html)
Evaporating 1 gallon of water over the course of a day is about 315 BTU per hour.
While whole-house humidifiers will be much more than this, taking the 1 room humidifier at 2.6 gallons over 24 hours, that comes out to 25000 kJ, or 23695 btu, which is 987.3 BTU/hour. For comparison, this is about 19% of the output of a 1500 Watt space heater running at full heat. Using 18 cents per kilowatt hour (higher than New York State, lower than New Hampshire) that gives 94 cents, or about a dollar a day. Using the price per btu of the furnace, it would be 33 cents per day. But less responsive than the space heater.
> Your furnace will need to run ~ .3% longer to account for an evaporative humidifier. Opening an exterior door to the house one time will make a larger difference.
Not sure how to estimate opening the door. By my calculations, the evaporative room cooler would cost $1 a day if counteracted with an electric heater in the same room. Less if you wear a sweater and let the furnace take care of it :)
The tight envelope you talk about in American construction is finally being addressed, newer mechanical codes that are slowly being adopted by each state and require small cassette energy recovery ventilators to force the exchange of outside air with inside. You can retrofit your home system for one of these ERVs, but new construction will require it for R occupancies.
This video actually makes me want to become a patron lol... love the actually-helpful, lightly edited rambling. :)
When you get to the NES, just say something like "...and I don't know what this thing is but I saw it at a Goodwill and it seems almost every RUclipsr has one of these in the background." RAGE! ;)
Water softeners! I'd love to see something on those. :)
You hair, for some reason, is reminding me of Eddie Munster.
Saw the thumbnail, stopped scrolling for “best humidifier” and clicked because this guy looked like a guy who has spent a lot of time thinking about humidifiers
2 points:
The impeller models were a bit loud - I remember we had one - it was round, and had a little motor-driven spinny-thingy in the middle.
And you could dramatically improve the console unit by mounting the wick on a floating 'raft' that allows the bottom of the wick to be submerged, and will naturally follow the water level from as high as you want to fill it, all the way to the bottom of the tank.
I feel like you are 5 mins away from a perfect Grandpa-Munster haircut.
Correction: few houses are well-sealed. It takes quite a bit of deliberate effort to air-seal a structure (I know, I'm doing it) and most homes are pretty leaky. And when you do thoroughly seal a house, you install an Energy/Heat Recovery Ventilator, which brings fresh air in from outside, passes it through a heat exchanger to absorb the energy in the outgoing air, and pushes it into the house. Tightly air-sealing a house is very important, as it allows one to determine where fresh air comes in, which means we can clean it up and heat/cool it with the outgoing air, instead of letting random dirty hot/cold air come into random places.
Why aren't more houses tightly sealed? It costs more, of course! Aside from the cost of the HRV/ERV, it takes a fair amount of labor, and some materials, to seal every little gap on the envelope. On my new shop I'm building, I sealed every seam in the plywood sheathing, I sealed the area where the sheathing and framing meet the foundation, I used gaskets and sealant on every wall penetration, I taped every seam on the rigid exterior foam insulation, and I was careful about not tearing the Tyvek over that. I'll seal the drywall where it meets at the corners once I get that far. All of this would cost more if I was paying someone to do it.
He's more right than wrong in the video.
Few older houses are well sealed.. Newer construction is a different story. 2 part foam has been cheap and easy to apply during construction for a long time, and before that homes were dense packing cellulose or blown fiberglass behind vapor barriers. Energy standards were driving homes in cold climates to tighten up back in the 90s. Air exchange was only ever tackled in places that burn dino farts - and that was only a "don't blow up the house" concern not an air quality concern. HRVs/ERVs arent yet common (outside of high end construction) because they're fairly new to the US and not mandated - where as high R value is and has been for a while.
That said:
I sprayed the envelope of my mid 50s home with ~14 inches of foam and did pour in foam into the wall cavities. We have gas here, so I also needed to replace the HVAC and hot water heater with fresh air breathers.
ERVs are great for air quality, but if you have range hoods or exhaust fans in general prepare to have a relay driven damper to allow makeup air in - granted HRV/ERVs may have come a long way but when I went shopping I couldn't find a unit that would keep positive pressure when you start actively exhausting.
A gas dryer is always going to use space air for combustion, so you need to make sure your not going to create enough negative pressure in the space and blow up your house - which again requires either air makeup or putting your laundry room in its own envelope that isn't airtighted.
...and just wait for the sticker shock when you go to replace the filters in your air exchanger.
Why do all this? Because happy wife is happy life, and my wife wanted to walk around the house barefoot in shorts in February.
Newer houses are better sealed but we are also discovering that while it's better for energy efficiency, it might not be that good for our health.
Why Tyvek and not Zip? Cost? And to the commenter about sealed structures being unhealthy. Source? Depending on where you live, the outside air can be very much polluted. Better to clean the air you bring in to a sealed structure.
@@davidkafka2452Here's a decent overview: www.cpsc.gov/Safety-Education/Safety-Guides/Home/The-Inside-Story-A-Guide-to-Indoor-Air-Quality
As mentioned in the video and in other comments, is is counter intuitive that the outside air might be cleaner than inside - but as a country we've come a long way from the 1970s city smog and acid rain atmosphere.
@@davidkafka2452 I have a strong dislike of OSB, which is what Zip is made of. I get that it's got a coating, but I just don't trust all of that like I do plywood. I live in a wet area with significant mold concerns. I also like having a redundant WRB in the form of using both taped rigid foam boards and Tyvek. I installed a (real) rainscreen over the foam too, so everything can dry out if/when water gets past the siding. I used Zip Liquid Flash in some areas, mostly to coat the window rough openings (I also used Flexwrap on the sills, over the Liquid Flash, because I'm ridiculous).
Yes, cost too, and availability. Though plywood shot up in price right before I bought all of the sheathing. But mostly I don't trust Zip in the very long term, and it hasn't been around for a long time.
Living in Ireland with relative humidity of 80% year round hasn't been a great winter. Wet WALLS and mold was a huge issue before getting a desiccant humidifier which also takes the edge off of the cold nights. It's a constant battle though
Could we have more unprepared waffling please. I like this. And you're handsome. :)
Handsome?? This sex symbol is a unit of lust
My grandmother had a belted unit. There was a foam belt that ran down through the water then back up over a blower and drum. Because it drew the water up through a moving belt, it could hold a couple days worth of water at a time. while not being much bigger than your console unit. It always stunk of mildew and you did get the dripping sounds more as the tank emptied, but the water would mostly just run down through the foam and they were SUPER effective.
"Personal care device"
Could get the wrong idea
"Personal care product"
Nope, not any better.
Get your mind out of the gutter. Not all personal care devices are "shoulder massagers".
I was thinking it would be about the intricacies of shaving your balls without damaging the skin.
It's going to be steel soap, isn't it?
69 likes
This series of videos has made me weirdly fascinated with humidification, I ordered a hygrometer and I'm going to be experimenting with all sorts of DIY humidifiers and see what systems are the most efficient so thank you for giving me a new project to keep myself busy with while I go insane in this tiny apartment room
Any updates?
I'm pretty sure I had an impeller humidifier in my room back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Kinda wish I still had it to check out lol
I've still got mine! I always had fun messing with it
Oo--what's that?
@@honeybadgerisme it's a tub with a spinning doohickey in it that flings tiny droplets into the air. He mentions it towards the end of this video.
I love this channel so much, the explanations are concise and thorough without ever being boring or feeling scripted 🦊💜
I love this! He went to the trouble of publicly recognizing his mistake, and then promptly clarifying it by explaining the truth of the matter.
Nowadays, we can't even expect that kind of integrity from CNN or the New York Times (sad, but true)!
I'd be interested to know if youre a teacher. You seem like you'd be a damn good science teacher. The world needs more of those.
Did you learn something? If so, we have a teacher! :)
He's a prison guard...
@@tintruder224 Is he really? Like, is that his actual occupation, besides being a RUclipsr? :-o Or are you making a joke that I'm missing?
@@DavidLindes I always learn something watching his videos. I meant a school teacher. He seems like he's genuinely interested in his subject and there aren't many school teachers left that do.
@@bvs56 Fair enough... And indeed, schools could use better (and in particular, more excited) teachers in lots of cases. Then again, maybe schools aren't really the right paradigm at all? A work that provides food for thought on that topic: www.ishmael.org/books/if-they-give-you-lined-paper-write-sideways/ :)
These were some beautifully relatable ramblings :)
Congratulations on reaching 1M. You're arguably my favorite channel and I'm really happy for you, you deserve it!
4:05 _Literally_ yes if your room is already at temp. My room was _constantly_ 78F+ at ~20-30% humidity. I got an evaporative humidifier and set it at 60%, and the temperature, while it was coming up to %, _dropped_ to under 70F. Now that it's at humidity, it STILL only gets up to ~75F instead of 78-82F due to the increased heat capacity of the room.
Evaporative humidifiers quite literally _help_ with reducing the temperature. If only by increasing the heat-sinking ability of the surrounding air _without_ increasing the temperature through energy waste. Though with as quickly as the humidity leaves the room when I open the door, it _still_ helps reduce the temperature.
I grew up with a belt style. As a kid I thought the motion and way it worked was fascinating. Thanks for the great content!
"I think all of you have seen all of them, which is very dumb"
You clearly underestimate your audience lol I've watched all of them and get unreasonably excited when I get notified of a new video
You are such an interesting guy and this is such an odd genre but I LOVE IT!!
I, unsurprisingly, have watched all three. Now, at least.
Maybe we can make him do the StarWars dance and produce a couple of "prequels" :-)
In old stories, there is often mention of "Jack Frost painting designs on the windowpanes" - meaning frost forming on the inside of cold windows. Frost is formed by humidity condensing on the glass, and as it condenses from gas to solid, it crystallizes in feathery shapes. In old houses, the humidity came from human breath, water evaporating from food being cooked, or from house plants, and nobody tried to *add* humidity to indoor air, although in summer they might *de*humidify it.
I had one of the impeller humidifiers when I was a kid. Relatively noisy, but very effective.
Damn this was like watching myself talk to myself as I study
‘humidifier thoughts’ will be my next band’s name
sounds like 'steam' punk :-)
Blood humidifier
for the backdrop review, bring back the old intro clip as a little joke reference.
Im from Florida. We spend 10 months fighting full saturation air at 90⁰F unable to open the doors and windows. That being said i do love a good well designed smoking room! My tobacconist had this whole cold air Xchange system in his shop. The humidor had its own temp and moisture regulation system. This guy loves tobacco more than I do, obviously he conditions tobacco in humidor my favorite so far was Dunhill "Nightcap" aged about 10 years. I think Peterson now owns Dunhill and a few other companies. Best part of shop is the "the back of the back". This is where he keeps the good stuff. He's got about 6 burbon barrels. A couple are undergoing the perique process (they sit on elevated feet above a catch pan) he uses timber blocking and long clamps to push down on the packed leaves. 1 of the barrels is 3 years old, the other 2 are in process of being filled w a couple different leaves.
I'm thankful that someone else can relate to my experience of trying to convince people that during the winter all this focus on efficient everything doesn't really matter if you just have electric heat anyways...
But then I'm reminded how grown adults don't understand the basic concept of conservation of energy...
And then I look around and am reminded that people flat out don't even believe in science as a concept let alone taking the time to understand any of it...
Wow... That got deep quick.
Yes, describe all the stuff on the shelf. Peel back the curtain. Crush any sense of mystery. I want to _knoowwww_ !
To make it more complicated imagine living in Arizona where you want more humidity in the summer too
Answer is simple. In the summer use an evaporative humidifier to get humidity and cooling. In the winter use one of the electrode boiler type to get humidity and heating.
Actually, quite false. For a brief time from mid may to mid June you get the dry heat. Then the north american monsoon comes in, as it is now, and pulls a crap ton of moisture from the Gulf of California, Mexico, even the Gulf of Mexico to give rain. The humidity is very high right now... and it is 110 during the day with the humidity. It's lovely. After mid september when it cools down it gets drier and is perfect until the next summer. That being said, that winter dry is where some folks might light the humidifiers if they have health issues.
"Waste heat makes your heating system more efficient" Ah yes, the 4 months when my desktop CPU also operates as a portable heating unit.
It operates as a heating unit the other 8 months, but at that point its not a feature.
My ps3 heats up my area well too
This is a friendly reminder to DUST YOUR PC so it does not BURN AND DIE thank you have a great day
The thing about swamp coolers. I was raised in Eastern Washington which is mostly a very dry desert-like area. Rattlesnakes and tumbleweeds were quite common. My parents always had a large in the wall type air-conditioner. The last one I remember got so cold, you could see the ice start to form on the inside of the machine. I knew of no other machine until I got a job further East where the temps got way over 104º F often. My boss invited me into his house one day and I saw his air-conditioner and walked up to it. I notice it wasn't blowing very fast but the air was very cool and humid. I really liked how comfy it felt. He told me this a swamp cooler and its what we use around here. He took me outside to show me how it worked. My mind was blown to only see a garden hose, some filter like material, and a fan. No compressors, or any stuff you see in the common A/C units. I wanted one to take to Western Washington but he said it wouldn't work over there because it's so humid in Seattle. Swamp coolers work great in dry hot weather. I was so disappointed as I thought everyone in Western Washington should experience the feel of a super cool swamp cooler.
Yup, had a Belt/Drum style humidifier growing up. Picture a water-wheel with an open-cell foam belt around it, dipping into a water tub below. Worked well. I have installed an Reverse Osmosis unit for our drinking water, and am using it successfully with my ultrasonic unit right now, with no noticeable white dust due to the water purity. Good for my CPAP Humidifier as well.
You should definitely get a 3D printer. I need to hear your thoughts and rants on 3D printing. I built one a while back and it's an excellent tool for making cheap plastic parts.
I'm not Alec but I got really into 3D printing for a good 18-24 months, built several of the things, and found it to be a generally useless hobby which just generates a lot of plastic waste and makes your house smell bad. If you have a very specific idea in mine beforehand (eg: cosplay, miniatures, etc) then it may be useful for a limited time. Getting into it just for the hell of it or thinking "I can make so many things" tends to lead nowhere.
I just found out a local library by me has a 3d printer, that is fairly cheap to use. I think that is a great idea as now I can play if I want to, but I don't have to worry about any of that, or the smell and sound going all night.
There are also printing services, like individuals on 3DHubs. These work well except when you want to iterate over a design or get very precise tolerances like fractions of a mm or thousandths of an inch. Still, it is a good option!
@@JamieBainbridge I'm here solely because we have the same last name and that's rare, however, I do enjoy 3D printing despite it being fairly useless for personal use outside of novelty
"language" I agree.
16:19 just as I was getting excited for the Technology Connections on vibrators, you rip away my hopes and dreams.
I still live in hope.
Maybe it's time for "Technology Connections - - After Dark"
I guess you don't mean mechanical oscillators :D In that case I heard about interesting project buttplug.io
A whole series on evaporative coolers called "only fans".
@@bethaltair812 holy shit I’m so mad I didn’t come up with that before you
My parents had a belt-type humidifier. Given that it was a fan blowing air through a wide moist foam belt, the belt was very good at accumulating dust. After running a season, you could pull a thick layer of dust from it. I also owned an impeller-type humidifier at one point. It's like a centrifugal pump, except it throws the water into a comb-like structure designed to make it spatter into small droplets. Larger drops just go back into the tank, while smaller ones follow the air being fanned out the middle. The air-fan was part of the water impeller, of course.
As someone who spent years without refrigerant based air conditioning living in a hot dry place, swamp coolers are great
I'm glad that you split this topic into two videos. It's a lot to ... absorb.
a fine pun indeed
Can't wait to see the upcoming video about "personal massagers"
"Just put the kettle on" is what my grandma would have said.
I think it was, and still is, quite clear that you sent the message that the 'best' humidifier is the one that happens to work for your unique situation, which may or may not include hard water.
The impeller units drew water from a reservoir up the hollow center of a swiftly spinning plastic disc which flung the drops onto a circular comb like structure that surrounded the disc. The water was pulverized by the comb into a fine mist which was expelled by a small fan. They worked well, put out a lot of water for little power, and covered the entire room with a fine white dust consisting of whatever minerals were in the water.
Now you need to do a video on Dehumidifiers......
Gonna be honest, I actually like the scruffy, unprepared version of you. It's a bit more authentic and gritty.
2:56 "Spoiler, this is an electrode boiler". Wonderful.
(Did I see a suppressed smirk there?)
The belt style humidifiers were just another evaporative type. They had a large wide belt of whatever material that slowly turned around pulleys that took it down into the water tank and back up again through the fan air stream. When I was a very young kid our local bank had one in the lobby. I remember watching it with fascination while my mom did whatever transaction at the teller.
I think a video discussing the fresh air in a building topic would be cool. You've touched on it a few times, and I'd like to hear more.