Essick Air 5D6 700 4-Speed Mini Console Humidifier,White

This will serve it's purpose, but better products out there.
I just purchased this for a rental property of mine and have been using it for around 1 week. This unit is definitely not fancy, consists of a the fan/motor unit, 2 wicks, and around 3-4 gallon tank for the water. The fan has 4 speed settings, and it has a humidity detection unit that can be set in 20% intervals from 20% to 90% (constant) run. It claims to cover around 1100 sq feet, and so far it is easily doing that. Here are the negatives:
1. Filling is a bit of a hassle. You have to lift the top off and set it aside. The cord tethers you to a small radius of the unit to do this
2. On fan speeds of 3 and 4, the unit can be quite loud. 1 and 2 are soft enough to actually be used in a bedroom or living room.
3. It uses two wicks, costing on average between 10 and 15 dollars a piece. This can be costly to change them if you have really hard water like some of my houses.
4. I had to exchange the unit one time after 1 days use. The motor unit was making a loud...

Junk
Although this model did a fine job of humidifying the air when it worked, it only worked for about 2 months before the motor died. Another Essick model I bought suffered the same fate, so it appears that this brand simply makes sub-par products. Spend a bit money and get something better.

The worst
This is one of the worst humidifiers I've ever purchased.

The humidistat doesn't work properly. It thinks the current room humidity is much higher than it actually is. Thus the machine never automatically runs. Before I returned it I had to use the manual setting because it would never run when set to auto.

The water reservoir is also rather strange. The filters sit completely submerged in water.

The overall design is downright idiotic. The intake (dry air) and exhaust (moist air) are set on the top of the machine right next to each other. This means that newly moistened air is drawn right back into the machine. I believe this is why the humidistat is inaccurate. It just measures the humidity of the newly moistened are and not the humidity of the room.

Like I said before I ended up returning this unit and consequently found a much better unit that I am 100% satisfied with.

Botton line- If you want a humidifier with a humidistat...

Click to Editorial Reviews