[T-R]

I have one of these; the complaint about the fan being inaccessible is legitimate, but it's otherwise clean, and easy to clean - the tank and the base can be scrubbed by hand or just thrown in the dishwasher, unlike any vaporizing humidifier I've used. I think the other complaints may be regional - and the fact that the proposed solutions all seem to be vaporizing humidifiers (or boiling water) seems telling.

I got one because in Arizona, the water quality's terrible, but the air is bone-dry to the point it turns your skin to sandpaper. The hard water means that vaporizing humidifiers fill the air with white dust that coats everything, because they vaporize the minerals. Evaporative humidifiers don't; the minerals all end up in the filter. And, while an evaporative humidifier has no trouble going through a full tank of water overnight on the lowest settings in AZ, it phsyically can't oversaturate the air like a sauna in the way that a vaporizing humidifier does.

The air in the north east just doesn't get dry enough (maybe in winter, but then you don't have the AC fighting your humidifier), and if boiling a pot of water is what the author's looking for, an evaporative humidifier just doesn't do that.

[mtalantikite]

I have one too and cleaning the tank was never an issue. Instead, my problem was the wick always got moldy on me within a couple weeks. I went through a couple cycles of buying new wicks from them, but it kept happening and I gave up on it. Went back to my old ultrasonic one, which isn’t great, but it doesn’t get black mold and is better than nothing.

[zoomablemind]

Same experience here. My conclusion was that the Honneywell model is just a vehicle to sell more filters, which are not that cheap in the long run.

Tired of the moldy mess, we too now run an ultrasonic mist'er. I can't say it makes a big difference, but it is quiet. Also routinely airing the bedroom with window open and ceiling fan spinning before the bedtime.

Ah, also had to plug that toxic bright blue light on our humidifier. Someone thought it's a nicely looking design, but such blue shining is hardly conducive to sleeping.

[mmebane]

How do you deal with cleaning the handle part of the tank? It looks like the end can pop off, but I haven't tried.

[T-R]

I don't have a problem getting my fingers down everywhere but the corners of the handle, so just pushing a paper towel down there works fine; I wouldn't be surprised if people with bigger hands than mine have more trouble, though. In practice, I've mostly just been throwing it in the dishwasher.

[kevindong]

I use a kitchen sponge to get around the corner and it's been quite clean for me.