Venta LW44 Air Humidifier and Purifier All-in-one
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Venta LW44 Air Humidifier and Purifier All-in-one
Customer Review: Price too high for what you get.
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought one of these things a week ago at BED, BATH, AND BEYOND. I took it home and it was broken on top. I returned it the next day. I took the next one home and it looked okay, until I tried to use it. I was shocked at how cheaply made it is. There is a small piece of silicone strap that drives the little cogs and fingers which in turn drive the evaporation wheels. I could not get one of the two wheels to work. Everything is made of plastic parts that are not very sturdy. Also, on the second unit I got to replace the first one, the plastic housing for the wheels started coming apart. I would have expected something a whole lot better from Germany. I paid around $358, with a discount, for this unit. From what I saw, it is only worth around $50, at the most. You can get a good quality whole house unit for a central AC system for $300. This unit comes with a 10 year warranty. I would have had to use it right away, if I'd kept it. If the warranty is like the unit, watch out for the fine print. Don't waste your money on this one!Customer Review: Quality product - best humidifier I've ever owned
Summary: 5 Stars
Pros:
- Humidifies and purifies the air
- No filters
- Quick to clean
- Quiet fan, pleasing background noise when running - similiar to the motor of a refrigerator
- Well designed and built - sturdy plastic
- Energy efficient
Cons:
- Expensive initial investment
- Cools the air if placed in a standard sized bedroom - in the cold winter this may be a problem for some people
Notes:
We've tried 5 different humidifiers the past two winters in our 1st floor home on the dry North East Coast. This is by far the best humidifier we've had. Not only does it humidify wonderfully so that we haven't had to use lip balm on our dry, cracked lips and skin, it also takes out dust, sut, etc. from the air. We have had a Sharper Image Ionic Breeze air purifier in the room next to the one the Venta Airwasher sits in for a year. Before we used the Airwasher, we would have to clean the Sharper Image unit every week. Since we've used the airwasher, we only have to clean the Ionic Breeze every 3 weeks.
Cleaning this humidifier is the easiest of all the humidifiers I've owned. No filters or scrubbing mold. You wash out the basin and wipe it and the fan with a cloth. Then add a bottle of the Venta water additive and turn it back on. Every six months you pour in the Venta unit cleaner to the basin. At the Venta website you can buy both the water additive and the unit cleaner and they'll ship them to you for free.
Although the humidifier is a sizable cost up front, with the ten year warranty it breaks down to a more reasonable investment.
Thank you Venta for making a non-filter humidifier that works and is quick to maintain - and as a bonus cleanses the air.
Customer Review: Simple, Effective, I like! Expensive True
Summary: 5 Stars
I researched many humidifiers [...] of all types and found that I wanted a COOL air humidifier. From experience with a big, cheap evaporation wick/filter type humidifier, they can be a real bother changing filters, scale build up, worrying about bacteria etc. I do like fans, because the noise is a good background white noise to sleep by. At work I have a small ultrasonic humidifier that creates white dust that can be hard to remove from metal surfaces and if left to run constantly, requires the table it sits on to be covered with something waterproof. The table was not just damp it was wringing wet!
After reading the reviews here on Amazon about particular humidifiers I decided that I was going to go with the Venta LW44 humidifier/cleaner. The situation at my house is we burn wood all winter long and the air gets dry and dirty. I bought a indoor temp/humidity gauge to monitor how well this new, expensive unit works.
What I like about the Venta:
- sturdy, simple construction
- no filters
- a simple fan
- the disk array that cleans the water is sturdy and pulls out as one unit
- a sturdy container that holds a lot of water (especially compared to some of the other humidifiers)
- it works naturally, as the air gets more humid less water is pulled thru the unit. That and the 3 speeds allows for easy regulation and there isn't the worries about sophisticated regulators breaking.
- the lid lifts off easily and I use a big container to fill the humidifier up. I do it daily because it's so easy and quick and I keep it topped off all the time.
- cleaning the humidifier was easy for me. The air in my house is dirty due to the wood stove. Sure the unit did get dirt inside as it is suppose to but it wasn't any big deal to clean because the unit comes a part with 3 big pieces - top with fan and motor, plastic disc array, bottom water container. NO FILTERS YEA! A bottle of cleaner is used.
- every 14 days I add a bottle of additive that makes the unit work better and helps prevent bacteria, scale etc.
- I like the oils that come with the unit. Interesting that one reviewer disliked them so much. They are actually essential oils so they aren't artificial.
- I can't prove it, but I feel like the air is cleaner. I use to have naggy low-grade sinus issues every winter as soon as the wood stove was put into use. Not this year so far, granted it's only been a month with the wood stove going. My eyes feel less dry. I'm digging the better air!
The unit works really well. When I first setup the unit the humidity gauge read low humidity. The wood stove was cranking out the heat. I turned the unit on (it sits in our big living room that is connected to two bedrooms and a dining room and kitchen so the room is the middle of the house) and in about 2 hours the humidity was up to a good reading of 53% humidity at 68 F temperature. So far, even the rest of the house stays at a good humidity.
As long as the humidifier doesn't break down, then I am super satisfied!! Yep, the unit is expensive but it works and the maintenance is not as much of a hassle as my other units.
Honestly, right now there is NOTHING I don't like about the unit.
Customer Review: Simply the best
Summary: 5 Stars
This machine works like a disk oxygenator, for those in the medical field. Many rotating disks that turn through a trough of water then through the air af the fan. I've used many others, but this not only gets it done cleanly and well, it is simple to use. I fill the lower half with water from the bathtub spigot once a day, and it keeps a steady 50% or so in my office/music studio. I keep some fine guitars there, and no more cracks or lifted bridges from Sahara-like winter conditions.Customer Review: Sometimes cheapest is the best option
Summary: 2 Stars
Used both this model and the smaller LW24 for a year.
Here's my experience:
- Good, not great humidification. Specifically, there's not a need for a humidistat, but they also take a while to get humidity up.
- Quiet at low speed (best for sleeping), tolerable at medium speed (best for maintaining humidity), noisy at high speed (best for getting humidity up to desired level)
- Seasonal maintenance cost is reasonable (about $10 for end of season cleaner, $20 for a season's worth of water additive)
- The biggie: ultimately no easier to clean than other humidifiers, which is a big selling point. If it was as simple as they make it out to be (rinse and wipe out the unit) it would be good, but I had the same experience as Amazon user djac "beantown boy" - a yellowish waxy residue built up on multiple inner surfaces, including nooks & crannies hard to clean, and to a lesser extent fan blades. This residue is difficult to remove. I got it even using filtered water, and not using their aromatherapy additives. On balance, this residue makes maintaining the Venta more effort than some other humidifiers.
A couple of caveats to the last point:
- I live in a brownstone New York City apartment. There is probably a higher than average level of dust/soot/cooking oil in my air, and perhaps that's what's causing the residue. So it's possible that other users won't have this problem.
- Strictly speaking, you might not have to clean that residue. It doesn't seem to impair the functioning. But I found it too yucky to bear leaving there. I would say I'm probably cleaner than the average guy I know, but I'm no obssessive.
My advice, which I'm about to follow, is to buy a $25 2 - speed warm steam unit (Duracraft DWM-250 / Honeywell DWM-910 is ideal, both available from Amazon Marketplace sellers) and stand alone hygrometer ($10-20). I've had several other humidifiers with built in humidistats - none were accurate, you might as well manage it yourself, just need to check once or twice a day. Don't fuss too much over maintaining the humidifier. Instead of weekly maintenance, which I dreaded, I plan to just wipe out the water tray each time I refill water.
When it stops working or requires too much cleaning effort, toss it out and buy another one next season. It's no more expensive than the seasonal maintenace costs for the Venta.
I also tried using a cast iron kettle. Problem was that the stove is not ideally placed from a circulation perspective to humidify my apartment, and it wouldn't keep steaming for long when placed on a trivet in my bedroom.
If you do want to try the Venta - buy it from a place where you can return it after a season. I know of a *b*ig *b*ox *&b*azaar that will let you do that :) These are just too expensive to risk w/o an open-ended return policy.