Venta Airwasher -Charcoal, 554436

Venta Airwasher -Charcoal, 554436

Effective, Intelligent & Expensive
Update on January 15, 2008:

Yesterday, the motor in my Venta unit began making a grinding sound after nearly six year of flawless operation. I called Venta customer service this afternoon. After wating a rather long time on hold, I was connected to a very pleasant man, George, who asked me to put the phone next to the motor so he could hear the noise. I did, and he did.

Without a moment's hesitation, George said he would have a new motor shipped at no cost to me, and that delivery could be expected within 5 - 7 business days.

It's always a pleasant surprise to find a company standing unquestioningly behind their warranty. If only more understood that's all it takes to create loyal customers.

*****

Update on September 17, 2007:

I'm pleased to report , my review, below, is still true in every detail. This product has been a terrific investment.

*****

I live in a desert~like New York City...

Expensive, but very quiet and effective
Having used a Venta humidifier in Germany several years ago, I was delighted to see that they are selling in the U.S. now as well. I had a case of sticker shock though, as they are now much more expensive than their older models used to be, but since I used to be very happy with them, I decided to go ahead and buy one anyway.

All Venta humidifiers belong to the class of cool mist humidifiers, which in my opinion is the best principle, as you don't "over-humidify" the room. Normally a cool mist humidifier has a filter that sucks up water from the tank and a fan blows air through the filter. Thus the water evaporates into the air and increases its humidity.

The difference in the Venta humidifier is that it doesn't use filters, but two arrays of plastic disks that rotate through the water. A fan on top of the device sucks suckes air through those disk arrays and the water drops that were lifted up from the tank evaporate.

One of my major gripes with other...

It's been a battle for the last 3 years
After living with a low end humidifier that did little and made too much noise for the bedroom I decided I would get the best humidifier at any cost. That was three years ago and at that time the Venta fit that bill. My initial impression of the Venta was very good - the idea of a fan blowing over wet disks seems pretty ingenous and solves problems like airborn bacteria, mineral deposits, and gives the machine some air cleaning capabilities. Right from the start I was surprised how poorly it humidified the air - checked with a high quality hygrometer it only raises a medium sized bedroom's humidity by about 5% at maximum speed and is useless at lower speeds. Furthermore, at maximum speed the device sounds like an unusually loud room fan which is difficult to sleep with. People talk about the device being quiet at the slowest speed - which it was - but this setting is ineffective at humidifying even a small room based on my readings with a hygrometer.

Now I've lived...

Venta Airwasher 2 in 1 humidifier and purifier for rooms up to 720 sq ft

• Easy to use. No replacement filters necessary. Uses ordinary tap water
• 3 speed electronic controls
• Airwasher automatically shuts off if the water level gets too low
• Uses less than 8 watts of power
• 2 year warranty