Honeywell HWM450 Quick Steam Warm Moisture Humidifier

The description it gives for the square footage that it's supposed to humidify is totally off. This kept running and running and running and then, after 2 days, it needed to be cleaned otherwise it wouldn't run and when I went to clean it, it was all crusty and I couldn't get whatever it was off of there! So I returned it promptly.

I bought one of these 1.5 years ago and bought another one this winter, since I loved my first one. I have had 2 humidifiers before that and this one has good features and works great.

I've used this for three years, following sinus surgery. It's been great--no problems at all. It's quiet, easy to use, and works well. I'm a very light sleeper, and the occasional gurgles it makes don't bother me. If it's not cleaned often enough, however, the heating element cakes over and even seems to get burn marks on it. Then it starts making a sputtering sound that can be quite annoying.

The cleaning process, if done regulary, is not too bad. A 20 minute soak with vinegar (for de-scaling), then a 20 minute soak with a bleach solution (to sanitize). The trick is to de-scale the heating element before there's been too much build up. The instruction manual could be a little clearer, but some of the reviews here fill in the gaps and explain the procedure more thoroughly.

This is my third humidifier in two seasons. I couldn't live with the noise of the cool-mist humidifiers!

For the price it works very nicely even for relatively large sized rooms. Scale is an issue, and the mineral pads help (which by the way are quite cheap), but I still had to hookup a wire brush with my dremel to scrub the scale away every weekend. I guess you can't get a good humidifer without any issues (noise, mold, white dust, scale etc). For me, this worked out the best among all options.

I have owned two of these over the last year and they both broke through normal use. The problems occur in the electronics. Try a different brand -- these are a waste of money.