How to clean humidifier,steam type - Evenflo Humidifiers

It all depends on a couple of factors.

First is the type of humidifier your using. Portable or whole house connected to the furnace. Steam, ultrasonic or filter. Your unit's instructions is the best guide as to how often you need to clean it and this can vary from every day to once a heating season.

My recommendation is to watch and clean the unit as soon as you see scale forming. Then in the future, reduce this to just before you see scale forming.

The second is the type of water you are using. Hard tap water is the worst and usually will require every day for small portable steam or ultrasonic units to once a week for filter models. For central whole house humidifiers, once a month (perhaps as little as every two weeks if your water is really hard, >10 grains hardness). There is no fixed formula for this, the idea is to perform on-going, preventive maintenance.

Soft or conditioned water will contain the same amount of minerals as hard, but the softener has replaced the calcium minerals with sodium minerals. (Sodium bicarbonate actually).The result is the humidifier will still form scale but it much easier to remove. With soft water scale, you can just break up the scale with your fingers and the filters can just be submerged in clean water and the salt scale will re-dissolve.

Third, with distilled water, you may only need to clean any of these units annually. (No minerals to for scale).

With any filter humidifier, consider using a commercial bactericide to prevent the growth of bacteria when the water sits for long periods (>14 days). Not so critical with soft water as the salt will retard the growth of bacteria, but very important with hard or distilled water. Don't use this product in ultrasonic or steam humidifiers as it will be carried into the air along with the water vapor, and can be considered as toxic.

With hard water, use a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water to dissolve the scale buildup. This works best if done on a regular basis. If left go too long, it become impossible to clean properly. You need only use regular water when using soft or distilled water in your humidifier.

are you seating it right after fill ck the micro switch , may be misaligned

Humidifiers, depending on brand will spit out a little water as that is the Idea to get moisture into the air, but you can try not filing it so full, this one is steam so I would look into owners manual as to how to clean it , you may find that it has collected calcium deposits not allowing it to vaporize the water properly.

http://www.ehow.com/how_7161447_vicks-humidifier-cleaning-instructions.html

This should help you in cleaning it

You may need to clean the two electrodes. Dip the black part of the motor in water with vinegar for about 15-20 minutes and rinse. That should work.

Is the water in your area soft? If so, add a few pinches of salt. Vaporizers boil the water by running electricity through it. If your water is too soft, no electricity and therefore no steam.

If you have hard water, and the unit must be cleaned, try soaking it in vinegar.

use vinegar in water when steam drops then clean out water container. and use a small pinch of salt to let the two prongs in the plastic tube make better contact with each other it will steam very well.

this is a steam and misting type humidifier, the water tanks will not heat up, the heating element is internal to the unit, just make sure you clean it periodically and I would suggest having a fan asst to help move the humidification around the room, hope that helps

Yes it is doing what it is supposed to do, just remember to clean it regularly, it is both a fine mist and steam, I would recommend having an fan source close to it to keep the humidification moving in the home, hope that helps.

I would say that the beauty of steam is that it has to get through the 100 degree temperature to leave the aqueous state - i.e. to move from a liquid to a gas.

The benefit of that is that any organizums in the water should be killed as a result of that process. Its possible that it smelt musty or old stagnant water smells but to be honest there is little change of harm to the little ones.

Best wishes