Cold vs Warm Air Humidifier

Hi J.:

Honestly, it doesn't matter as long as it's one that you don't have to clean every day. You just don't want to be spreading germs into the air. They used to say that cold mist was better for children because the warm/hot mist unit could burn them if they touched it.. but now it's not as much about hot or cold as it is about noise and cleanliness. Here is an article I wrote about humidifiers for some background.

http://life.gaiam.com/gaiam/p/Why-Humidify-Health-Experts...

Good luck.

1 mom found this helpful

Cool is better because it does not breed the kinds of bacteria that warm humidifiers do. Cool requires less maintenance and there is no chance of being burned by a cool air humidifier. Congrats on the new baby.

S.

I have always heard cold, my pediatrician included - as it is less likely to lead to bacteria growth and mold. I think either is good as long as you clean it regularly. Enjoy the girls!

i tried the cool mist humidifier because health professionals seemed to be recommending it. no one was necessarily saying don't get warm mist; they were just using the phrase "cool mist humidifier". but i could not sleep with the air so cold in my room. i hated it. so we put it in my kids' room and got a warm air one for our room. my baby and i breathe better with the warm air humidifier, especially when we're sick. my older kids in the other room don't seem to notice a difference either way.

Hi J.,

I use a wrm air humidifier for my duaghters room. The reason I do is that a regular (cool air) humidifier dropped the temperature in her bed room about 10 degrees. Or at least it felt that way to me. You really need to keep the warm air humidifier cleaned. Occasional dips in bleach water. It easily grows mold. Some people prefer cool humidfiers they don't grow mold as bad.

Good luck
R.

As others have said, the warm air humidifiers require much more frequent maintenance in order to prevent bacteria growth. That just doesn't work for me, so we use the cool mist. Also, my sister was burned very badly by a warm mist humidifier when she reached over top of the mist to unplug the unit. She thought it might be hot but didn't imagine that it would burn her, but boy did it! It was a very bad, blistering burn. After seeing that, I will never put a warm mist humidifier in my children's rooms!

I had warm air humidifiers in the winter before we got a whole house humidifier put on our furnace. The warm air helps keep the room warm and really helps keep my sinuses and skin from drying out. It's great when it's chilly outside.

The difference between cold and warm humidifiers is the warm ones have a heating element in them that warms the water. You just have to be careful to keep children and pets and your own hands away from the warm mist. I don't think it'll burn, but it won't feel good.

If you use them year-round I don't see why you can't just use the cold ones. I wouldn't use the warm ones in the hot summer.

Hi J., for what it is worth, we use cold air humidifiers. I have heard not to use warm air ones. I also chose cold because the warm air ones get really warm. I didn't want to have to worry about my daughter getting a steam burn turning it off or anything. I don't know what is better, but that is the main reason we chose cold.
M.

I've always used the cool mist sonic type humidifiers with distilled water. I think they humidify the air better and there is less chance of burning curious little fingers and possible mold issues. Even the cool ones require thorough cleaning with a 10:1 water:bleach solution.

With the cold humidifiers, just be careful that the mist doesnt fall directly on the child as they can get chilled. Ours has a directional spout to help us keep it a kind of close but not fall on the kids. It also has a humidity and spray selector so we can adjust how thick the mist coming out will be.

Hope that helps you!

Cold air: Be sure to use distilled water. This is great for moisturizing the air and sinuses.
Warm air: This creates steam instead of a mist (more like a cold air version). The concern with this is that steam can be hot. With little ones, I always did fine using cold air for colds, etc.
Adding moisture to the air will make it feel cooler, and this is with either type - warm or cold.

Not sure where you read to use a warm mist humidifier because everything I have read says to use a cool mist humidifier. Warm mist ones use heat to vaporize the water into the air. So they heat the water up, which can encourage bacterial growth. Cool mist humidfiers use vibrations (sound waves or other) or a spinning action to vaporize the water and disperse it into the air - no extra heat to encourage bacterial growth.
As for the room being colder in the morning - humidity can do that. When it feels cool, if it is humid it will feel cooler. (and if it feels hot it will feel hotter). You can keep using the humidifiers you are using. If they are warm ones (they should have said on the package when you bought them) just make sure you clean them out well and change the water often so bacteria can't grow inside them.

I used to have a cold air one but eventually quit using it b/c I couldn't find the filters for them anymore. I have a warm air one from Vicks that I love. I only use it in the winter and clean it out once a week, (but have to add water every other day.) There is no filter to clean out. The heating element needs a vinegar soak to get the mineral deposits off and the water tank gets a bleach soak, then dump and rinse out. A nurse once told me that for colds and coughs, a warm air one works better b/c it will get into the lungs better than a cold air one.

The reason most recommend cold is to prevent the bacteria that's more likely to grow in a warm/moist environment. Nothing wrong with that as long as you truly do empty and clean the warm ones every night as recommended. Personally, that's too much maintenance for me, so I go for the cool mist one!! :)

My first one was cold. After a bit, I noticed some mold (I was NOT doing the proper cleaning at that time). When I went to look for a new one, I saw that the warm was cheaper and my son had been sick at the time, which seemed to be recommending the warm. This required a lot of maintenance (don't know compared to the cold since I never read that), and I was worried about it as my son got more active. The air does come out pretty hot, and I had more of a fire danger in my mind. Plus, there seemed to be more issues if it ran out of water than with the cool one. If I had to do it again, I think I would have bought the cool one again, as we rarely, if ever, use the warm one now.

My friend, who is the NICU coordinator at the U of Utah Hospital has told me to only use cool mist humidifiers, NOT warm mist, and use distilled water rather than tap water, too. We have a cute penguin one that we got at Target. (See link: http://www.target.com/Crane-Penguin-Cool-Mist-Humidifier/...)