Good Morning! I'm wondering how often most of us actually take the time to clean our cool mist humidifers - after every use, beginning / end of season, etc? Ideally I'd clean mine after every use (meaning once the sick, congested child is feeling better) but that doesn't always happen! Many of times I've felt so guilty and worried about spreading mold / germs throughout the house that I've just thrown the humidifer away and bought a new one (shhhh - my hubby just wouldn't understand)! I have two of the Walgreen's ones where you just add water and run it so they are not terribly expensive ($25 - $30)? One of my friends actually cleans hers every other day when it's being used - she runs bleach water through it and then clean water for about an hour each!
Also, how do you clean the humidifer? Bleach water, vinegar, or ... and for long long?
Thanks so much!
Water standing in anything long enough will grow mold/slime.
So empty it out and let it dry out after every use.
When we run it at night, we empty what's left in the morning and let it dry out during the day.
A bleach water rinse out every so often doesn't hurt.
If mineral build up is a problem, then let some vinegar soak in it and rinse it out.
clean with vinegar
depends on which type you have with how often you clean it. For mine I only have to replace the filters every other year.
my son has a small kiddy one and I clean it out after every second refill.
Ours runs daily year round and I will admit it does not get cleaned enough.
When we clean it we fill the tank with bleach water and clean the base with bleach water.
Why would she ever run it with bleach water? Breathing that just sounds unhealthy.
We have small ultrasonic humidifiers in each of our daughters rooms that get used every day. Those get rinsed out daily and cleaned about every 3 or 4 days. I use hydrogen peroxide to clean them out. Mostly just swish and scrub.
For our larger (whole house) cool mist, wick humifier, that gets cleaned like once a month. :) We add bacteriostat with every fill, though.
We use our humidifiers almost every night in the winter months.
I clean them every other night when they are in use that much.
I use vinegar and water and simply give them a thorough cleaning, takes about 10-15 minutes. Who has time to clean a humidifier for an hour each?! How many does she have?? haha!
