subject: How Warm Mist Humidifiers Help Cold Sufferers Feel better And Save Electricity [print this page] How Warm Mist Humidifiers Help Cold Sufferers Feel better And Save Electricity
Warm mist humidifiers are typically used as a decongestion aid and they can help to heat small rooms without using too much electricity in the winter months. Warm water humidifiers can make a home feel more comfortable in addition to alleviating the symptoms of some conditions. Usually, when an electric or gas heater heats a home, it does so with what is called "dry heat." Dry heat can cause irritation of the lungs and nasal passages, especially for people with asthma or allergies. Additionally, dry heat, while it does warm the home, can also make those suffering from cold or flu symptoms feel worse because of the drying nature of the air.Warm mist humidifiers, on the other hand, can alleviate these symptoms by saturating the home's air with a heated water mist. The device will simply heat the water slightly and expel it as a mist, which then circulates with a fan to humidify the air. Some manufacturers make oils or other additives, such as essential oils or menthol rubs. The humidifier user can add these to the unit for a relieving effect. However, because the humidifiers produce heat with the heating element, they do use a bit more electricity than other cold mist humidifiers do. Nevertheless, they do in fact help to heat a room, so users could theoretically turn the home heating devices down a bit. Because the heating element inside the device is much, much smaller than a home heater is, it would use much less electricity overall. The ability to turn the heater down will save the homeowner money on electricity bills in the winter, which can cost a few hundred dollars a month in many cases, especially for those using gas heat.Because these humidifiers produce the warming mist using a heating element that makes water very hot, the device presents a small, but real, risk of burns. However, to prevent these risks, some devices offer various settings, which the user can change at will. These settings can change the level of heat expelled by the device. Other devices offer a hot or cold mist setting yet others inject a cold-water mist into the steam that is expelled to cool it down some. Additionally, when using warm mist humidifiers at home, for safety's sake, best use practices dictate keeping the unit out of reach from children or pets to avoid any accidental spillage of the water or burning from the element inside.
