Hunter Humidifier Review – New Humidifiers

Humidifier plus night lights, humidistat and other new features

Editorial Notes: Hunter has a zero inventory policy, making it difficult to deliver these humidifiers in a timely manner. So if you want one be prepared to wait, and if you do not, consider yourself lucky.

Hunter Humidifier Review – New Humidifiers

For this season’s updated Humidifier Comparison Chart.

Hunter Humidifiers (models 34255, 33257, 34355): from $109.95

Pluses:

The patented Permawick filter system is still clearly the feature which makes these Hunter humidifiers shine. This allows you to only have to clean the filter once per season, a boon in any busy household. It also ensures that even the laziest of humidifier owners will not cause bacteria to be discharged into their environment.
The new built-in digital humidistat allow for a precise monitoring of humidity levels which prevents over humidification, all too easy to have happen. In fact, we find that built-in humidistats reduced the amount of water used by our testers, before needing to refill the humidifier with water.
The new Hunter Nite-Lite models have an optional feature (you can turn them off ) which appeals to parents for the baby nursery humidifier or for all those who stumble around in the night and have poor night vision.
The water level in the Hunter humidifier is always very easy to visually monitor.
All these Hunter humidifier models have an auto shutoff feature, which we like from the safety perspective.
The 5 year limited warranty on these are unusually long, probably speaking to the need to build up consumer confidence after a 2001 recall of a previous Hunter humidifier model. It is a great deal for the consumer as far as we are concerned. Humidifiers of this price point are notorious for breaking down.

Minuses:

A cool Mist humidifier often feels a little “cool” to people in the North East in winter season and for that reason might prefer a Warm Mist.
Cool Mist humidifiers work best if they are run continuously as they seem to take up 2- 6 hours to reach required humidity levels (35-45%) even in a fairly confined space.
Last year, Hunter called these humidifiers “Whisper Quiet” and have wisely dropped that tag line to “Care Free”. There have been considerable improvements in noise level in these Hunter models over the past year, but they are still not noise free. We no longer think of them as “noisy” but for the really noise sensitive, this would not be the humidifier of choice. You can still hear them switching themselves off and on, if you listen very closely.

Summary:
Despite some minor gripes, we think that Hunter has managed to come out with three new real humidifier winners. We do think the consumer will get confused with the choice of about 20 different models and will not be able know which model they are buying unless they are really paying attention. We have chosen only to feature the top three models, as we think when people examine the benefits of the new Hunter humidifier models, they would be disappointed with the others.

Incidentally, I personally recommend setting a humidifier to 35 to 45%, which is comfortable, without being high enough to encourage mold or dust mites.

Review by customer of Hunter humidifier model 34355

Hi Mercia,

Well, here is the report on the first night. I set the unit up — took no time. Placed it in the corner nicely hidden. I ran it early on high setting as the instructions suggested then turned it down to low fan setting. My partner came to bed at 11pm and eventually said, “oh, by the way, when are you going to set up that humidifier I want to see how much noise it makes and whether I can tolerate it.” I guess that tells the story, because I didn’t tell him it was already running until this morning. You will probably address this in your newsletter, but at what setting do you suggest one set the humidistat in order to have a comfortable room and not deal with any of the negatives of setting it too high?

Thanks. TB

See all humidifiers at AllergyBuyersClub.com

Related Reviews & Articles

Humidifiers

Air-O-Swiss 7144 Ultrasonic Warm & Cool Mist Humidifiers	AIR-O-SWISS 7135 Ultrasonic Warm & Cool Mist Humidifiers	AIR-O-SWISS 7133 Ultrasonic Warm & Cool Mist Humidifiers	Germ Guardian Ultrasonic Warm & Cool Mist Humidifiers