Household humidifiers offer thousands of benefits. However, using dirty humidifiers can cause health issues sometimes. It can spread mold, pollutants, viruses, and other bacteria.

The best remedy to get rid of these pollutants is to maintain your humidifier regularly. Try to clean them weekly, and use distilled water at the humidifier's base tank. 

For better results, you can use an evaporative humidifier with a filter to pass out fresh and pollutant-free air. As long as your house stays moist at a certain level, your humidifier can't lower the indoor quality anymore.

Is Your Humidifier Contaminating Your Indoor Air?

Using a humidifier is always best, but sometimes the air quality goes down. Using polluted water in the base tank can contaminate your indoor air. You can find pink mold, bacteria, and other pollutants too.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), dirty humidifiers can cause health issues like skin irritations, hay fever, or congestion. How you control moisture using the room humidifier determines the indoor air quality of your house.

To keep your air pollutant-free and get rid of pink mold in humidifier, keep the humidifier disinfected. In order to disinfect it, you can use water and vinegar together.  Humidity level under 50% can be the best way to keep your home air from being contaminated.

Different humidifiers offer different kinds of moisture to cool your house air. You can adjust the humidity level according to your needs. The humidifier is the most obvious factor that adds pollutants to your home air.

If you don't clean your humidifier, and it's contaminated with bacteria and mold, it'll pass polluted air. Also, it depends on how much moisture your humidifier releases.

There are basically three types of humidifiers available that you can use safely in your home. They are-

●     Steam-Based Humidifier

Steam-based humidifiers are the most basic humidifier which creates steam by boiling water. As the vapor they release comes from boiling water, it's germ-free.

●     Evaporative Humidifier

Evaporative humidifiers work with room-temperature water. Though they evaporate cool and clean air, they are inexpensive too. These humidifiers pull air by a fan and pass it through a filter.

These humidifiers evaporate humidity in the form of water vapor composed of purely H₂O molecules.

●     Ultrasonic Humidifier

Through a high-frequency vibration ultrasonic humidifier turns the water into a fine mist. According to the other, these humidifiers are energy efficient and quite silent.

How Do You Measure the Indoor Air Quality?

The air condition of your home can affect your health and comfort. If you have poor air quality, it can cause health complications. By measuring the indoor air quality, you can measure how clean the air of your house is.

To measure the air quality of your home, you can use an indoor air quality meter (IAQ). These air quality meters use an auto-calibration feature to measure the humidity and the temperature.

Through this, you can also measure the gases inside your house. Data you get from the air quality meter can help you improve your house's air quality.

How To Use A Humidifier Safely and Improve Air Quality?

When you safely use your humidifier, you can improve your home air quality. Thus your home air will be less contaminated and pass out fresh air. Here are some tricks which will help you to improve air quality-

●     Use Evaporative Humidifier

Most people love to use an ultrasonic humidifier because of its sleek appearance and lack of filters. However, when you switch to an evaporative humidifier, it'll help to prevent the air quality drop.

As you're searching for a humidifier that will help your home air not to be contaminated, you can choose the evaporative humidifier.

●     Maintain Demineralization Filter

When you're determined to use an ultrasonic humidifier, you must use a demineralization cartridge. This ceramic filter can remove the minerals from the water you added.

If you want effective results, you need to clean and maintain them. Though maintenance differs from brand to brand, you can clean them once a month and replace them annually.

●     Keep Your Humidifier Clean

You need to clean your humidifier frequently. You can use white vinegar as it's a natural cleanser. White vinegar will help to loosen the residue and disinfect the water unit.

Before cleaning, ensure you unplug the humidifier, then fill the tub with one cup of vinegar and one cup of water. Let the humidifier set for an hour.

While using white vinegar, don't try to run the humidifier as it can also irritate your eyes, nose, and lungs. Remember, don't use any chemicals to clean the humidifier.

You need to empty and dry the base of the humidifier every single day. Using vinegar and water, you can clean it once a week. Some manufacturers also suggest disinfecting humidifiers with a 10% bleach solution. You follow this cleansing process too.

●     Use Distilled Water

As you need to add water to the humidifier's base, remember that they are less polluted. The more pollutants in the water, the more your humidifier will distribute in the air.

Rather than using mineral water, distilled water can be used in humidifiers. As distilled water is pure H₂O, it can cool your room air faster and extend your humidifier's life.

●     Replace the Filter

Most of the humidifiers have a filter in them. There are some brands that suggest changing the filter after using it for several months.

As they catch all the pollutants on these parts, working can be hard for the humidifier when it gets too dirty. So changing the filter will be the best choice.

When you fill the base tank with water, rotate the filter up and down. Thus the water distributes evenly through the filter and doesn't get waterlogged.

●     Storing Process of Your Humidifier

When winter comes, and you need to store your humidifier, ensure it's clean enough. You can clean the scaling and disinfect them. Let the humidifier dry thoroughly.

Before using, you must clean them to remove scaling and disinfect them. Don't fill the humidifier with water until you need to use it.

Wrapping Up

When you are concerned about contaminated air, you can use a high-quality humidifier. A humidifier with a HEPA filter can provide 99.95% pollutant-free air to your house.

Don't get worried about pollutants and poor air quality when you have a humidifier in your home. Maintaining the humidity level can solve the issue of air in your house.