Skip to main content

What Is The Difference Between A Humidifier And A Vaporizer

Humidifier vs Vaporizer

The low humidity is causing you problems. Your skin is dry, your throat and eyes are itchy, you're finding it hard to breathe, even your furniture is cracking, and you can't stand it any more. You're going to do something about this dry air. You're going to go out and buy a humidifier. As you check out what's on offer, you notice this other term, "vaporizer", as well. Aren't they the same thing? Well, not quite, as i'll explain in this article. People always confuse the terms vaporizer and humidifier so here's what you need to know about the difference between the two when deciding which one to buy.

What is a Humidifier

Pure Enrichment Ultrasonic Cool Mist Humidifier
Pure Enrichment Ultrasonic Cool Mist Humidifier
A humidifier is a device that's used to keep the atmosphere of a room moist. You may have seen the terms "cool-mist humidifier" and "warm-mist humidifier" and wondered what that actually means. A cool-mist humidifier creates moisture in the air by blowing air over a rotating disc that is submerged in water or a cool-wick filter. In contrast, a warm-mist humidifier involves heating water till it turns to steam and moistens the air. 

What is a Vaporizer

Vicks Vaporizer 1.5L
Vicks Vaporizer 1.5L
A vaporizer is really just a type of warm-mist humidifier that creates moisture by boiling water until it turns into steam. Vaporizers are also used to extract the essence of plants and herbs for inhalation, particularly for medical purposes.

The benefits of using a humidifier or vaporizer

Keep your home and room humidified

Before I touch on whether a humidifier or vaporizer is better for you, i thought it would be good to explain what are some of the benefits you'll see by increasing the moisture in the air. The recommended humidity for a home is in the 50% range and the best way to measure humidity is by using a hygrometer if you're not sure.

Both humidifiers and vaporizers help to keep your skin moist and prevent dry skin and lips. Increasing the humidity in the air helps to relieve sinusitis and can prevent infants and young children from developing breathing problems due to the dry air. By keeping the air pipes moistened and lubricated, humidifiers and vaporizers also help to prevent snoring and nosebleeds.

The drawbacks of using a humidifier or vaporizer

Before you buy your humidifier or vaporizer, you should be aware of some of the downsides of using a vaporizer or humidifier. The main drawback is that humidifiers and vaporizers can be breeding grounds for bacteria, mold and fungi. especially when the humidity is above 60%. 

The important thing to remember when using either a humidifier or vaporizer is to keep them very clean. You should clean your humidifier / vaporizer every day because bacteria grows wherever there is water. Make sure you drain the humidifier or vaporizer and clean it thoroughly. If you don't, bacteria can accumulate and get vaporized into the air, which may result in a lung infection.

Factors to consider when choosing between a humidifier and a vaporizer

Best of both worlds - warm and cool mist humidifier
Best of both worlds - TaoTronics warm and cool mist humidifier

There are a few special considerations to make when you decide whether to buy a humidifier or a vaporizer.

If you have a young child or baby get a cool-mist humidifier. Vaporizers / warm-mist humidifiers are dangerous when you have children running around because they could knock the boiling water over and burn themselves. The hot steam is also a hazard if they get too close.

If you don't want to clean the humidifier / vaporizer every day, choose a warm-mist humidifier or vaporizer. Vaporizers boil the water in the reservoir before blowing them out, killing the bacteria present. While not ideal, it's definitely better than nothing. As an additional precaution, look out for “germ-free” warm-mist humidifiers. The germ-free usually refers to either ultraviolet light or nano-silver particles that kills bacteria, germs and fungi in the water reservoir before it gets vaporized.

The temperature of the room and house matters. A cool-mist humidifier will humidify the room and won't affect the temperature, while a warm-mist humidifier/ vaporizer will not only humidify the room but also warm it. Increasing the temperature and humidity of the room can make one feel stuffy or swampy. Not a pleasant feeling.

Final thoughts

I hope this article has helped you to better understand the differences between a cool-mist humidifier and a warm-mist humidifier / vaporizer as well as some of the important considerations when choosing between the two. If you're looking for a good cool-mist humidifier or warm-mist humidifier, a good place to start would be Amazon's best-selling humidifiers page. It's hard to go wrong if you pick any of the top ten.

Related articles:
How To Choose The Right Humidifier For Your Home - 4 Factors To Consider
Labels:
Location: United States

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to View YouTube Shorts in the Regular YouTube Player

YouTube's "Shorts" is YouTube’s answer to TikTok and Instagram reels but let’s be honest, the YouTube Shorts player lacks some functionality, such as the ability to fast forward and go back in the video. However, you might be surprised to know that every video that loads in the "Shorts" player is actually a regular video, and by changing the URL slightly, you can load the same video in the regular player along with all the functionality of a traditional YouTube video. Changing the URL Changing the URL is the easiest way to switch the player from a technical standpoint. It’s so easy even your grandma can do it, as long as she knows how to type an address into the address bar of a browser.   Let’s use this super popular short video about AI taking over ping pong as an example. Look in the URL bar of a video playing in the "Shorts" player, where you should see the text Shorts/. Replace that text with watch?v= and load the new URL. So in this...
Post a Comment
Read more

Create QR Codes in Excel With VBA

Need to automate the creation of QR Codes? Excel and VBA can help with that! Here's how to do it in less than 15 lines of code. What we're looking to do is have a URL in a cell and then we're going to use a function that we create in VBA call Google APIs to create the code. Here's a video that explains the whole process of creating a user defined function in VBA that will create QR Codes: Code to create QR Codes in Excel with VBA Open up your Visual Basic editor and insert the following code and then save. To call the function, type =GETQRCODES(Cell Address) where Cell Address is the address of the cell which contains a URL that you want to send your user to. Function GETQRCODES(QRCode As String)     Dim URL As String     URL = "https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=100x100&&cht=qr&chl=" & QRCode     ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(URL).Select     With Selection.ShapeRange(1)         .Name = "QR_CODE_" & QRCode...
Post a Comment
Read more

How To Change Bluetooth Name On Android

This post will take you step-by-step through the process of changing the Bluetooth name of your devices on an Android phone. There are pictures as references in case you get lost along the way. Change Bluetooth Name On Android | Step-by-step 1. Unlock your Android phone and go to Settings Unlock your phone and click on the Settings Icon It goes without saying, but the first thing you need to do is unlock your phone. By default, the settings icon will be on your home page like in the picture above. If you don't have the settings icon, you can search for 'Settings' in the Android search bar. 2. In the Settings page, click on Bluetooth Click on the Bluetooth settings to open up the Bluetooth Settings menu Click on the Bluetooth settings which should be at the top of your Settings page. If it doesn't, scroll down till you find it or just search for it in the search bar at the top of the Settings page. 3. Click On Device Name To Change Your Phone's Bluetooth Name Click o...
Post a Comment
Read more