AIRCARE humidifiers

Twelve gallons a day is more than any other portable in this catalog by a factor of three, and it is the reason people with genuinely dry old houses end up here rather than buying four bedroom units. The load calculation puts 12 gal/day at around 2,950 square feet against AIRCARE's 3,600 - an overstatement of about a fifth, which in this category counts as restraint. The number that surprises people is the tank: 3.6 gallons feeding 12 gallons a day is roughly seven hours at full output. The 36-hour figure is the lowest of four speeds. Owners of dry houses fill this thing twice a day in January and consider it worth it.

The MA1201's output in a credenza cabinet with half again as much water, which is the version of this machine that makes sense for a house you actually live in. Same 12 gallons a day, but 5.4 gallons of reservoir stretches the fill interval from seven hours to eleven at full tilt, and four speeds with an auto humidistat mean it rarely runs at full tilt. It is heavy, it is furniture, and at $280 it is the most expensive portable here - but it does a job that otherwise requires a plumber and a hole in your ductwork.

AIRCARE's concession to the fact that a console humidifier is a large brown box in a living room. The EP9800 is the same machinery in a pedestal cabinet with a wood finish, meant to look like furniture rather than an appliance - and it half succeeds, which is more than the MA1201 attempts. Nine fan speeds is genuinely useful granularity when you are trying to find the setting that is quiet enough to live with. Output is 7.4 gallons a day against a 2,400 sq ft claim; the calculation supports about 1,820, so it overstates by a third.