Vornado humidifiers

Four gallons of water, four gallons a day of output, a full day between fills at the top speed, and a 1,000 sq ft claim that the load calculation puts at 985. Vornado states the runtime honestly too - four gallons in 24 hours run continuously on high - which is the sentence almost nobody else in this category is willing to write. It is the smallest true console here and the one to buy if the AIRCARE units are more furniture than a room can take. Made in the USA, five-year guarantee, and still just a fan blowing through two wet wicks.

The EVDC300's larger sibling: same DC motor and single-watt idle, two tanks instead of one, and enough output to matter in a real living room. At 3.5 gallons a day it is the most capable portable Vornado makes, and its 850 sq ft figure again sits within a few percent of the load calculation. Fourteen hours at full output, so still a daily job in a dry house - but two tanks make that a lighter job than one. The question it poses against the Evap40 console is whether you would rather carry water twice a day and keep the floor space, or once a day and give up a corner.

Two tanks instead of one, two wicks instead of one, and 2.4 gallons a day against a 580 sq ft claim - the closest match between a maker's number and the load calculation anywhere in this catalog, off by about two percent. Refilling means carrying two 0.75-gallon tanks rather than one heavy one, which sounds like a downgrade and is not: most people find two light trips easier than one awkward one, and you can run it on a single tank overnight. Fifteen hours at full output is the honest tank life, and Vornado does not pretend otherwise.

A DC motor is the only interesting thing here and it is interesting enough to justify the model. On its Energy Smart setting the EVDC300 draws as little as a single watt, against the twenty to forty a comparable AC evaporative pulls, and it runs the whole winter for the price of a few coffees. Output is 2.3 gallons a day - within one percent of what its 560 sq ft claim actually needs - from a one-gallon tank, which is the catch: ten hours between fills if you run it hard. It is the fill interval, not the capability, that decides whether this or the two-tank EV200 is the right one.

Vornado is the only brand in this catalog whose published room size matches the physics. One gallon a day supports about 246 square feet by the standard winter calculation; Vornado prints 260 on the box. That is not a rounding coincidence - the same relationship holds across their whole line, which means somebody there is doing the load calculation instead of the marketing. The EV100 itself is a plain, small, well-built evaporative: one gallon, one wick, automatic humidity control, and a five-year guarantee that is unusually long for the money. It will not humidify an open-plan floor, and Vornado does not claim it will.