But both types have easy solutions to their respective problems:
- Use distilled water in the ultrasonic.
- Regularly clean/replace wick in your evaporative (or use a water stabilization agent).
Even the article at the top says they measured "0" particles when distilled water was used.
Until reading this thread I thought using distilled water in them was common knowledge. I believe that is what the manual with mine even said.
Watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28
Optional follow-ups:
Works wonders, is cheap, and easy to clean. Evaporation happens for free if you let it.
Do the hospitality staff at Niagara Falls get sick more often than other people in hospitality?
This seems like a “PM2.5 bad no matter the source” theory which isn’t supported at all.
It's limescale, you don't want it in you lungs. Kidney stones also have some relation to it, probably not exactly caused by hard water, but they get their building material from somewhere.
https://blog.getawair.com/awair-investigates-how-your-humidi...
It is NOT certain that these particles are as bad as ones from dust or combustion. All in all, when small droplets evaporate, what remains is water-soluble salts, rather than anything more reactive or harder to remove, see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922954/ as mentioned in https://learn.kaiterra.com/en/air-academy/humidifiers-cause-...:
"In a study on mice, researchers discovered that inhaling the dust from ultrasonic purifiers produces a cellular response, but this response lacks the inflammation and damage associated with other forms of particulate matter."
Myself, I got shocked when my air purifier suddenly started showing a huge amount of pollution (and yes, my eyes turned red). Only afterwards, I checked it was exactly because of my freshly-bought ultrasonic air purifier. Now I have an evaporative one - not as fast, not as spectacular, but better.