Humidifier for windowsill orchids
 

I am a newbie in orchid care and I would like to solicit your opinion on what has worked to increase humidity with windowsill orchids. I have Phals, Oncidiums, Dendrobiums and Cattleya that gets filtered sunlight 6-8 hrs a day here in Arlington, TX. They are on humidity trays I purchased from Kelly's Korner orchis supply. They are in my big living room and the humidity in the house is around 26%. There is so much information online about humidifiers that made me so confused. Which humidifier do you recommend would be most beneficial for my orchids?

I would firstly advise that you get a whole house humidifier as that would be the most efficient !!!:lol:

My whole house humidifier is set at 45%, but despite this I also have portables; the evaporative ( cool-mist, tower type ) humidifier and the hot-mist ( Walgreen's type tank humidifier).
They both have pros and cons. My orchids are planted in a variety of media and I find that the evaporative ( tower type ) provides a good air-flow as well as moisture. So good in fact that I had some bud blast before I could position it in the right spot. You have to watch orchid watering with this type, I have to water more often.
The hot-mist type is good for raising humidity levels in a smaller room very quickly. The problem with that is that you have to fill the tank more regularly. However it is cheaper....

BCM658-U: Cool Mist Tower Humidifier with Permanent Filter

I bought the one above but boy is it a job to keep the filter clean. On the other hand you can set a humidity level and when the area reaches that %, it shuts off. This type also has a larger tank.

Whatever you get just make sure that it is easy to refill ( handles on tank - the model above doesn't ), has a humidity setting, and has an easily cleanable filter. The hot mist type that I have doesn't use a filter, but it is awkward in that you have to refill often.
Hope my personal experience helps ! GL

I agree that the warm evaporation type is my preference as well, due to the above mentioned reasons.
Personally, I would have to say that the ultrasonic type is the worst unless you have access to cheap Reverse Osmosis water - these use an ultrasonic device to vibrate the water into a mist - they work phenomenally, but ANY mineral or rust in the water also gets vibrated into the air. I purchased two of them (at high cost) and turned them on at night. The next morning it looked like a fog had rolled into my apartment - I could not see further than about 5 feet. Then after the fog "lifted" every surface in the room had to be cleaned. The sediment had become sticky and a white powder covered everything - and I mean everything!!
When I used RO water - no problem at all and the mist was wonderful. But as I purchase my water, I can not afford to use them.
Some day soon I will be putting in an RO water unit for our apartment - I will be so happy not to have to pack water for my plants, but until then, no ultrasonics in the house.
Steve:waving

I use an ultra sonic with RODI water.
Keeps my room at around 60%.
Might not be practical in a whole house though.

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Thank you for all your great opinions. I will have to search for a local installer that could install a whole house humidifier and not charge me an arm and a leg for installation service. I saw Aprilaire 700 that could be ordered through Amazon. I have a 2100 sg ft home. I saw a Vornado 1.8 gal Evaporative humidifier with 4 wicks for $79.99 from Costco. I think I will bite the bullet and order that today.

By the way -
Welcome to the Board dbacani! You slipped in without me noticing. Glad to have you and hope that you have as great a time here as I have had. Lots of friendly, very knowledgable people here, and lots of fun for orchid lovers.
Have a great day -
Steve:waving

I have a wicking type right under the orchids that keeps them at 55-65% depending on the weather outside. Its a little bit of a pain with the filter but it lasts a decent amount of time and I just order it online. We also have an ultrasonic one in the bedroom and that puppy will jack up the humidity to 90% if you let it.

Next one I purchase will be a ultrasonic one again.

Great. Hope the installer doesn't charge too much !
Please keep us up to date on this as its a good experiment on the benefits/or not of humidity to plants. I assume yours are growing OK at 26% relative humidity ? Do they bloom ? I wonder if there will be a noticeable difference at 45% ?

I have a phal that has been blooming since November and none of the blooms have fallen. I have another one starting to bloom. I have 5 more phals that have single spikes coming out. I have Onc Sharry Baby blooming and 2 more noid oncidium blooming.

hmmm......are you watering more than once per week ? With lower humidity I definitely had to water more than 1x per week ( before I had the whole home humidifier fixed ). You will probably have to adjust your watering schedule, keep a close watch. Anyway, higher humidity is better for you personally !

Most of them I have to water on Saturdays. Some like the oncidiums, I have to water every 5 days. I have almost all of them in leca/moss and bark mix.

Thanks for info, Steve.
This is good to know as I heard how great ultrasonic type. I don't think it is for me.

Do you have hard water in your area? I have so many plants and I love misting them. I would be spending some serious money buying water :rofl:

I have hard water. If I will start misting, do I have to use distilled water? Does misting work for your chids?

Humidity is something that really concerned me about growing orchids, but I have found that orchids (at least the ones I grow) do just fine (not perfectly fine) without humidifiers. Then again, I'm in Northeast, not Texas where humidity is probably much lower.

With that said, I do use a whole room humidifier with one gallon size tank for winter. It has desired humidity level settings of 60% down to 40%, although I don't think it really means much other than output level as I do not see any feature on the machine itself nor on the user manual mentioning anything about the machine being able to sense its surrounding humidity level and adjust to it.

By the way, I use a humidifier for me not for plants. I feel I breathe more comfortable with humidifier around when the air can be so dry in the winter. I guess that could also mean having humidifier helps out my plants a little bit if any.

Even with a humidifier on, plants seem really dry ( hence I question how much having humidifier helps with orchids) all the time, so I mist plants heavily in the morning hoping at least while water from misting evaporates, the humidity will go up some.

The relative humidity in my room is usually aroun 40-70 depending on the season.

If your orchids grow and flower in your condition, I don't think you need to worry much about adding humidity. Proper watering is much more important unless your humidity level is extremely low and plants suffer because of that.

Should this be moved to the windowsill thread? We're really trying to get that thread it's own section and this info would really help our cause!

As for the humidifiers, yes our humidity with doing everything we can to keep it up has been hovering around 30% this past week due to the really cold weather. The furnace seems to be running non-stop, the humidity is down, our throats are raw and our skin is dry. We have two humidifiers running on high full time, they're the evaporative ones I find the cool/warm mist ones leave a film all over everything. The evap ones don't seem to do this. And yes we're using the same water. Which is hard. By the orchids I have humidity trays and mist them every morning. I normally mist with tap water, but switched to rain/snow water to help keep down the deposits on the leaves. I also open the dishwasher after doing the dishes which releases a lot of moisture as well. Normal winter weather, when it's not 4 degrees out, the humidity stays around 40% in the summer it can get as high as 90% so we run an air conditioner on dehumidify which brings it back down to about 60%.

Like NYCorchidman said about running a humidifier for himself not the plants, with your low levels it's better for YOUR personal health to raise it a bit. People do best around 35% or higher. It helps hair, skin and noses and throats.

In the winter time I disconnect the dryer hose and put a pantyhose sock on the end of the hose as a lint trap. I hang the hose so its a couple of feet off the ground. This gives me and my plants lots of extra heat and humidity that I would otherwise be blowing outside. Just some food for thought. Works well with my setup.

Oh, my, I've never thought of that! :lol:

This kinda makes me wish I had a dryer..

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This is an update to this humidifier for my windowsill orchids thread. I purchased the Vornado Humidifier
Evap3 from Costco. I set it up at 50% and low fan and it raises the humidity from 55-65%. I have been replacing the 1.5 gal every 2 days and I have been letting water sit for 2 days before I put it in yhe humidifier. My Oncidium Wildcat Golden Red is about to bloom and other phals with flower spikes that are about to bloom. I am thinking of not purchasing the humidifier for the whole house for now due to the expense.