VENTALW45 Comfort Plus Humidifier in White - Filter-Free Evaporative Humidifier for Spaces up to 645 ft²

We’ve had this unit for almost four weeks now. Even on mid-speed it is quiet. On the lowest setting, you can’t even tell it’s running unless you get within a few inches of the unit. Humidity in the 800+ square foot open concept area of our home is kept steady and comfortable, and the air is noticeably cleaner. I love the fact that there is no expensive filter to replace, but it is impossible to find the water treatment additive on line. Since Amazon sells the unit, one would expect them to sell related supplies but such is not the case. Hopefully, this will be rectified at some point in the near future.Other than the price which is quite high, we highly recommend the Venta. Construction quality is excellent and far exceeds cheaper PRC built units which rarely lasted more than a year or two. I will try and revisit this review in a year or two to update it on the Venta’s long-term effectiveness and reliability.

We heat with wood which is a very dry heat. This unit has no problem keeping the air in our home at a comfortable level. It’s easy to set up and so simple to use. I love that it’s extremely quiet.

I have a number of different humidifiers.The ultrasonics are quiet but produce a mineral dust on everything and also develop fungus readily.The steam models accumulate calcium deposits which are a pain to remove (soaking in vinegar for a long time, which works, but takes a long time time and eventually there are deposits that don't come off).These evaporative types are my favorite, because of low noise, no dust, less fungus, and great humidification.This Venta brand is very expensive but very well designed and dependable. This model is also big. We use it for an 11 x 22 ft room and it easily keeps it at whatever level we want. I don't care that it is obvious in this room, but you might.It is very easy to access all the parts, including the fan, but the disc stack that rotates in order to evaporate the water may be an issue to keep clean, we shall see. I have not had any issues with any fungus or deposits on the discs so far. I use the water treatment as directed, which helps minimize fungus and calcium deposits. I need to get the cleaner fluid I think and every six months use a full bottle with a full tub of water to make sure to keep the unit free of deposits and fungus.It says one can put the disc stack and the upper housing (after removing the fan/motor, which is easy to do) and lower housing in the dishwasher, with no soap, detergent, or cleansers. I did that but I'm not sure it was so effective. The disc stack also had a couple of discs that got a little out of shape. I used the Express Wash setting with no drying, but I think the water was still warm enough to soften the discs and a couple of the discs probably were 'pinched' by the dishwasher prongs, so they warped a little at those points. They are ok now. I might try it on the Delicate Wash setting, which is longer, but I think it has an even lower temperature. Still, it's not clear to me why it would be very effective.It's easy enough to wipe the housing, with vinegar if needed, and to run the discs through clean water in the unit. Again, my thought is that using their cleaning fluid twice a year is probably the best way to go, in addition to regular cleaning every two weeks and use of the Venta Water Treatment.

I received and set this up on a Tuesday. I live in a condo apartment with electric baseboard heat. For the first few days I ran the Venta nonstop, at top speed, set at 45%. I have two hygrometers at different spots in my living/dining room and the humidity was barely hitting 30% so I was considering sending it back. On Friday morning I got up and the humidity was up to 36%. On Saturday, it was up to to 38% so I set it to 35% on auto and, according to my hygrometers, it’s maintaining the humidity around 37% which is fine for me at this time of year.There are a couple of downsides. This thing is big and ugly! I wanted a black one but a shipping date couldn’t be confirmed. With all the supply chain shortages at the moment, I decided I’d better go with what was in stock and bought white. It is very noticeable in my living room.The other downside is that with it sitting on the floor, it pumps a lot of humidity into the immediate area. I think my floors are engineered hardwood (just bought the place so don’t know for sure). When I walk on the floor, I can feel that the flooring beside the humidifier is starting to swell. I have no idea if the flooring was maybe installed without proper expansion joints or if this is just too much humidity concentrated near the floor. Something to keep in mind if you have no choice but to keep it on a wood floor. For now, I’ve put it in a different part of the room on a table. I’ve ordered a trolley for it and will probably just end up moving it every couple of days if this continues to happen. It may have been caused because I had it running flat out for four days and it won’t happen again now that I can run it on auto.In spite of the downsides, I’m keeping it. I’ve only needed to fill it once a day after it got up to speed. I bought a 2 gallon watering can and use that to fill it so I don’t need to move the unit. It is extremely quiet, especially on the low speed. The top speed is a bit loud but it doesn’t bother me as it rarely cycles to top speed with where I have it set right now. If anything changes in its performance in the dead of an Ottawa winter, I’ll update this review.UPDATE: I’m afraid the Venta just couldn’t keep up when the weather turned colder here in Ottawa. I was hoping it would humidify my L-shaped living/dining room and galley kitchen, a space of approximately 500 sq ft. I would have been satisfied with a humidity reading of 30% but the Venta just couldn’t come close to reaching that when the outside temperature started to fall. I moved it to my bedroom, which is 14’ x 12’, and it performs quite well in this smaller space. I bought another brand of humidifier for the living/dining room. It is extremely noisy and a real pain to clean but it does humidify better. Even it is struggling today though since it was -18C outside this morning. I think high rise apartments with electric heat are just hard to humidify!

If you take clean humidity seriously this Venta is an absolute must. It is about on par with my other cool mist humidifier and goes through about 2 gallons a day without the dust and dirty water molecules floating around and in your sinuses; the air is much easier to breathe. In Southern California I'm getting about an average of 50-55% humidity at full fan speed in a small apartment sized room. It looks well engineered but the moving plastic parts admittedly make me feel a little uneasy.The only major caveat is that Venta states that you must spend a small fortune on their water additives to keep it running at full performance which makes sense considering the nature of the humidifier but very disappointing when you're literally paying top dollar just for the machine itself. Without proper additives I only get around 45% humidity.