GAC-VENCOR INC LW44 Christmas Discounts!
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GAC-VENCOR INC LW44 Christmas Discounts!.
Product: GAC-VENCOR INC LW44 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
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Update on January 15, 2008:
Yesterday, the motor in my Venta unit began making a grinding sound after nearly six year of flawless operation. I called Venta customer service this afternoon. After wating a rather long time on have, I was connected to a very helpful man, George, who asked me to save the phone next to the motor so he could hear the noise. I did, and he did.
Without a moment's hesitation, George said he would have a recent motor shipped at no cost to me, and that delivery could be expected within 5 - 7 business days.
It's always a honorable surprise to bag a company standing unquestioningly late their warranty. If only more understood that's all it takes to earn exact customers.
*****
Update on September 17, 2007:
I'm jubilant to represent, my review, below, is mild good in every detail. This product has been a terrific investment.
*****
I live in a desert~like Original York City apartment and have owned my Venta Air Washer for almost exactly two years. During this time it has been operating on the "high" setting, 24 hours per day, seven days per week. The Air Washer lives up to all of the manufacturer's claims.
The Air Washer is a product of fanatical German engineering, over~design and bullet~proof construction, which accounts for it's rather grotesque effect. However, I have owned products of corrupt engineering and construction that have had to be replaced after one or two seasons. It is distinct I will contain my Air Washer for many years to arrive.
The principles of operation could not be more simple (it's like a High School science project developed into a luxury product) :
1) A fan blows room air straight down into a reservoir of water.
2) In this reservoir of water, a few dozen disks are slowly rotating to multiply the surface position that is wet.
3) Because you are blowing air onto a enlarged wet surface you are multiplying the rate of evaporation.
4) Humidified air is exhausted out of the Air Washer through vents in the side.
THIS WORKS.
On the "high" setting the water reservoir needs to be refilled daily in my apartment (this is highly dependent on your local weather or heating cycle) . I demolish up carrying a couple gallons of water to the plan or carrying the plan to the bathtub and then attend to its space in my livingroom.
The execute of the Air Washer is "neutral." It sits unobtrusive and un~noticed in a corner. It is nearly still. It is built like a tank: It would be a challenge to harm this product on purpose.
Why not Five Stars?
The Venta Air Washer consumes expendables. You need a water treatment solution to prevent mineral deposits forming on the rotating disks mentioned above (weekly) . AND you need a periodic cleaning solution to retract deposits that effect pn the bottoms and walls of the reservoir. I have tried operating the Air Washer without these things. They are required for optimal performance.
Like the draw itself, the Venta treatment and cleaning solutions work perfectly and simply. But, THE EXPENDIBLES ARE EXPENSIVE! Catch youy will use US$50.00 per year.
Also, you would deem that for a company selling a FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR humidifier, the Venta aroma therapy scents would smell a bit less like a Central American bordello (not that I've ever seen one of those) . Skip these even if they're free samples.
If you want the very best at any mark, consume this product.
I am not affiliated with either the manufacturer or Amazon.
Having frail a Venta humidifier in Germany several years ago, I was jubilant to peruse that they are selling in the U.S. now as well. I had a case of sticker shock though, as they are now powerful more expensive than their older models aged to be, but since I ragged to be very overjoyed with them, I decided to go ahead and assume one anyway.
All Venta humidifiers belong to the class of icy mist humidifiers, which in my belief is the best principle, as you don't "over-humidify" the room. Normally a frosty mist humidifier has a filter that sucks up water from the tank and a fan blows air through the filter. Thus the water evaporates into the air and increases its humidity.
The inequity in the Venta humidifier is that it doesn't expend filters, but two arrays of plastic disks that rotate through the water. A fan on top of the contrivance sucks suckes air through those disk arrays and the water drops that were lifted up from the tank evaporate.
One of my major gripes with other frosty mist humidifiers is that the fan is very noisy even on the lowest setting. The Venta fan is pleasantly level-headed. I withhold the way in my bedroom at night on the lowest fan bustle and I don't discover the fan at all.
While it is accurate that you won't have to replace filters every few months, you WILL need to replace the water treatment additive at every cleaning cycle (usually 10-14 days), so there ARE some maintenance costs. The LW44 comes with two fillings of the additive, afterwards you have to spent about USD 16-18 for a bottle of the water treatment which will last for 12 cleaning cycles (4-6 months) . Venta also sells a cleaning solution, but according to their manual you won't need it in most cases. In any case the cleaning solution costs about $10 and is only splendid for one cleaning, so using it frequently will really drive the maintenance costs up.
All in all this is indeed the best humidifier that I ever had. I'm not giving it five stars, because I calm mediate the trace is outrageously high.
After living with a uncouth ruin humidifier that did minute and made too powerful noise for the bedroom I decided I would net the best humidifier at any cost. That was three years ago and at that time the Venta fit that bill. My initial impression of the Venta was very favorable - the notion of a fan blowing over wet disks seems pleasing ingenous and solves problems like airborn bacteria, mineral deposits, and gives the machine some air cleaning capabilities. Suitable from the begin I was surprised how poorly it humidified the air - checked with a high quality hygrometer it only raises a medium sized bedroom's humidity by about 5% at maximum hurry and is useless at lower speeds. Furthermore, at maximum bustle the method sounds like an unusually loud room fan which is difficult to sleep with. People talk about the diagram being unruffled at the slowest accelerate - which it was - but this setting is ineffective at humidifying even a slight room based on my readings with a hygrometer.
Now I've lived with this unit for 3 years and have encountered further problems that have finally driven me to admit this whole acquire was not a wonderful concept.
The first spot with this unit is that the "air washing" capability results in the machine getting dirty... but unlike almost every other kind of humidifier this dirt is everywhere on the machine - throughout the disks, all over the fan, all inside surfaces. On the inside surfaces (which have lots of hard to orderly nooks) this dirt is similar to a sticky wax and on the wet surfaces its more like a slime. I employ about 30 minutes struggling to spruce it each time I try before I feel I've done an OK job. The Venta cleaner additive doesn't work that well on the disks, doesn't do anything for the waxy sludge on the housing because it doesn't touch it, and the unit has so many difficult to elegant parts that it's nearly impossible to secure all the dirt. I even tried putting the non-electrical parts in the dishwasher which doesn't work either.
The second spot is that this way can "easily" generate very loud noises to the point that I have to shut the machine off because I'd rather be tormented by dry air than this devices groanings. I say easily because it is possible with enough cleaning and fiddling to maintain this procedure operating at the "merely loud" fan noise that it had when I got it. But after 3 years this is becoming very difficult to achieve. There are two possible sources for this noise. First, the gears themselves operate by having plastic tabs press against the gears in an undulating fashion. When super this usually happens quietly... but when even slightly dirty these tabs can do a loud studdering noise that is caused by two materials not keen against each other smoothly. If you've ever heard your car's windshield wipers studder across your windshield instead of smoothly flit over the glass you know what this sounds like. It's not quite that loud, but when you're trying to sleep it might as well be. The second source for this noise is imbalance in the fan. With a minute dirt on the leading edge of the fan the fan seems to be aerodynamically or statically out of balance and makes an undulating groan about every 4-6 seconds the blueprint an obsolete fan can be expected to. On a $15 room fan it would be the kind of noise that might cause you to throw it out and find a novel one. On a humidifier this expensive?
Finally the design is sensitive to being assembled in impartial the apt plan or it will get the noises I've mentioned above noteworthy more easily. Normally you impartial assign the top on the intention and you're in business. But with these noises you originate pressing on different parts of the top to try to shift the plastic pieces into better alignment. Once you press in honest the factual method and the diagram stops making noise you slowly recall the pressue and 99% of the time the noise comes encourage. If you push and prod you are sometimes able to accept the machine to be quite, but often you have to unlatch everything, reseat the fan assembly and open over. That gets broken-down like a flash when its 3am and the machine impartial starts making a really annoying noise that wakes you up.
I call my 3 year ride with this Venta machine a battle because I've tried tons of things to succor compensate for this machine's problems. The initial spot of rude humidification is because the map sets up its gain recirculating airflow that's petite to an station fairly local to the intention. The humidity within one foot of the blueprint is very gracious according to my hygrometer. The humidifier's fan sucks this air encourage into itself repeatedly. By placing another fan to the side of the Venta to provide room circulating air new you can derive an additional 3-5% humidity 5-7 feet away from the map (like where you're head is in bed) . Of course now you've got another source of noise in the bedroom.
To compensate for the gear noise and the dirt problems I've tried adding all kinds of things to the water that might act as either a cleaner or a lubricant or both. I've tried double quantities of the Venta additive, a variety of soaps, various aeromatic oils in quantities where the oil's lubricant properites might attend. Really nothing is effective.
In the destroy I have to say that I'm most dissapointed by this machine's sign. The unit is nothing more than a titanic hunk of plastic with fan on top of it. If it was made in China this unit would cost $39.95. But its made in Germany by a company that seems to be over charging far beyond what the added expense of German manufacturing and awful exchange rate would elaborate. Being German made I was expecting that the unit be better engineered. The machine is built well - nothing has broken in 3 years of constant operation. Its weaknesses are not structural. There are simple ways of eliminating the problems I've listed. Fan noise can be reduced by using a larger, slower intriguing fan with more and better bearings (something that should be expected in a $500 draw) . The gear mechanism that generates so great noise should be replaced with a non-contact arrangement like a magnetic drive similar to high grade aquarium pumps. A top of the line magnetically driven pump costs 1/3 of what this Venta costs so magnetic mechanisms should easly have been considered for a $500 plot. That these certain techiques... or any others... are not employed on a scheme of this cost in the face of its inherent problems is criminal.
99% of the time I recommend spending the extra money (even if it's 5-10 times more) and getting a machine built the honest plot. This machine is not built the lawful plan - it's unbiased 5-10 times as expensive. I don't absorb anyone is building a humidifier the fair diagram at this time. Given this I would have to recommend one of the 4+ star devices for $50-70 - steam seems to be the best for avoiding white powder and bacteria. I've purchased two Honeywell HWM450 steam humidfiers for $55 each. Their ability to humidify is astounding. In the same bedroom with 50% humidity the Vental might find it up to 55%. The Honeywell can find it to 70% if you want and has digital controls for setting the trusty humidy you want (although they don't work that well) . Overall any shortcomings of the $55 Honeywell are not related to it's main function - humidifying. The same can't be said for the VENTA.
