Venta LW44 Air Humidifier and Purifier All-in-one
by Venta
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List Price: Our Price: $314.30 You Save: $213.69 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Venta LW44 Air Humidifier and Purifier All-in-one
Customer Review: Venta LW44 Air Humidifier
Summary: 3 Stars
OK this is a good solid evapator type humidifier. Easy to use, you don't have to change and clean water solution as much as they say, mainly because it does not clean the air in your house. You need another machine to this, a hepa filter. More info check out consumers report.Customer Review: It's been a battle for the last 3 years
Summary: 2 Stars
After living with a low end humidifier that did little and made too much noise for the bedroom I decided I would get 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 good - the idea of a fan blowing over wet disks seems pretty ingenous and solves problems like airborn bacteria, mineral deposits, and gives the machine some air cleaning capabilities. Right from the start 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 speed and is useless at lower speeds. Furthermore, at maximum speed the device sounds like an unusually loud room fan which is difficult to sleep with. People talk about the device being quiet at the slowest speed - which it was - but this setting is ineffective at humidifying even a small 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 purchase was not a good idea.
The first problem 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 clean nooks) this dirt is similar to a sticky wax and on the wet surfaces its more like a slime. I spend about 30 minutes struggling to clean 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 clean parts that it's nearly impossible to get all the dirt. I even tried putting the non-electrical parts in the dishwasher which doesn't work either.
The second problem is that this device 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 keep this device operating at the "merely loud" fan noise that it had when I got it. But after 3 years this is becoming very difficult to accomplish. 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 clean this usually happens quietly... but when even slightly dirty these tabs can make a loud studdering noise that is caused by two materials not moving against each other smoothly. If you've ever heard your car's windshield wipers studder across your windshield instead of smoothly glide 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 little 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 way an old 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 get a new one. On a humidifier this expensive?
Finally the device is sensitive to being assembled in just the right way or it will make the noises I've mentioned above much more easily. Normally you just put the top on the device and you're in business. But with these noises you start pressing on different parts of the top to try to shift the plastic pieces into better alignment. Once you press in just the right way and the device stops making noise you slowly remove the pressue and 99% of the time the noise comes back. If you push and prod you are sometimes able to get the machine to be quite, but often you have to unlatch everything, reseat the fan assembly and start over. That gets old fast when its 3am and the machine just starts making a really annoying noise that wakes you up.
I call my 3 year journey with this Venta machine a battle because I've tried tons of things to help compensate for this machine's problems. The initial problem of low humidification is because the device sets up its own recirculating airflow that's limited to an area fairly local to the device. The humidity within one foot of the device is very good according to my hygrometer. The humidifier's fan sucks this air back into itself repeatedly. By placing another fan to the side of the Venta to provide room circulating air current you can get an additional 3-5% humidity 5-7 feet away from the device (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 help. Really nothing is effective.
In the end I have to say that I'm most dissapointed by this machine's price. The unit is nothing more than a large 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 poor exchange rate would explain. 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 moving fan with more and better bearings (something that should be expected in a $500 device). The gear mechanism that generates so much noise should be replaced with a non-contact device 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 device. That these obvious techiques... or any others... are not employed on a device 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 right way. This machine is not built the right way - it's just 5-10 times as expensive. I don't believe anyone is building a humidifier the right way 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 incredible. In the same bedroom with 50% humidity the Vental might get it up to 55%. The Honeywell can get it to 70% if you want and has digital controls for setting the exact 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.
Customer Review: Sometimes cheapest is the best option
Summary: 2 Stars
Used both this model and the smaller LW24 for a year.
Here's my experience:
- Good, not great humidification. Specifically, there's not a need for a humidistat, but they also take a while to get humidity up.
- Quiet at low speed (best for sleeping), tolerable at medium speed (best for maintaining humidity), noisy at high speed (best for getting humidity up to desired level)
- Seasonal maintenance cost is reasonable (about $10 for end of season cleaner, $20 for a season's worth of water additive)
- The biggie: ultimately no easier to clean than other humidifiers, which is a big selling point. If it was as simple as they make it out to be (rinse and wipe out the unit) it would be good, but I had the same experience as Amazon user djac "beantown boy" - a yellowish waxy residue built up on multiple inner surfaces, including nooks & crannies hard to clean, and to a lesser extent fan blades. This residue is difficult to remove. I got it even using filtered water, and not using their aromatherapy additives. On balance, this residue makes maintaining the Venta more effort than some other humidifiers.
A couple of caveats to the last point:
- I live in a brownstone New York City apartment. There is probably a higher than average level of dust/soot/cooking oil in my air, and perhaps that's what's causing the residue. So it's possible that other users won't have this problem.
- Strictly speaking, you might not have to clean that residue. It doesn't seem to impair the functioning. But I found it too yucky to bear leaving there. I would say I'm probably cleaner than the average guy I know, but I'm no obssessive.
My advice, which I'm about to follow, is to buy a $25 2 - speed warm steam unit (Duracraft DWM-250 / Honeywell DWM-910 is ideal, both available from Amazon Marketplace sellers) and stand alone hygrometer ($10-20). I've had several other humidifiers with built in humidistats - none were accurate, you might as well manage it yourself, just need to check once or twice a day. Don't fuss too much over maintaining the humidifier. Instead of weekly maintenance, which I dreaded, I plan to just wipe out the water tray each time I refill water.
When it stops working or requires too much cleaning effort, toss it out and buy another one next season. It's no more expensive than the seasonal maintenace costs for the Venta.
I also tried using a cast iron kettle. Problem was that the stove is not ideally placed from a circulation perspective to humidify my apartment, and it wouldn't keep steaming for long when placed on a trivet in my bedroom.
If you do want to try the Venta - buy it from a place where you can return it after a season. I know of a *b*ig *b*ox *&b*azaar that will let you do that :) These are just too expensive to risk w/o an open-ended return policy.
Customer Review: Holy Mother of God!!! $439??? and for what?!
Summary: 2 Stars
Well, this is quite unbelievable. Have you seen this thing? It is one hysterical piece of engineering - just a small and noisy fan spinning over two sets of plastic disks that slowly rotate inside a water tank. If you think you can skim on water additives, you're wrong. Without those additives, the discs won't even rotate.
Also, the piece is as attractive and as elegant as a German WWI tank. Think of a car battery prominently featured in your living room. Now, try to find ways of making it blend with the rest of the room. And have I mentioned how noisy this thing is? It generates as much noise as a small fan - oh, well... it IS a small fan, that's the whole point. Nothing about this machine screams, "I am worth half a grand!" I'd say, 50 bucks tops; as for the "good looks" - $30 in Kmart. Oh, by the way... I bought it in "Bed, Bath, and Beyond." I had to return the item and get a replacement; all the insides are made of flimsy materials that break easily. So when I unpacked the original unit, and a few plastic parts fell out, I returned it to the store for exchange. The odd part was that the store manager and I went over several of them, and the three out of the four items we inspected were damaged. AND THEY COME DIRECTLY FROM DEUTSCHLAND!!!
So if you think that your 30-bucks steam humidifier is dreck because you need to spend time cleaning it with vinegar, think again. In fact, it takes about half an hour to clean this thing. The humidity output is less then that of a typical steam humidifier; again, the engineering is at fault: the fan sucks in the humidifier air faster then it can leave the unit's area. If you still want to buy it, think again.
Customer Review: Terrible customer service
Summary: 2 Stars
I received my Venta yesterday. Unpacked it, carefully read the instructions and tried to start it up this morning and repeatedly got a red light warning instead of a start.
The first time I called Venta's US customer service the phone was answered by a dimwit who sounded like he was either stoned or asleep. The only words I managed to get out of him were various mumbled forms of "Huh?" and "Waitta minnit". Dimwit finally transferred me to a number that left me on hold for 5 minutes. It was eventually answered by a woman who asked me a couple of questions then transferred me to another number that answered then promptly hung up on me.
I called back and the phone was answered by the woman who had transferred me to the land of the dead on the previous call. For some reason she was now able and willing to help me. She had a remarkable (attractive) voice and accent so I'm sure she was the same person. I have no idea why she could not help me on the earlier call...
Once I finally reached a person who was (a) not comatose and (b) was willing to spend literally two minutes of their time troubleshooting we discovered that the unit I received had a faulty motor, then told me that Venta would not service or replace it because I didn't buy it direct from them. (Thank you Amazon!)
It may (or may not) be a nice humidifier but I won't replace it with another because I'd rather not support a company that treats their customers in such a shabby way.