Living in a dry environment can cause you many problems. You might notice that you will develop a cough or you might start getting nosebleeds. There isn’t enough humidity in your environment and you will want to look into making some changes. There are actually several ways that you can go about humidifying your home.
The most practical thing to do is going to be to go out and buy a humidifier. If that isn’t an option for some reason, then you might be looking for a natural and cost-effective way to humidify your home. This has led people to wonder whether it is possible to humidify a room using a simple bowl of water. Is this a viable option or is it just an old wives’ tale?
Using Bowls of Water
You can actually use bowls of water to humidify a room. The only problem with this is that it is not going to work nearly as quickly as a normal humidifier. Simply placing bowls of water around the room will add moisture to the air at a slow pace. To get the best results, it is going to be smart to place multiple bowls of water around a room.
If you are trying to humidify a larger room using this method, then it’s definitely good to use more than one bowl of water. You can take things a step further than this by placing the water near your heating vents. If you happen to have a radiator in the room that you’re trying to humidify, then you can place a ceramic glass bowl directly on top of it. This will help to speed up the evaporation process so that you can get the room to be humidified properly.
There are other options to consider that can help, too. You could place your bowl of water near your window. The heat from the sunlight could help the water to evaporate more quickly so this could work if you don’t have another heat source to use. Just try to find a practical place to put the bowl or bowls of water that will allow the water to evaporate as expediently as possible.
The Type of Bowl You’re Using Might Matter
If your water bowl is too deep, then you might feel as if the process of it evaporating is painfully slow. As mentioned above, using a heat source to help evaporate the water helps. It’s also good to mention that using a wider, shallower bowl might be better for some people. This allows more of the water to make contact with the air and it should evaporate a bit more quickly.
Something such as a shallow pan might work out nicely. A normal bowl can still work but you just have to know that it might take quite some time for the entire bowl of water to evaporate into the air. If you have the choice between a wide and shallow bowl and a typical bowl, then it’s best to pick the wider option. This is just to help you humidify the house as quickly as you can.
Using a Bottle and a Washcloth
Using a bottle and a washcloth can also help you to draw the water upward and out of the bowl. This can promote faster evaporation of the water and it is worth giving it a shot. This method involves placing a bottle of some sort in the middle of your shallow bowl of water. You then need to drape a washcloth over the bottle so that the edges of the cloth are making contact with the surface of the water.
This is going to allow the wet area of the cloth to effectively increase the surface area of the water. The water should get drawn up by your washcloth and you should notice that things will humidify a bit more quickly. It doesn’t make the process as fast as an actual humidifier but it can help out. Give it a try if you want to make the process of humidifying your home a bit easier.
Consider Using a Teapot
Using a teapot to add humidity to the air is likely going to be better than using the bowl of water method. Assuming you have a teapot and a stove, it’s going to be easy to simply let the teapot add moisture to the air. You can fill the teapot with water and then simply allow it to steam away from the water. This should make your home a lot more humid than it was before and this is going to be easy to accomplish.
Bowls of water can be more practical when you have a big home and there are rooms that are far away from your kitchen. You might have an upstairs area that wouldn’t see much of a benefit from you using the teapot method. Many people use a combination of the teapots and the bowls of water to help humidify a home as a short-term solution. This could work out well for you too so consider whether using a teapot is a practical choice for your needs.
Buying a Humidifier Is Still Recommended
Always remember that using a bowl of water to humidify your home is not the best option. This is something that you can use to help you make things more comfortable for a short period of time. It simply isn’t going to work as well as an actual humidifier that you can buy from the store. If you have a pretty bad problem with your home being too dry, then paying the money to get a humidifier is going to be best.
You should also know that most humidifiers are not very expensive at all. You can use the bowls of water or the teapot method to add some humidity to the air while you wait to go buy a humidifier. It likely isn’t going to be an adequate long-term solution for your needs. As long as you understand this, you’ll be able to make the right decision for your home.
In Closing
You really can humidify a room using a simple bowl of water. This is a method that many people make use of to add a bit of humidity to the air when things get a bit too dry. It is easy for just about anyone to accomplish.
The only issue is that it can take time to humidify your home using only bowls of water. If you use some of the tips that are listed above, then it will be a lot easier to have success with this method. Using multiple bowls of water and trying to ensure that the water has as much of a surface area as possible does help your cause. Just remember that it will likely be easier to just buy a humidifier if you really need to improve the humidity levels in your home.
Being able to take advantage of this simple and easy method is important when people don’t have access to humidifiers, though. Using a combination of the teapot method and the bowls of water will help you out. You don’t have to simply put up with living in an uncomfortably dry home. These methods can make a difference and you’ll be able to rest a lot easier by making use of them.
1 Comment
Here is what I did. This could be about a hundred-dollar project if you don’t have any of the items already. You can also substitute with different items or not use some of these items. I already had an oil filled heater that I used in my bedroom at night. That allows me to turn my thermostat down at night. Initially, I used a bread loaf pan and bought and used a Harbor Freight knife wall magnet, cut it in half and duct taped it to the bottom of the pan in two rows. You can find basically the same thing online as a magnetic part holder. I put this on top of the heater and filled it with water. (I put a cheap rug under the heater in case water spilled). That, by itself, will work. The heat from the heater slowly evaporates the water and humidifies the air. Now, I also added a plug-in wall thermostat that turns the heater off once the room reaches the desired temperature. I also use a humidifier water treatment fluid to keep bacteria from growing in the water. One bottle will last for years and only cost around 7 or 8 dollars. You use a couple drops of bleach instead if you don’t mind the room smelling like a swimming pool. Depending on your water source you may want to use distilled water or buy a humidifier filter and cut it to fit in the pan. Sure, buying a room humidifier is cheaper and easier, but you are supposed to clean them every time before you use it and, depending on the model, can be a pain in the butt.