Vicks V5100N 1.7 Gallon Ultrasonic Humidifier

Comment: After endless reviews of humidifiers, i chose this one. Actually, i was getting quite frustrated and bought this one, feeling like they all stick and nothing is going to make me happy anyways. well, i was wrong. i chose this mid-price model and definitely got my moneys worth. i have been using it less than a month, but am very happy. it holds a gallon, but i use the mid-setting and the gallon lasts me two nights, plus a little extra. i found if i left it on the highest setting, the mist settled on my floor because i keep the room temperature too cold(which i need to sleep!)But even at the highest setting, it is very quiet. it has never leaked either. the only downfall is there is no automatic shut off. but for me, it doesnt matter. even after 2 nights(9-10 hours) there is some water in the reserve so i shut it off when i wake up. great buy in my opinion!

Comment: Both me and my husband got really sick with fever after just one use. The mist has a really stinky smell and it's not quiet at all. I would give it a zero or negative stars if I could!

Comment: If I could give ZERO stars I without a doubt would! DO NOT BUY this product. I bought this humidifer for my baby with a cold and he spent 5 days in the hospital and is now home on oxygen because he has chemical pnuemonia!! There was so much "WHIT DUST" using this for the first time that you could not see my babies crib!! We followed instructions carefully and were using bottled distilled water. We went to the store we purchased it, got a new one and did an experiment in our basement-- THE SAME THING HAPPEND! This happend 7 weeks ago and it has been a night mare...my perfectly healthy baby has undergone CT SCANs, X-rays, bronchioscopes needing general anesthesia, inhalers, prednisone, lasix---- all to try to make him better. Pulmonologist are stumped at what to do. THIS IS A SCARY PRODUCT----I CALLED THE -1800 number on the box and the women says they will not recall a product over a phone call!!! SCARY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comment: I also posted this review on the product page for this humidifier direct from Amazon.com.

My wife and I bought this humidifier when she was about 8 months pregnant. She badly needed humid air to breath at night, but she couldn't abide too much noise. We tried three or four humidifiers before we landed on the Vicks Ultrasonic. After following the setup instructions, soaking the filter, and filling the unit with filtered (but not distilled) water, I turned it on about an hour before bedtime. We were pleased with the low-level, broadband hum the unit made and were initially quite pleased. Off we went to sleep.

We awoke about 4 hours later in a room that looked like it was full of smoke. We actually thought the apartment was on fire. A quick check of the place, though, revealed that all of the "smoke" was only in our bedroom. My wife's voice was rough and gravelly -- it was like she had something in her throat that she couldn't clear. She also had sharp pains in her lungs when she breathed. I had the same symptoms, but less severe, with a "frog in my throat" and pain in my chest only when I breathed deeply.

I evacuated her to the other bedroom and put a wet towel under the door. The fog had swept out of our bedroom and into the remainder of the apartment as soon as we opened the door. It took an hour to vent the apartment by opening every window and cranking the blower on the heat (it was mid-February).

An inspection the next morning quickly revealed that the humidifier was to blame. It and the rest of the room were blanketed in a layer of super-fine "white dust," with the largest build-up on and immediately around the humidifier. It turns out "white dust" is somewhat common with "ultrasonic" or "ultrasonic impeller" humidifiers (google it). Our doctor prescribed "clean air" and albuterol inhalers to treat what our "chemical pneumonia" (aggravation of the lungs by a chemical agent and not a bacterium). It took two weeks for my wife's voice and lungs to return to normal.

Needless to say, we have not used this unit since, nor will we ever experiment with an ultrasonic impeller (tip-off: a humidifier that uses a demineralization filter and not a wicking filter) humidifier again.

Comment: Got two of these. Both work fine. Both quiet and the price was a good one in a category in which many items are overpriced or noisey or both.