what kind of humidifier ?
 

I grow indoors under lights in the winter. I am confused about cool or warm humidifiers . I have a:) 3 tier light stand in a small room. Do you have any suggestions on a brand that I can get at a lowes or home depot or something like that? thank you:)

I live in New Mexico, and h+
ave three types of Humidifiers. The small one i bought at Walmart, it holds very little water but in a small room will run for several hours. The house I live in has an open floor plan, is adobe but has high beams. It is difficult to get the humidity over 30% without using the two larger ones that I bought through Amazon. My favorite is Levoit and is a bottom loader, holds a gallon + and runs for several hours. Is very easy to use. The other one I was ready to send back. It is a TBI Pro cool mist and holds 6 L and is a top load for water. I let it set for a couple of months because I could not get it back to FedEx re virus. But decided to try it again and finally figured it out and it will run for 10+ hrs. For a small room, if you have a way to move the air, a small one will be fine. It also depends on the orchids you grow. I have phals, Oncs, Vanda seedlings and a zygopedalum. They all seem to do well with the same conditions.

Have used this https://www.homedepot.com/p/Crane-Dr...01CW/302208231 in the past when needed(for a 4-ft. long, 3 tier light stand in a small room - maybe something similar to yours?).

It has performed well, and without issues for 3 years (I still use it for my sinuses on extremely dry winter nights when RH bottoms out). Only drawback (maybe) is having to fill the tank (1 gallon) almost every 24 hours during use. Used a good tap water source (soft), and followed the suggested maintenance in the operation manual. No problems. Around the $40ish price range. Was able to keep the humidity levels @ around 50% or better in a 15ft x 15ft room on those days & nights when ambient RH was hoovering around the 25% or below range.

I have used this one:
Robot Check

And I love it because it does not leave any white calcium residue on all your furniture and tables. However, the way it does this is that he uses a filter, and the fan blows through the filter, evaporating the water and leaving the dissolved solids on the filter. That means that you have to buy filters. It seems like they were like a pack of 6 filters for 30 dollars, but you have to change the filters every three or four weeks. Are the humidifiers I see referred to as "cool mist" humidifiers the ones that leave a film of calcium on everything? I think the ones called "evaporative humidifiers" are the ones that don't leave white dust on eveerything, but they all use filters. If you use a cool mist humidifier, you could avoid the problem by using distilled water, but then you're always having to buy distilled water.

thank you all for the replies. I had a big whole house one and it made the house cold. I now live in a smaller house and have 1 room for my orchids. the humidity gets down into the 20 and 30% in the winter. The only problem I have is my plants only get watered once every 10 or so days my daughter comes over to water as I am gone most of the winter.

Your biggest challenge is going to be finding a humidifier with a reservoir bi enough to last for 10 days. I run 3 and I have to refill almost everyday during the dry time of the year here (summer).

There are basically three types of humidifiers: warm, cold and forced air.

Warm ones use a heating element to evaporate the water.

Cold ones atomize the water with an impeller or ultrasonic transducer, breaking it into tiny droplets that can easily evaporate.

Forced air types use a fan to blow air through a wetted wick.

As the water evaporates, the dissolved minerals stay in the humidifier in the cases of the warm and force-air types. With the cold mist types, those minerals go with the water droplets, where they end up deposited on everything in the area as a fine, white dust.

a humidifier is one option. A little greenhouse, one of those plastic ones is another option for keeping the humidity high around the orchids. A water tray filled with pebbles in a mini greenhouse will do just as good a job without raising the humidity in your whole room too much.

Won't look as good and will need to be checked to get the settings right (not too much humidity- stagnation - temp)

but overall it will be worth it for the orchids care.

I have seen some very decent walk in sized terrariums for orchids, turning a room into a house into such without any thought for mold is not a great move in my opinion.

I disagree with the pebble tray idea - physics says it won't work well. Read this.

I highly recommend mistking.