Customer Reviews

Holmes HM4600-U 11-Gallon Humidifier

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

We've had this humidifier since the middle of November. It is now the middle of April. We bought it after my daughter was born and had to spend 10 days in the special care nusery. Part of the time she spent in there was because of her tiny nasal passages. What helped get her though was the doctor putting her on a cool mist humidifier dome. The doctor said if we didn't already have one, to ge a COOL MIST humidifer. Cool mist will help open up the nasal passage where as the warm mist will generally help initially feel better, in the long run will close the nasal passages.

We have a very large room and needed a humidifier that would cover our area (the baby is in our room). This humidifer certainly fits that bill.

As for the loud noise it produces. We like having that noise. It is a steady sound at the same level. In fact the other night I had the humidifier turned off and woke up 4 or 5 times during the night because I was able to hear every little tiny sound that would normally have been drowned out by the humidifier.

As for filling it. You can do it in the sink or in the tub. The top for each tank has an attachment for it that screws into it so that you can lay the tank sideways in the sink. Our sink is deep enought that I was able to take the attachment off and fill it normally.

Having the humidifier room gage is great. Typically you want your humity level in a room to be between 40 and 60. During the night I run the humidifier on level 1 and it keeps the humity level around 50-55. During the day I change the setting to keep the humidity level no lower than 40. Every time the level goes below 40, the fan automatically turns on to keep up the humitity level.

The only real complaint I have with this unit is that it goes through filters quickly and they are on the expensive side. I have to change the filters once a month (there are 6 of them), but it has made a huge difference in the baby's breathing at night during the winter months. I have also noticed that I no longer wake up with a dry yukky mouth and my lips do not get dryed out and chapped at all.

Frankly I am suprised at all the negative reviews.
I am lucky I did not see them before I bought this unit.

I do find the unit fairly loud on high and medium power but no louder then I would have expected in comparing to other humidifiers (I own 4 - this being the largest)

On low power I find it quiet enough so I can stand right next to it and talk on the phone, and it does not bother my TV watching.
Also on low power this humidifier still humidifies great, infact I found I did not need my other humidifiers on other floors, as it seems to be humidifying my first 2 floors (about 2200 sf) to my satisfaction. (This winter has been unusualy warm though)

This unit is sleek and compact for a full house humidifier.

Another thing I really like is that I bought this humidifier beginning of this winter season and I have not had to change the filters yet - still running strong, I expected to have to change filters monthly, so this was a nice bonus - of course it all depends on your local water quality.

A comment about Holmes customer support, another warm mist humidifier that I bought last season broke, I called Holmes and they imidiately offered to replace it once I described the problems to them, they sent me a brand new unit for a $10 shipping fee which I find is very fair. Infact since I no longer liked the warm mist, I asked them to send me an equivalent cost model that was cold mist and that is what they did.

All these reviews are correct (and funny!). This is loud, but we keep it on low all the time. The rest of it is wonderful. Our dog had pneumonia last winter. She had a couple of rounds of antibiotics, which took care of her fever and congested lungs, but she could not stop coughing up phlegm for months. She went for x-rays and was headed for ultrasound next. We had a small humidifier, but purchased this after Christmas and the very first night we had it on her coughing disappeared and only comes back when we don't use it. We had no idea we had such allergens existing in our bedroom. It would be nice if Holmes worked on the sound issue, but as far as the performance of humidifying and purifying our air, we wouldn't live without it.

The poorly balanced fan motors in this unit cause it to vibrate, shake and buzz to the point where it is useless at any speed above the lowest setting. Even then it causes a buzz that resonates through the floors and walls of the house. E-mails to the manufacturer have gone unanswered.

Other poor design features:
- the unit does not shut off when the tanks are empty so it continues to waste electricity until you notice that they are empty
- it becomes confused when on the automatic settings. If you set it at 40% humidity, for example, it will repeatedly turn on and off as it approaches that humidity level

It does work, however, in that it is effective at adding humidity to the air. On the low setting (again, due to the noise and vibration I can't use medium or high settings)I need to fill it daily which means it's pumping a decent amount of moisture into the air. There are many other brands that do it much better, though.

I use the unit on the first floor of my home. On the second floor I have an Emerson 13-gallon unit which is a far better design and does not have any of the aforementioned flaws.

This unit is supposed to be " up to 35% quieter" than what? an airplane? I'm sure it does a good job but I will not have it long enough to find out, for tommorrow it goes back to the store. Oh did I mention the whiney ringy sound it makes?

I just purchased this last night and am not at all sure that I am going to keep it. It is noisier than our old Bionaire humidifier, even on the low setting. Often the fans sound unbalanced. This humidifier accepts wheels but it does not ship with them. Instead, there is a coupon to get the wheels "Free" if you pay shipping and handling. Without the wheels, it is low to the ground which could be OK, BUT, the entire bottom surface of the unit rests on the floor & on a tile floor like we have, it produces a low frequency hum which is especially noticeable when in the room downstairs, below the humidifier.
I do like the ionizing feature and the cheaper filters, but the noise is too much for me. Just be aware it is using two smaller fans in tandem instead of one large fan; this causes more fan noise.
Quality of build seems average to above average.
Ease of use is above average.

Holmes usually does a nice job with their humidifyers. This one is the anomole. It's the worst. Because it has two fans, instead of the one fan 10-gallon HM3665-U, at medium or high speed the fans start an acoustic war between each other. This results in an absolutely intolerable vibration that you can not suppress or control. I work in a sound proof sound studio at my job, and I'm getting complaints from people who can hear it right through the walls!

TAKE A PASS ON THIS ONE. They've got some bugs to work out.

AND DO NOT EXPECT HOLMES CUSTOMER SERVICE TO HELP YOU WITH ONLINE ORDERS!!!

They are inferior for customer service. They'll simply put you off as long as they can until you've hopefully forgotten about your problem, or have just given up. If you're going to order from Holmes ... get something reliable that you won't have to ask for help on later.

I reccommend the 10 gallon as I mentioned above.

Thank God that I bought it at Costco and I can return it! The box claims its 34% quieter! Quieter then a 747 maybe, I am very disappointed with it. It puts out a huge amount of water which is good and it looks very nice. Once you set it up and fill it its almost impossible to move since there is nothing to grab onto. All three fan speeds are very loud, there is no way I can listen to the TV with this thing running. It also transmits a vibration into the floor which made our cast iron propane stove buzz. The unit also makes a buzzing sound from time to time due to plastic parts vibrating against each other. I have a small humidifier that works well and I will now buy more small units since the larger ones seem to be made cheaply or poorly designed. I also returned a Bemis whole house unit that was quiet but didn't fit together well and it took 10 minutes to put the top on since it was warped when it was molded. I'm willing to spend more money if neccessary if I thought I could get something decent. This unit would be fine if the low fan speed was slower and if the fans were balanced better.

I just got it in time for Christmas and had it on for 30 mins. I couldn't stand the noise any more. When I just turned it on at the high setting it sounded like my expensive dryer. So I turned to the low setting but still lound enough to interfere the conversation. I will return it and get 2 or 3 warm mist humidifiers instead. The warm mist type is much quieter.

I bought this and brought it home, set it up and turned it on. I went downstairs and thought that someone was doing constriction outside. One of the fans continually droned and vibrated; causing so much noise I could not use it. I thought it was a fluke so I sent a message to Holmes which they did not respond to. I returned it and replaced it with another identical model. I set it up and turned it on and was satisfied. I went to bed only to wake up to it turning off and on and from high to low. I looked at the display and it was alternating from a humidity level of 40 all the way to 75, and all numbers between. Also it was randomly cycling between all levels of power. I turned the unit off and went back to bed. To my surprise it turned itself back on and again cycled through different power levels and modes. Stay away from this model and I am not impressed with the lack of customer service from Holmes.