Customer Reviews

Lasko 1128 9-Gallon Evaporative Recirculating Humidifier

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I have the predecessor that was black in color. It's 3 years old and still works great. Definitely evaporates lots of water into the air. The reservoir must be filled 2 to 3 times per day depending on how often your furnace comes on. It's somewhat of a chore but I get used to it. Keeping the household humidity at 60% or better surely makes lower thermostat settings tolerable so it's a money saver in that regard. The unit uses about 100 watts during its intermittent runs.

Mine is so accurate that it is almost perfectly synchronized to furnace operation. Furnace comes on and shortly thereafter the Lasko humidifier starts up. Furnace shuts off and shortly thereafter the humidifier shuts off. I presume the same accuracy is maintained in this newer white model.

These do use disposable paper filters. I use 2 per season. Cheapest source for the filters is direct from Lasko. I bought a box of 10 for $50 right after I bought the humidifier and I've got about 5 filters left. Even if you throw away about half of them, you'll save money compared to single filter prices at brick and mortar stores. The shipping was free at the time. Maybe it still is.

Humidifiers require periodic maintenance. These Lasko's are no exception. Each year, I sit the thing in the bathtub and fill it's reservoir with vinegar/water and let it run about 30 minutes. This dissolves or loosens the mineral deposits. After rinsing, I then fill it with a bleach/water solution and let it run about 30 minutes to kill mold spores and dormant bacteria.

That yearly demineralizing/disinfecting is somewhat of a chore but I only have to do it once. That's enough to get me through the entire heating season.

All humidifiers require some maintenance--even the ones connected directly to your furnace. I've read operator's manuals for most every one of the furnace mounted units and some of the maintenance procedures are complex and labor intensive compared to the little bathtub routine I've developed for this Lasko.

When I think I will install a furnace mounted unit I search the internet and read the reviews and realize why I put up with this Lasko cleaning routine. Many of those furnace mounted units require demineralizing and disinfecting just like the Lasko--except that I can put the Lasko in a bathtub and keep the mess contained. If I had to rinse and clean a furnace mounted unit, I'd have to use a wet/dry vac to sop up the spillage all over the basement floor, I'm sure. On top of that mess, it seems that furnace mounted units die at an early age due to mineral deposits that can't be controlled.

When the temperatures drop to about 15°F or below, our furnace runs a lot. The more the furnace runs the more the Lasko humidifier runs. I'm sure I have to fill the removeable reservoir 3 times a day or more. It seems to be sized so that a full reservoir lasts about 8 hours. That's enough to get a full night's sleep. Actually, the removeable reservoir holds about 8 hours worth. There's another several gallons in the base to supply the unit with water so you can easily stretch it to 12-14 hours between fillings. I do it all the time. It's just that if you stretch it to 12 hours or more, you'll have to fill the removable reservoir 1.5 times to completely "fill 'er up" again.

All in all, I don't think I could live without a humidifier. We feel warmer, the children cough less while sleeping, there's no static electric sparks when we touch objects or each other ... it's worth the hassle, I think.

This unit says it will do a 3200 square foot home. I guess that's so, but, it's quite nicely sized for homes smaller than that because it won't have to run on high to do the job. Buying the biggest humidifier means you can run the fan on low so it's as quiet as possible.

Once a year I also take it apart to clean the dust from the fan blades and the vortex shroud. This isn't absolutely necessary but it makes it look new again. About 6 or 8 screws removed lets the thing come almost entirely apart for cleaning.

So, a humidifier takes some work no matter what type you get. For a household humidifier, I like this Lasko but I've also got a wife and kids to share in the task of refilling it 3 times a day.

I'm a home handy man so I'll be able to replace the motor in this thing when it goes bad. I don't think it will cost much.

Lasko sells parts and that's what I truly love! Unlike other companies, Lasko actually has parts available and they sell them at reasonable prices.

We use Lasko ventilation fans year round as a sleep aide to produce "white noise." I've got a remote controlled fan that I've come to depend on. After about 4 years of daily night time use, I needed a motor for it last year and, sure enough, Lasko sold one to me and the cost was about 1/3rd that of a new fan.

For the home do-it-yourselfer types, Lasko is the only way to go because they sell parts. Other companies, like Holmes, don't stock any parts at all. Once the complete Holmes unit comes from Taiwan or Sri Lanka to your store's shelf, that's it--you can't get a part even if it was missing from the package before you bought it.

Lasko has a respectable warranty and they don't charge a fee. Holmes and other companies like them charge you a fee that they call "handling" just to get a warranty remedy. That "handling" fee is usually 2/3 or more the cost of a new fan. In other words, you have to pay to return the defective item to Holmes, you also have to pay that "handling fee", and then they might send you a replacement. Lasko doesn't do that. I think that they do require that you ship the item back to them at your cost.

This is a recirculating type of humidifier so it doesn't throw white dust all over everything. The other type of humidifier uses heat to evaporate water (like a distiller) and in the process, all of the minerals of the water become airborne grey-white dust. I don't like that idea. These recirculating types just trickle large quantities of water through a paper filter. The filter retains the minerals.

I remember as a kid, about 45 years ago, I used to sit on my grandmother's floor and enjoy the breeze from a "ottoman" style fan and it had the name "Lasko" on it. I used to think it had something to do with Alaska. I presume it's the same company--still making fans and things that circulate air.

Our house is so well insulated that the furnace doesn't run often enough for a furnace-mounted humidifier to work well in our 255 s.f. house. As a result we've tried a number of different kinds of portable humidifiers.

The ultrasonics don't put out enough volume. Nor do the spray mist ones. The warm mist ones have a very high operating cost. For a couple of years we used a wick-and-fan humidifier that had plenty of capacity and ran quietly. The problem was that the wicking filters were expensive ($16 each) and rapidly lost their capacity: a filter that would wick 5 gallons a day was down to 1 gallon a day within two weeks. So even this solution cost us almost $1/day for filter replacements.

The Lasko Recirculating Humidifier seems to have solved this problem: instead of water being wicked up by the filter, the filter is wetted from the top by a little built-in aquarium pump - much in the way that furnace-mounted humidifiers work.

We've been using this humdifier for three weeks now. It is slightly noisier (even on its lowest setting) than our old one; but the noise is not objectionable, and the volume of water being put out has not decreased at all.

I can't speak for the longevity of the product, but its operating costs should be very low, and its technology is exactly what I've been looking for for years.

This is my second one of these. The first one performed well but quit working after 3 years. It was inexpensive so I bought another one. I bought a cheaper model this time that didn't have the LED displays the first one had. This one just has a knob with no readout of setting or room humidity. The reason I did that was the LEDs on the first one quit working after about two years. I figured this simpler one would be less likely to fail - who knows?

I keep it in the master bathroom and fill it twice a day from the tub. It uses a lot of water - which is what I want it to do, but without the convenience of the adjacent tub it would be a pain - all these portable ones probably have this problem.

I keep it on the medium fan setting and it seems fairly loud for the first few days but now I'm used to it and I don't notice it coming on and off.

The area around the unit remains dry so it works well as an evaporative humidifier - which is what you want it to do. It puts moisture into the the air, not the floor. I keep it on a bath mat to catch the drops that result from the filling operation.

My bedroom ceiling and wall joints have quit coming apart in the wintertime like they did before I added this humidifier - so it does the job well.

For some reason I find many of the 1-star reviews of this product frustrating...almost all of them can/should be attributed to human error and not defects in the device itself.

Yes, if you hold the jug by the one handle water can leak from the valve at the end. Guess what? It has two handles. Use the one at the other end and it doesn't leak at all....use the top handle only when loading the thing into the unit itself.

Yes the little pictograph at the far end says you press the little spring-loaded lever to fill it at the tap. But the entire lid also unscrews to fill using a larger source (like a bathtub).

If you can fill a glass with tap water and not smell the nastiness within, great. Fill that glass then let the water evaporate from it completely. Repeat. Eventually that glass will smell (and look) REALLY bad from the contaminates left behind by the water. This is the process your humidifier goes through daily on a large scale. This is why they have filters. The nastier your water is, the more you have to change filters and clean the unit; and if your water smells, then there's absolutely nothing ANY humidifier can do to help you with that problem. If the water rings your toilet or sink drains, you're going to have problems with any device that is built to evaporate water.

Is it noisy? It can be; it has a big fan that runs to pull the moisture through the filter. It also has 3 speeds and the lowest isn't objectionable. It also has a humidistat so it will run automatically. No, it doesn't have a digital gauge and a build in hydrometer, so you will have to buy a hydrometer ($3, walmart) and play it by ear; here's a hint: Crank it to the max; watch the gauge over the course of a day. Dial back a bit. Repeat until desired humidity level is reached. Why is this is a difficult procedure?

If you find that your humidifier isn't humidifying your house like you would like it to, instead of spending 10 minutes writing a review on Amazon bashing the unit, spend 5 minutes googling for "humidifier placement" and discovering that placing the unit near a cold-air return will allow it to humidify the entire house instead of just the room its in.

Its built from plastic, not solid oak, so yeah, you don't want kids playing near it; but there's a lot of things in my house susceptible to damage from small children. This thing is the least of my worries.

I've had this unit for 2 weeks. Its not flawless, but i don't think its deserving of some of the criticism being delivered here. There's no such thing as a device that's immune to operator error. The only thing these people should really be faulting Lasko for is not being able to read their minds or providing a user manual that's 200 pages thick (which then nobody would read and Lasko would go out of business trying to print).

I've only had this for one week, and I came very close to sending it back because of the noise. It is effective in putting water into the air, but the fan is really loud. There are three fan settings, and it's reasonably quiet at the lowest setting and you can have a normal conversation when near it. At the middle setting I have to raise my voice, and at the high speed I would have to start yelling. At the lowest fan setting, it puts about 2.5 - 3 gallons of water into the air per day, or about 1/3rd of it's rated capacity. I've decided that 3 gallons per day into the air is enough to be a benefit and I will keep this unit. I plan on only using the lowest fan speed and I leave it in a room where I don't spend much time.

As another reviewer pointed out, humidifiers are rated in gallons per day of water into the air. The rating has nothing to do with the size of the water storage. This Lasko is rated for 9 gallons per day (using the high fan speed), but storage capacity is 3 gallons plus 1.5 gallons for the refill jug, for 4.5 gallons total. I like the fact that I can have this running continuously while filling up the jug. Since I only run this on low, I only have to fill it once a day, which is great.

There are some design problems with this humidifier. First, the housing is made of flimsy plastic, and seems like it could break easily. This flimsy plastic also forms the mount for the fan and fan housing. The fan on my unit was not centered within the housing, and the fan blades were extremely close to the housing on one side. With the fan on high and sometimes medium speed, the fan blades would hit the housing and make a terrible racket. I was able to loosen the 4 screws that hold the fan and slightly reposition the fan so that no longer happens at any speed. From the other reviews, it seems like a common problem with this model. My comments on the noise above are for the sound level AFTER fixing the mounting problem.

The other design issue I have is with the refill jug. There is a recessed/retractable handle (good), but the shape of the top is rounded, so it will not stand upright on its top. Since the jug is refilled from the bottom, it would be nice if it stood upright. If the handle is retracted, it will stand lopsided on its top however, so this is just a minor annoyance. There is a valve on the bottom of the jug that is only opened when installed in the unit, and when depressed manually while refilling. This spring loaded valve is just plastic mating with plastic, and is not water tight. So if you carry the jug right side up by the handle, water will leak out the valve. It's not too hard to carry the jug upside down since there is a handle on the bottom too. I just refill and carry upside down, and then turn it right side up while over the reservoir of the unit; it still spills some water if I'm not careful, but it's acceptable.

There is a little plastic window in the side of the unit that has water trickling down when the fan/pump is on. This is to tell if the water is flowing, and it also makes a pleasant sound; can only hear it with fan low and even then the fan sound dominates. Nice little feature though.

The controls on top are for fan speed (1, 2, 3 and off), plus a humidity level. It shuts off when the humidity reaches the set level, and turns back on when it falls below that level. There is a green led that lights up when the humidity level is met. I tested to make sure this works, but living in dry Colorado, I expect it to be on all the time.

Mine came with 4 casters to make it easier to slide around. They work fine, but I had to press so hard to install one of them that the receptacle (flimsy plastic) cracked slightly.

I have tried all types of humidifiers over the years, and IMO the recirculating evaporative technology is the way to go.

Cool mist humidifiers leave white dust all over the room. Warm mist humidifiers cost as much to run as an air conditioner. And non-recirculating evaporative humidifiers lose their ability to moisten the air in just a few weeks, occasioning constant conditioning and replacement of the wicks.

Circulating evaporative humidifiers like this Lasko, however, solve this latter problem by keeping the wick moist using a small pump.

Thus you get a clean-running, energy-efficient humidifier with a minimum of upkeep and wick replacement costs.

As others have noted, there is some maintenance involved. You still have to clean the interior occasionally and soak the wick in white vinegar or bleach to remove mineral deposits and odors. And Lasko recommends that you discard the wick at the end of the winter, replacing it at the start of the following winter.

But those are small prices to pay compared to the alternatives.

I wanted to address a few complaints I have read about this humidifier in other reviews here at Amazon. First, regarding water spilling when you refill and replace the water jug: note that the end of the jug with the water inlet valve unscrews and removes, enabling you to clean the jug. You need to make sure that this end is inserted in the jug properly and screwed closed tightly.

When you carry the jug from the bathtub (or kitchen sink, if you have a high-mounted faucet or water hose), carry it with the water inlet valve end facing up. Then just flip and insert the water jug in the humidifier, like replacing a water bottle in a water cooler, and you should minimize any spills.

As to the noise of the humidifier in operation, it makes about as much noise as your average table fan on high speed. The low speed is very quiet, however, and shouldn't disturb even a light sleeper.

Others have commented that they wish the reservoir was clear, so you could check the water level at a glance, but this Lasko does have a neat little visible waterfall window that shows whether the water is circulating properly over the wick. If no water is falling, you obviously need to refill it.

More likely, you'll get a feel for how often you have to add water depending on your environment and desired moisture level. Then you just refill and replace the jug until some water is left in the jug after you insert it in the humidifier. No biggie.

So as of this writing, I think that this is the best humidifier on the market. I will report back if anything causes me to revise my conclusion...

We just moved into a new home in North Georgia this past Fall, so this was our first Winter outside of Florida in 20 years. We had forgotten that it doesn't stay highly humid all year long in most parts of the country. After a couple of months of using a wood burning fireplace insert, coupled with two propane gas forced air furnaces, we had effectively dried out our house to about 15% relative humidity. Although our goal was only heat, we were cracking baseboard wood joints and crown molding joints all over the house. Finally, we realized this dry climate was going to be with us for awhile more, so we decided to add a humidifier to the climate conditioning of the house.

We knew we needed a large capacity humidifier, but we didn't want a semi-permanent hulk of a console humidifier in the middle of our family room. We liked the fact that these are small enough to set on top of a folding TV table, yet large enough to do the job. We have a 2-story 4500 sq. ft. house, so we purchased two of the Lasko 1128's. We figured even if they were over-rated at 3200 sq.ft. capacity, that two of them together should handle 4500 sq.ft.

When we first started them up, we were very discouraged. After running on high speed fan for two straight days and nights (48 hours) without stopping except for refilling water, the relative humidity had only increased from 15% to 18% on a small humidity meter we had purchased from Walmart. To make matters worse, both units were only using up about 1-1/2 gallons a day each. These are supposed to be able to put out 9 gallons a day each. The reservoir in the bottom takes 3 gallons of water (2 fillings from the 1-1/2 gallon jug) and then the last filling of the jug stays in the unit. That keeps 4-1/2 gallons in the unit when completely filled. Both of our units were only using the water that was in the jug plus maybe a little bit more, during a 24-hour continuous run period. No wonder our humidity was not going up very fast.

We called Lasko technical support and were told that we need to let them run about a week before complaining about their performance. The tech rep explained that all of the furniture, carpet, walls and ceilings would have to absorb their ambient humidity before the air level would change appreciably. Evidently, everything in our house was bone dry. Then why weren't these units using more than 1-1/2 gallons of water a day? We still don't know that answer.

True enough though, after about a week of continuous run on high speed, the humidity in the whole house climbed up to about 45%, both upstairs and downstairs. We dialed back the built-in humidistats on each unit to keep the relative humidity in those areas to stay at 41%. We are now able to keep the fan speed on low (which is very quiet) on both units, and the fans only come on whenever the furnace comes on or when we have a fire going in the fireplace. They do their job of keeping the house right at 41% all the time. By the way, they are only using about 3/4-gallon a day now that the house is up to a comfortable humidity level. We refill each jug in the morning and not again until the next morning.

Only 4 stars instead of 5 stars because our units are not living up to the specifications of putting out 9 gallons per day when it was real dry. The bottom line is they do work, maybe not as advertised or expected, but in the end, they do the job as required with less refills than expected.

The Lasko 1128 9 gallon evaporative recirculating humidifier is an evaporative humidifier. This mean that a shallow tank of room temperature water with a lot of surface area sits in the base and a powerful fan circulates air over that water to promote evaporation. It has a 9 gallon capacity, meaning that you can expect to add 9 gallons of water to the air during 24 hours of continuous operation at the highest fan setting. This is how all humidifier capacities are measured. The Lasko 1128 also has a filter to trap dirt and other particles.

Most humidifiers have a convoluted mix of components that require thorough frequent cleanings and tiresome refillings. While, a 9 gallon capacity neccesitates frequent refilling, it is not much of a chore, so long as you have a deep basin sink or bath tub nearby. A large 1.5 gallon canister on the unit should be filled 6 times a day for maximum hydration. This should keep a 3500-4500 square ft. home at the normal target 35-45% humidity. For smaller houses with good insulation, two or three fills should be enough per day. The Lasko 1128 seems to do fine with a light cleaning every other week or longer if you run the basin dry between uses. If you let the water sit too long with running the fan, you might find mold growing in less than a week. A set of 4 cheap casters and a humidistat that works acceptably completes the package.

Unfortunately, it seems every humidifier has some major negatives and the Lasko 1128 is no exception. The biggest issue most users will face is the noise created by the fan. Even at the lowest setting (of 3), the fan will produce enough noise to bother most people in an adjacent room without a closed door - though some might find the noise relaxing at night. At the highest setting, it's hard to even think in the same room. I usually run this humidifier only when I'm at work or asleep (on a different floor than the humidifier). Another negative is a very weak seal on the bottom of the canister. It is not too much trouble to get used to filling without spilling, but expect to make a lot of spills at first. Finally, you should rinse out a new filter thoroughly before use because otherwise your house will smell like a chemical plant.

Overall, this humidifier does the job with minimal upkeep and a couple nice features. The fan noise will be a big negative to some, but the noise-free humidifiers generally don't produce such a high moisture output...or they leave white residue. So, though I've yet to find the perfect humidifier, the Lasko 1128 certainly does a decent job. If you are looking into a humidifier this big though, you may want to consider having a humidifier installed directly into your hvac and connected to your water line.

This has been a rough heating season, and because of my collection of acoustic guitars and my wife's plants, we monitor the humidity. The heating system has had to run far more this winter than usual, and the relative humidity on our main floor has typically ranged from 24% to about 30% most of the winter. The plants have looked pretty forlorn, and the guitars have all had to have dampits installed and monitored. My wife tried to raise the humidity level in the house by running a cool mist vaporizer like what you might put in a child's bedroom when they have a cold. This approach was like trying to bail out the ocean with a thimble. You could barely move the humidistat by one point in the vicinity of the vaporizer. Enter the Lasko 1128.

The Lasko arrived, got properly cleaned, filled, and cranked up full throttle. Within 24 hours, it had the 2500 square foot main floor up nearly 10 points (and into the range that might be identified with comfort). I've had to add water several times, but this is relatively straight forward. If we'd had this unit at the start of the heating season, I could have avoided fooling with the dampits, and the plants would all look quite a bit better than they do.

The unit is on the noisy side when you crank it up to full speed. And if you put it near the cold air return duct, a lot of the water vapor heads into the HVAC system. This might be a good thing, since it gets distributed farther away from the unit.... but on the down side, it slows the rise in relatively humidity in the area where the unit is operating. The unit is not hard to move around on the castors which are provided. It did take a little elbow grease to install the castors correctly. My wife is a petite woman, and I'm not sure she could have done this by herself.

Once you're up to the relative humidity that you want, you can reduce the speed and set it on autopilot. We did this overnight, and the noise level was diminished enough that it did not interrupt our sleep.

It looks like filter changes will be simple enough. I'm going to order some filters, but there are instructions with the unit that explain how to extend filter life, so it may not be necessary to have an extra one this year since our heating season will be over soon.

Overall I am pleased with the unit, and I may order a second one so that next heating season we can put one at one end of the house and another at the other end, to get greater uniformity of relative humidity, and to allow operation on a low speed setting more of the time.

The box says that the unit is assembled in the US of foreign and domestic parts. I guess that nowadays that about as close to "made in the USA" as you're going to see most of the time. It comes with a one year warranty. I hope we don't need it, but at the price point, even if it only lasted one season, it would be worthwhile.

This is the best humidifier I've owned. There are many reasons to use a humidifier in winter months -- health and comfort would head the list. Lower heating bills would be another. I set the humidistat dial to the 10 or 11 o'clock position and it keeps the relative humidity around 45% which feels comfortable for Arizona. (if you don't have a humidity gauge and if you want to go to the trouble of setting up a wet bulb thermometer you can calculate relative humidity at -- [...] )

The Lasko 9 gal. capacity is about right for my 1,800 sq ft. house. I use only reverse osmosis water so mineral build up is not an issue. Since the R/O also removes the clorine from tap water, I add about 1/16 tsp. chlorine bleach per gallon to keep mold from growing in the machine. It is better, in my opinion, to replace the evaporative pads every 3 - 4 weeks to keep mold and fungus from getting started. I also completely drain the tank twice a week using a siphon tube. This keeps the water and humid air from the machine fresh and clean. While this regime seems excessive, I think it will keep the unit COMPLETELY clear of mold or fungus build up for many years to come. The pads are reasonably priced from Lasko and I've been pleased with Lasko humidifiers in the past -- the motors have lasted for many years.

There are two problems with this machine however. First, the fan blades are noisy. I keep the fan speed on low and it is still fairly noticeable. The second issue is water dripping when I refill the reservoir. A towel comes in handy when carrying the reservoir from the sink to the humidifier, but it is a small inconvenience compared to the benefits of the machine.
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