If you go look at your humidifier you should see water running out of it. You should see water running down the hose and into the floor drain. That is how you check if your humidifier is working.

The biggest question is water could be running through the humidifier and the humidifier it is technically working, but is it functioning at the correct efficiency and capacity? If it isn’t running at the right efficiency or capacity, is your humidifier really working? If it is not serviced or maintained regularly it really needs to be. Whole-home humidifiers need a little TLC every single year in order to make sure that they are working properly. If you don’t maintain the humidifier and change the water panel on a regular basis, you’re just not going to get the capacity and the efficiency of the humidifier that you want. However, if you see water running down to the floor drain, is it a definite good sign that it is running. Whether it’s working at its potential…that’s where it needs maintenance every year.

How do I know if my humidifier is working or not?

That’s actually a really good question. We get asked alot about how to know if your humidifier is working. A couple of symptoms that people see in their homes and feel in their homes if the humidifier stops working are:

1. The electrostatic discharge as you walk across the carpet or you touch a light switch or you touch your kids or the dog or the cat and you zap them. That’s typically a sign of dry air in a home so that’s usually the first one that gets noticed.

2. Another common one is sinuses. Many people get nosebleeds if their humidifier stopped working. When we breathe dry air it evaporates the moisture that we do have in our sinuses and the only thing we have left is exposed blood vessels. So if you continue to breathe that really dry air it actually causes an irritation to those blood vessels and causes those blood vessels to rupture. You end up with a nosebleed.

3. Finally, dry hair, dry skin, these are all typical symptoms of dry air. These are signs of a humidifier that is not working.

Does the humidifier need to be serviced more than once per year?

Usually just once a year. If you notice something is not working correctly, or you’re getting those symptoms mentioned above, that’s a situation where you probably need to have somebody come out and check the humidifier. Maybe something stopped working. But as far as water panel changes and maintenance, that’s a once-a-year thing.