Here are 3 space heaters that don’t dry the air!
Whenever you heat your room with a space heater, the air gets dryer and dryer. Sometimes even so much that it makes you uncomfortable.
The level of humidity in your room can make a big difference for your wellbeing.
Too dry air will make your skin feel dried out and your throat can get sore. Too humid air will make you feel sweaty at home.
So, there must be an optimum point of humidity that is best for your health and wellbeing.
“The majority of adverse health effects caused by relative humidity would be minimized by maintaining indoor levels between 40 and 60%.[…] Humidification should preferably use evaporative or steam humidifiers.”
Study – Indirect health effects of relative humidity in indoor environments.
Especially during wintertime, the air can become really dry. When you use a space heater even though the air is already dry, the heated air will feel like you’re in a desert.
Therefore, you should always have the option to humidify the air while you’re heating the room you’re in.
In this article, I’m going to show you 3 different space heaters that don’t dry the air. They come with built-in humidifiers to be able to heat and humidify at the same time.
So, let’s take a look.
Space Heaters that don’t dry the air – Recommendations
Here are 3 space heaters that don’t dry the air. My recommendation is the first one (Dr Infrared Heater) because it is a powerful heater and a trusted brand.
The other two heaters are great choices again. Read through the reviews. They’ll help you decide!
Dr Infrared Heater Dual Heating System
My recommendation.
Dr Infrared Heater is one of the most popular and reliable brands for space heaters.
They have lots of other top sellers that I know work great for heating even large rooms. If you want to humidify and heat a large room at the same time, this heater is perfect for you!
You can fill it with two glasses of ordinary tap water and it’ll heat and humidify for around 8.5 hours. After that, you’ll need to refill. I think that’s a great rate: 500ml per 8 hours of humidifying.
It’s not too much and not too little. Just enough to keep the humidity at a comfortable level.
If you want to heat only, you can simply turn off the humidification function. Heater and humidifier and independent of each other.
Thus, you have a solid heater model from a trusted brand and – if you want – you can always enable the humidifier. That’s exactly what we’re looking for. Perfect!
Because it’s an infrared heater, the Dr Infrared Heater is absolutely quiet and efficient. I have an infrared heater myself and it makes no noise at all.
You can even run it throughout the night:
“Not only does this heater heat efficiently and QUIETLY – but the humidifier kept the room moist running all night long and I didn’t wake cold and stuffed. What a well-done product.” Betti – amazon reviewer
Wiland Space Heater with Built-In Humidifier
Link: Wiland Space Heater with built-in humidifier (click here to check the price on amazon)
Best Rated.
The Wiland space heater is able to produce heat within just 3 seconds (almost instantly). It comes with a built-in humidifier.
What I like about it is that it comes with lots of safety certificates (CE, ROHS, FC, PSE).
This is especially important because when you’re heating your room with a space heater humidifier combo, you’re effectively combining water with electricity, which is always a safety issue.
The safety certifications prove that this heater is safe and you can run it without worries.
Additionally, the Wiland space heater is the type of heater that’s great for people who love features! You get a built-in timer, oscillation, power settings, and the built-in humidifier.
“I have gone through plenty of space heaters in my life and this one is impressive. I’ve never had one with a humidifier and I love it! The moist heat is great. Winter warmth always comes with a price…dry skin, but I think this is the answer.” Susan ML
It has two heat settings: A normal mode and a high mode. According to my experience with such heaters (I have a space heater with two power modes as well), that’s totally fine.
Two power settings are enough for most occasions.
Because it’s a ceramic heater that heats the air and distributes it using convection (with the built-in fan), the heat feels soft and comfortable. It might feel even better than the Dr Infrared Heater I recommended above, because infrared heaters don’t actually heat the air, but just objects (similar to what the sun does).
If you are curious, here’s an article on how infrared works.
Portable Space Heater with Built-in Humidifier
Link: Portable Space Heater with built-in humidifier (click here to check the price on amazon)
Best for (very) small spaces and desktops.
While both heaters I recommended above are suited for heating bigger areas like living rooms, this one is best for small spaces.
For example, it’s perfect for small bedrooms or student dorms.
Because this space heater is a rather small heater, it’s – of course – also cheaper than the others.
It uses only 1000W of power, which makes it less powerful than the other heaters. Personally, I have an 800W heater myself. Even though it’s not able to keep up the temperature of a big room, it gets burning hot in small areas.
That’s why I love to use these small types of heaters for keeping my feet warm. I just place them below my desk and point them at my feet – a feeling I can’t miss!
It also makes a great upper-body or handwarmer if you place it on your desktop.
I don’t really know why, but NovoLido developed quite a hybrid product. It’s a space heater with a built-in humidifier. Okay, that’s what we’re looking for. But they’ve also added a built-in nightlight that shines in 7 different colors.
So, you can actually use it to fall asleep if you like nightlights.
Because it’s basically 3 products in 1, it also makes a great present for a friend. He’ll like at least one of the features.
Why nearly all space heaters dry the air
Whenever you heat a room, the humidity seems to decrease and the air becomes dryer. But why is that?
It’s actually easy to explain. You don’t have to by a physicist to follow along.
Let me explain. First let’s clarify, what relative humidity is:
“Relative humidity is the amount of moisture in the air compared to what the air can “hold” at that temperature.” Department of Physics and Astronomy – Georgia State University
Alright.
When the temperature rises, the amount of moisture the air can hold rises as well. That means hot air can hold more air than cold air (that’s why you see condensation more often when it’s cold).
As the temperature increases, the amount of water in the air stays the same. But the air can now hold more air.
Therefore, according to the definition above, the relative humidity decreases.
That, in turn, makes the air feel dryer, even though the amount of humidity in the air is the same as before heating.
Hot air is like a sponge that wicks away water from your skin.
That’s why everything that produces heat (every heater type: from wood stoves to infrared heaters) seems to dehumidify your room.
If you’re interested and need more details, read more about how space heaters dehumidify here.
What else can you do to humidify a heated room?
There are some easy things you can do to humidify a heated room.
Let’s quickly take a look at 4 possibilities.
- Place a bowl of water on the window sill – The temperature of your room will slowly evaporate the water in the bowl. Of course, this works best in a heated room. And it works even better if there’s a radiator below your window sill that heats the bowl.
- Leave the bathroom door open after showering – When you get out of the shower, you can see that mist starts accumulating on the bathroom mirror. Why don’t you just open the door and make the humidity enter your living room? This is a very effective way to humidify. However: You don’t shower all the time, and you can’t really control the amount of humidity.
- Regularly air your room – When you’re heating your room, the inside air might become even dryer than the outside air. If you keep your room vented while heating, it helps a little for humidification.
- Get a humidifier – Getting a humidifier is the most flexible and the best controllable method to humidify the dry air in your room. You can either get space heaters that don’t dry the air (like the ones I recommended with built-in humidifiers), or you can get a separate humidifier. A humidifier continuously evaporates water and keeps your room at a comfortable humidity.
Can I use a space heater along with a humidifier?
What if you already have a space heater at home and you simply want to keep the air humid while heating: Can you use a space heater along with a humidifier?
Of course, you can! It’s actually a good idea to have one specialized device for each job.
For heating, you have your space heater, and for humidifying, you have your humidifier.
That’s a good principle to follow in general. If one device breaks, the other will still work.
If you, for example, get the NovoLido space heater (from the above recommendations) with a built-in humidifier and a built-in nightlight, there’s quite a risk that if it breaks, nothing will work anymore.
On top of that, oftentimes devices that are dedicated to getting one job done, do this job better.
So, if you have some spare money, I’d actually recommend getting a heater and a humidifier separately.
You are also more flexible in doing so. You can, for example, place the space heater and the humidifier in different spots in your room.
Conclusion – Space Heaters that don’t dry the air
If you want to keep the humidity in your room at a comfortable level, getting a space heater with a built-in humidifier is the way to go.
There are no space heaters that don’t dry the air unless they have such a built-in humidifier because heat always lowers the relative humidity. So, you need humidification, to increase humidity again.
To humidify a room without a humidifier, you can try setting up a bowl of water on your window sill or leaving the door open after showering. For sure, these methods will help with dry air produced by your space heater.
Attributions: title image by Aaron Yoo (CC BY-ND 2.0)