Humidifiers.(Home & Yard: More Value for Less)(Buyers guide)

Using a humidifier can help ease dry skin and other problems associated with dry air. But choosing one involves trade-offs in efficiency, cost, noise, and convenience.

Who needs a humidifier? Anyone who suffers from uncomfortably dry or itchy eyes, throat, or skin, or whose asthma is a problem indoors during the heating season. Ideally, the indoor relative humidity should be 30 to 50 percent. But that level can drop significantly in winter, since cold air holds less moisture, and heating it makes it even drier.

Humidifiers have improved over some earlier models, which spewed white dust in our tests. But that doesn't mean they all work equally well. What's more, Consumer Reports tests show that manufacturer claims can be a poor guide to how well a humidifier will work. Several small tabletop models fell well short of their claimed output and may not raise the humidity to the desired level.

WHAT'S AVAILABLE

Major humidifier brands include Holmes, Honeywell, Hunter, Kaz, and Reli-On (Wal-Mart). Other brands include Bemis, Bionaire, Crane, Sears, Slant Fin, and Sunbeam.

Humidifiers come in three major configurations:

Tabletop. These cost the least and are fine for one room. Tabletop humidifiers include evaporative models, which use a fan to blow air over a wet wick, and warm-mist models, which use a heating unit to boil water before cooling the steam. However, smaller tanks need to be refilled more frequently. Evaporative models are noisy; warm-mist models are costly to run. Price: $20 to $100.