That's interesting, Ray. Did you use RO or distilled water? I've
understood that the ultrasonic nebulizers are terribly vulnerable to mineral
deposits. Also, when I asked the people at Charlie's Greenhouse about their
heavy duty fogger, they recommended a less expensive, filtered misting
system because of my hard water.
Tom
Walnut Creek, CA, USA
(To reply by e-mail, remove APPENDIX)

From: "Ray"
Newsgroups: rec.gardens.orchids
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 09:16:56 -0500
Subject: Fogger?

When I had an orchid incubator (large, multilevel, enclosed light cart) in
my basement, I used an off-the-shelf ultrasonic unit to humidify it.
Instead of using the small tank for water (about a gallon capacity), I cut a
notch in the sidewall of the base to allow water to overflow, and after
silicone-gluing some plastic tubing for inlet and outlet purposes, hooked it
up to a small submersible pump in a 15-gallon plastic drum on the floor.

Worked like a charm, and I only had to top up the drum about once a week.
It ran continuously (under it's own humidistat's control) for more than 5
years before I dismantled the setup. I still have the humidifier, and it
works fine.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Books, Artwork, and Lots of Free Info!

. . . . . . . . . . .
"Jerry Hoffmeister" wrote in message
...
I use one of those "fancy" foggers that Charley's sells in my 8x8 lean-to
greenhouse. Don't need it in the winter here in Seattle but it does a
great
job in the summer. Have it connected to a humidistat and timer in series
so
it only goes on when the humidity goes below whatever I set it to and only
during the times I want it to (early AM thru several hours before sundown
which I vary somewhat as the length of the summer days varies a lot here
in
Seattle.).

I would recommend you make sure you either buy something you can hook to a
water source that maintains the level via a float valve or modify whatever
you buy so it does as it would be a pain to always refill it. And you'd
forget and it would be a problem when you need it most - when you're on
vacation.

"NOOK" wrote in message
...
OK here is my 2 cents worth.
I have used many many, many (did I mention many?) differant appliances
to generate humidity in a given area.
#1
Use RO or distilled water in the unit. It will stay cleaner and not
generate so much white dust.
#2
evaperative units don't put out enough and require more cleaning.
Also you need to mount them up at least 5 feet off the ground or they
will pee condensation all over the floor. (this is true for most
humidifiers, evan atomizers)
#3
Ultrasonics with a nozle do better but can burn out the disc very
easy if it does not have a level sensor and even then I have burned up
a lot of them with sensors (the sensors fail over time)
#4
Warm mist machines are bad. To much heat and I found plants do not
like warm mist, makes them rot.
#5
build your own atomizer. I read everything I could get my hands on
about splitting water molecules then assembled my own versions.
It took many hours of research and part fabrication, cost a fortune
and worked fairly well. The downfall is the reliability. I was allways
dickin with the things, a twist here a tweek there, until I said SCREW
THIS NOISE!
#5
Buy industial atomizers!!!!! For wherehouse, resturant, or whole
house furnace use! Yes they are expensive, but ya know the sayin." Ya
get what ya pay for" (or words to that efect)

Of course this is all dependant on your set up.
If you have a very small space, a small unit from homers depot may do
the job just fine.

In my propagation room (8'X10') it is a negative air flow. The exhaust
fan pulls air in through a filter from the house and expells it
through the wall to the outside (this way the air going in is filtered
and the humidity does not come out in to the living space). Because of
this setup it take a heck of a lot more humidity being pumped into the
room. years ago I would run as many as three evaperative units just to
try to keep it around 70%.
Now I run one OLD Trion 500 series (yeh I couldn't leave the factory
setup alone so I modified it just a touch) in the room and sometimes I
have a pan of water by the inlet where the air pulls across it. This
room can now go 80% or more evan when the high temp fan kicks on.
Also in this room I installed a misting system with six misting heads
that kick on every 3 or 4 hours for just over 1 min. at a time until
4pm. (so any leaves dry off by night time)
For the rest of the house I now run a large industial unit with UV
for sterilization downstairs and pipe the humidity anywhere I need it.
I use small in line plastic duct fans and pull the moisture to the
plants. Yeh it's overkill but I don't have to baby the babies as much
as I used to.
The misting system is enjoyed by Frank the cat as well. He loves to
stand in there with me in the morning while I water and when the
misting heads come on he stairs up at them and collects mist on his
fur then lays down and grooms until I am done working.
I have not tried that fancy fogger you see at Charleys greenhouse or
several other catalog shops. It is in the 4 hundred dollar range I
think. It may be worth it in the right application.

All this is very subjective to what enviroment you have and what you
are trying to achieve. These are a few things I have learned that work
for myself and baby plants growing in a controlable enviroment.
My larger plants elswhere in the house and outside are cared for in
differant ways (next rant)

Anyway hope that sheds a little light or at least gives food for
thought.


HAPPY GROWIN NOOK





On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 03:11:54 GMT, Doug Bolton
wrote:

I'm interested in this as I've found home humidifiers to be
problematic.
I'm growing in an upstairs 6x10 foot room using a ceiling fan and 2
oscillating
tabletop fans on the floor. Also a ceramic heater in the winter to
maintain a
daytime 79/81°F temp.

I've found the cool mist wicks dry out too fast and end up doing no
wiking.

The warm mist ones are better but I think add to the heat problem (has
got to
95+, I think the Coryanthes like that but others don't) in the summer
and
deteriorate as they're only made to be on a couple of hours a day and
not
12.
As I've got the windows open in the summer and dry heat in the winter I
really
need to humidify in both those seasons. Less so in the spring and fall
as
ambient temps with the hid on are kinder.

So I've considered this solution. Would use their (mainlandmart) 5
mister
unit
in a tub with the floatation device to maintain water depth over the
mister.
This one's suppose to do .5 litre per hour. This isn't a lot. The other
5
mister
unit at 1.5 may be too much. I was wondering if the mist would make it
out of
the tub as the water level sank. Perhaps the ceiling fan would blow it
out. Also
really don't need pooling water indoors. Hoping the fans would help
with
this
too. It is quite breezy in there.

Doug Bolton

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:52:37 -0700, "molli"
wrote:

I wound up going back to my cool mist humidifier. All the fogger did
was
make a puddle under the bowl! I didnt' notice it raised the humidity
that
much, unless it was in the fishtank with my masds..wich interestingly
enough
kept them too wet and they all died....I'm no expert here mind you,
but
that's the experience I had with it. IF you want to fiddle with
one..try
mainlandmart.com they have foggers for $25 you supply the bowl.