Verdict

The Elechomes 5.5L Large Room Humidifier SH8820 maintains moisture at optimum levels thanks to its built-in sensor. Simple to use and fill, this humidifier runs quietly and offers both hot and cold mist – although the former uses significant power to heat the water tank. This model will happily cope with most rooms in an average-sized home.

Pros

• Simple to use
• Hot and cold mist options
• Automatic humidity control

Cons

• Uses quite a bit of power when heating
• Only just copes with the largest rooms

A humidifier is almost an essential purchase in the UK, with cold months and constant heating drying out our homes. The Elechomes 5.5L Large Room Humidifier SH8820 is a cheap and effective way to manage the atmosphere inside your home, offering automatic control and the option of both warm and cold mist.

Elechomes 5.5L Large Room Humidifier SH8820 design and features – Simple and easy to use, it does what you need it to

• Automatic humidity control
• Can output hot or cold mist
• Top-fill tank is easy to fill

With its glossy plastic body, the Elechomes 5.5L Large Room Humidifier SH8820 sports a simple design. Measuring 264 x 182 x 305mm, this mid-sized box won’t take up too much floor space, and you could easily fit the humidifier onto a counter if need be.

Flip open the lid to access the 5.5-litre water tank inside. This lifts up and out, so you can fill it under a tap with ease. Once the tank is dropped back into place, water runs out to fill up the reservoir beneath, lifting up the float. When there’s no more water left, the humidifier will turn off automatically for safety.

This mechanical approach is a simple one, but it does mean that when the float drops, there will still be some water left in the bottom. If you want to transport the SH8820, then make sure that you tip out any remaining water.

If you live in a hard water area, Elechomes recommends that you use distilled water in the humidifier, or you can buy an optional water filter. Furthermore, there’s an anti-scale pad in the bottom of the machine, and a spare one in the box, which helps to prevent the build up of limescale. This should be cleaned every three months or so.

The front of the humidifier is home to all the controls, which are duplicated on the thin remote control that comes with the appliance. Although the controls all have an icon, they’re neatly labelled in English, too, leaving no doubt over the function of each button.

Turn on the humidifier and you’ll see a set of LED light up to display the current humidity level in the room. If you use the Humidify option, you can set a target humidity level between 30% and 80%, increasing in 5% increments.

It’s recommended that you aim for around 50% humidity in any room, to provide the optimum level of comfort and to keep skin healthy. Increasing humidity means that your heating would have to warm the water in the air, which might take longer in a more humid environment than a dry one – but the temperature will drop more slowly as a result, increasing comfort.

When the target humidity is hit, the SH8820 turns off automatically. It won’t turn back on until humidity drops 5% below the target set. This automation is ideal, as you don’t want to over humidify a room since it can encourage mould and bacteria growth. However, it possible to use the SH8820 without the automatic humidity control.

In addition, there are controls for managing humidity output. First, you can set the output level, which at maximum is capable of outputting 600ml per hour, giving nine hours of runtime on a full tank; on minimum output, you can get up to 40 hours.

Second, you can turn on the Heat mode, choosing from three levels. Heating the water brings two benefits: it kills bacteria and it pushes warm water into the air, making it more comfortable during the winter months.

For use in summer, you can use the humidifier in Cool mode, although this does run the risk of bacteria growing in the tank. Dyson tackles this problem in its Pure Humidify+Cool with the use of UV-C light, which kill bacteria.

The SH8820 also has a timer control, providing options to run the humidifier for between one and 12 hours, going up in one-hour increments. There’s a child-lock facility, too, plus a night feature that turns off the screen and lights, and the heater to stop boiling noises.

There’s no oscillation feature, but you can manually adjust the angle of the air outlet – be careful if you’re doing this when the humidifier is on Heat mode, since the output can be very hot. Finally, you can use the aromatherapy pad to add essential oils to make your room smell nice.

Elechomes 5.5L Large Room Humidifier SH8820 performance – Quiet and effective, but it only just copes with its maximum rated room size

• Very quiet in operation, particularly in cold mist mode
• Uses a fair amount of power in warm mist mode
• Maintains humidity accurately, but it’s better suited to rooms smaller than the quoted maximum size in my tests

I started out by measuring the power draw of the humidifier. In Cool mode, the SH8820 used between 17W and 25W, depending on the humidifier option chosen. That’s little more than a regular fan, making this humidifier efficient to run.

Turn it on in Heat mode and power use increases dramatically to between 102W and 282W, depending on the humidity and temperature option chosen. That’s quite a significant power draw, so be mindful if you need to run this product for long periods.

Using an external humidity sensor, I found that the reading in the test room was a couple of per cent out from the SH8820’s own internal reading. Certainly, you can trust that that this humidifier’s automatic setting will get you close enough to the comfort level you’ve set.

Using the humidifier in a large room (742 square feet), I found that the SH8220 was pushed to its limit. It was slow to raise humidity from the 42% starting point to my set level of 55%, taking a few hours. However, use this humidifier in a smaller room – your average living room or bedroom, for example – and it will cope exceptionally well.

In addition, the SH8820 humidifier is super-quiet, running at 38.5dB (that’s little more than background noise) with the heating turned off, and only increasing to 48dB with the heating turned on. Even so, at 48dB, I struggled to hear the noise of the humidifier beyond a gentle gurgling.

Should you buy the Elechomes 5.5L Large Room Humidifier SH8820?

If you’re going to buy a humidifier, it makes sense to opt for a model that can kill bacteria in the tank, and can automatically turn off when the desired humidity level is reached. The best in the business is the Dyson Pure Humidify+Cool, which effectively kills all bacteria without having to use heating, lowering running costs. The Dyson Pure Humidify+Coo is also a brilliant purifier, and it’s smart too, working with Alexa and the Dyson Link app.

For the price, the Elechomes 5.5L Large Room Humidifier SH8820 is a quiet and effective humidifier that offers the functionality to turn off automatically to maintain a comfortable environment. There are cheaper humidifiers available, but they don’t come with the same level of automation.

Trusted Score