Dr. Joseph Falkinham from Virginia Tech is an NTM specialist with his own laboratory and regularly advises the NTM community, He strongly dislikes ultrasonic humidifiers and recommends that if a humidifier is truly needed, it should be an evaporative type. Some evaporative models blow air across a filter, and others boil water on a plate. This is what he said regarding boiling and aerosolization:

“We have boiled water that was inoculated with lots of NTM and did not detect any NTM in the steam. I did that to assure folks that boiling tap water (that likely carries NTM) would not generate NTM-laden aerosols (an aerosol is droplets of water in the air, easily seen as mist).”

On that basis, he suspects (but has not tested) that a warm mist evaporator humidifier or any instrument that boils water to generate steam is unlikely to add NTM to the air.

He emphasizes that no one should use any humidifier labelled as ultrasonic. Those devices can transfer NTM from water to air in the same way that showers can aerosolize bacteria.

He also recommended that the humidifier be cleaned regularly with Dawn detergent and a diluted bleach solution.

Personally, I live in 900 square feet so it is relatively easy for me to add moisture to the air. I use an Amazon tea kettle in both the bedroom and living room, and leave the top open, and within about eight minutes all of the water has been turned into steam.

It shuts off automatically, although I hesitate to recommend any electrical device because safety can vary. I am simply sharing what I do in my own home.

Happy Saturday,
Linda Esposito