To: Harry.Bovik@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: homes: humidifiers
Keywords: homes, humidifiers
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 88 17:32:17 EDT
Message-ID: <13222.589671137@IUS1.CS.CMU.EDU>
From: Carol.Novak@IUS1.CS.CMU.EDU


Someone suggested a fish tank as a low-tech solution to dry winter air, and I
wanted to suggest another one: house plants.

When my parents bought their current home 15 years ago it came with a furnace 
humidifer.  They only used it the first winter.  After that they discovered 
that my mother's extensive house plant collection was enough to keep the house
humidity level up at a comfortable level.  If you think about it, all that 
water you pour on them has to go somewhere.  My mother has 4 or 5 large house
plants (including a 12 foot grapefruit tree!) and probably around 20 smaller
ones.  They are mostly in the living room of their large ranch house.  I would
guess that for a 2-story house it would be wise to have some plants on the
2nd floor.  Obviously fewer plants would be required for an apartment.
And it's also obvious that you have to have enough windows and enough green
thumbery(?) to make all those plants grow.

Plants look nice too, and we have had more success with them than fish.
Fish look great but ours had a half life of one month.  No matter how many
we bought, after one month half of them would be dead.  Contrast that with
the one or two plants a year that the average person kills, and you'll see 
that plants are emotionally less risky.		 :-)