I tried a humidifier for awhile but I found it was more trouble than it was worth. If you look at that 9 gallon humidifier and read the fine print it actually only holds 4.5 gallons of water and puts out 9 gallons of humidity per day. That means running it at full capacity you have to fill it twice a day using a five gallon bucket full of water. I got tired of all the heavy lifting just to fill the humidifier. If I ever did it again I'd have a reverse osmosis filter plumbed directly to the humidifier hooked up to my water line so it would automatically filter and fill the humidifier.