Can You Use Brita Filtered Water In A Humidifier? And Why!

Brita water filtering pitchers are great if you are concerned about certain contaminants in your water like lead, chlorine, or even minerals that make water hard like calcium and magnesium. But does a Brita filter make your water ok to use in your humidifier? Let’s find out.

You can use Brita filtered water in a humidifier but a Brita filter does not remove dissolved solids like sodium from water that can leave a white residue on surfaces where the humidifier mist settles. Dissolved solids can also build up inside of a humidifier causing a humidifier to malfunction.

You certainly can use Brita filtered water in your humidifier. But Brita filtered water is no substitute for distilled or even reverse osmosis water for use in your humidifiers. It is a filter for non-dissolved particles in the water and not for dissolved solids like salts.

Why are particles in your humidifier water bad?

The whole purpose of using a humidifier is to add healthy humidity to the air to prevent the harmful effects of dry air. Sufficient humidity in the air allows for more comfortable breathing and helps to prevent dry skin.

But along with the water mist that a humidifier puts out, it is also spreading whatever is in the water that you have put into it. Allergens and impurities in the water that is used will be spread wherever the humidifier’s mist can go.

What kind of water should I use in my humidifier?

The absolute best water that you should use in your humidifier is the purest, most mineral-free water that you can use. For the average consumer, this means using distilled water.

Distilled water is water that has been heated to boiling and the condensation is given off has been collected. This means that nearly 100% of all contaminants that were originally in the water have been left behind and the final product is pure water.

This means that when you use distilled water in your humidifier, you are introducing nothing but beneficial humidity to the air and none of the unwanted minerals or particles that can be unhealthy and undesirable.

What if I don’t have any distilled water?

Distilling water at home is not very practical.

My second choice of water to be used in a humidifier is water that has been purified by reverse osmosis.

A great alternative to home distilling is having a home reverse osmosis system, which will create very pure water, not only for your humidifier but for drinking as well.

The process of reverse osmosis is different from distillation or filtration as it uses a semi-permeable membrane to reject dissolved solids in the water.

Water that contains dissolved solids like salts will not be dramatically improved by normal filtering by gravity alone.

Reverse osmosis forces water through a semi-permeable membrane that allows the water to pass freely through while rejecting the majority of the dissolved solids in the water and rinsing them down the drain.

This means that the number of dissolved solids in the final product water should about 5% of the original water used.

Although reverse osmosis water is not as good for use in humidifiers as distilled water, it is certainly better than simple tap water.

Don’t Brita filters remove dissolved solids?

Brita water filters are not reverse osmosis systems and do not distill the water. Filtering water is done to remove particles in the water and trap them in the filter.

Most dissolved solids in the water will pass through a filter like the ones used in a Brita filter. So the Brita filter may do a great job at removing filterable particles, but they will do little to remove dissolved solids like salts.

So what does a Brita filter remove from my water?

Let’s look at the Brita pitcher filter and just what it is designed to remove from water.

Brita clearly states that the standard Brita filter pitcher reduces or removes Chlorine (taste and odor), Mercury, Cadmium, Copper, and Zinc. That’s it!

Now they do have other, more expensive filters to remove all kinds of other stuff that you probably don’t have in your water anyway, like Trichloroethylene (whatever that is).

But most people buy the standard filter pitcher thinking that they are getting super pure water from it when actually, the product water coming out of your Brita water pitcher is not much better than the water that went into it.

Are Brita filters not very good filters?

I’m not trying to knock Brita or there filtering pitchers. If you have municipal water that has been treated with chlorine, then, by all means, get a Brita filter pitcher. They work great at removing chlorine because they are mostly made up of coconut carbon, which is commonly used for chlorine removal.

Brita filters also use water softening resin in them.

Water softening resin will remove minerals in water that cause it to be hard. This process of ion exchange pulls minerals like calcium and magnesium from the water and can also remove iron and manganese which can cause water to have a metallic taste.

If you have iron or manganese in your water, putting it through a Brita filter with ion exchange resin in it can help to prevent iron and manganese build-up in your humidifier, but these filters usually do not last very long when you are removing things like iron from the water.

My point is, using a Brita may make you feel like you are using better water in your humidifier, but it simply is not designed to make water more usable for humidifiers.

Are there better Brita filters for humidifier water?

Brita also makes filters that mount right on your kitchen faucet.

These filters are a bit different than the standard water pitcher filters. They reduce or remove other things like Lead, Asbestos, Benzene and other particulates. These faucet filters are believed to be better at removing salts from the water although I have not found that Brita makes this claim.

So if you already know what you have in your water and want to remove it, there may be a Brita filter system that is perfect for you. But only distilled water is recommended to be used for humidifiers because of the purity of the water that it produces.

If you arent sure of which humidifier to get, I have found a few that will work well for any situation. Check out my recommended humidifiers.

Related Questions:

Does a Brita filter make distilled water? The process of distillation is very different than simple filtering. Water from any kind of water filter may be free of dirt and larger particles, but it will still have the minerals and solids that would be removed when water is distilled.

Can you use bottled water in a humidifier? That totally depends on the quality of bottled water that we are talking about. If you are planning to buy some inexpensive bottled water from your local big-box store, then more than likely, it will not be very pure and would be a poor choice to use in your humidifier.

But on the other hand, some premium bottled water is made from the process of reverse osmosis and may be very low in salts and other impurities.

But more than likely these premium bottled waters are going to be more expensive than buying distilled water which is the preferred choice to be used in humidifiers anyway, so your probably better off just getting the distilled water.