Running out of water during sleep

I switched to the Dreamstation machine a few months ago. I totally love it, and the bluetooth upload feature to an app on my phone lets me track my nights.
My pressure setting is 13cm. I have a traditional 6 foot hose, and usually set the humidifier low; to 1 or 2. I love to sleep in a cold room, so the warm air in the tube is cold by the time it reaches my mask. This leads to a lot of condensation, which causes leaks and a lot of condensation. So much so that my nose is peeling from the moisture. So I got a heated tube, which does in fact make the air warm and reduces the rainout. The big problem now is that the water tank runs out during the night. Smelling an empty heating element is not cool.
Anyone else run out of water during the night? I fill it just above the max line, and in less than 8 hours the smell wakes me up. Now that I actually sleep, I can sleep 12 hours on my day off, and don't want to have to refill the water tank in the middle of the night.
Any advice you have would be most appreciated!

Awhile back somebody posted pictures of an ugly jury-rigged setup that involved drilling holes in your water tank and feeding in a hose and siphoning water into the tank from a larger container throughout the night.

This is a serious design flaw. The humidifier tanks should hold several days worth of water in normal use, so that abnormal use gets you through at least a whole night.

The amount of water used in one night depends on several variables, most of which are out of the control of the manufacturer.

For example, the room temperature and / humidity will affect the usage.
The type of mask used will also change the water usage - nasal masks will allow a lower usage rate that full face masks. Oral masks require the highest usage rate of all.
And all of these depend on how much humidity it takes to make the patient comfortable.

In my case, the level required is extremely high and requires a humidifier tank volume of twice that of the standard tank.
To the best of my knowledge, only two folks ( me included ) have designed and implemented solutions to this problem.
AlabamaAl's solution is an elegant engineering solution although it does have interesting implications about placement of the parts. Mine is a more brute force approach arrived at after I got no help at all from the manufacturer. At least one other forum member adopted my approach which I recommend for anybody using the Oracle 2 mask like mine. I don't know whether or not anyone else is using either approach to solve the "running out of water" problem.

For PR machines, I would have preferred an optional tank that fit the normal machine but was longer to hold the correct amount of water to make it through the night.

Link to external humidifier design:
Here is my setup to solve this problem

In a dry state like Nevada, it may be hard to get your humidifier to operate for 12 hours. You could try running a small room humidifier along with your CPAP.

JDS74 wrote:The amount of water used in one night depends on several variables, most of which are out of the control of the manufacturer.

The amount of water used may not be in the control of the manufacturer, but the amount of water available in the tank is totally their decision. Having a tank which only lasts a night under "normal" conditions is simply bad design. If a car manufacturer makes a car where the brakes only provide enough power to stop the car on level ground, you don't blame the driver for the crash when he needs to stop while driving downhill.

I can buy a water bowl for my cats that holds 1-1/4 GALLONS of water. http://smile.amazon.com/PetSafe-Drinkwe ... at+waterer The engineers are engineering a machine which is going to sell for hundreds/thousands of dollars. They need to at least have an option for getting enough water in the tank for people who sleep in unusual conditions.

cathyf wrote:

JDS74 wrote:The amount of water used in one night depends on several variables, most of which are out of the control of the manufacturer.

The amount of water used may not be in the control of the manufacturer, but the amount of water available in the tank is totally their decision. Having a tank which only lasts a night under "normal" conditions is simply bad design. If a car manufacturer makes a car where the brakes only provide enough power to stop the car on level ground, you don't blame the driver for the crash when he needs to stop while driving downhill.

I can buy a water bowl for my cats that holds 1-1/4 GALLONS of water. http://smile.amazon.com/PetSafe-Drinkwe ... at+waterer The engineers are engineering a machine which is going to sell for hundreds/thousands of dollars. They need to at least have an option for getting enough water in the tank for people who sleep in unusual conditions.

The manufacturers' instructions for use require changing the water daily. Yes, I know most of us don't do that, but still, that is the official manufacturers' instructions for use. They require changing the water daily out of not wanting to be liable for potentially serious health issues caused by mold or mildew growing inside the humidity chamber. And yes, under some circumstances, mold and mildew can and does start to grow inside the tanks. (Just feed in "slime in tank" to the search window and you'll get multiple hits.)

And since the manufacturers require the water be changed daily, they're not going to build a bigger, bulkier water tank that encourages people to not change the water on a daily basis.

babypenguini,

You're using a PR DreamStation with a heated hose.

Can you tell us exactly what the temp/humidity settings you are using with the heated hose?

Turning down the heat on the heated hose may help solve your problem. On the PR System One machines it's also possible to independently control the temp and the humidity for a heated hose. I'm sure that there is something similar on the DreamStations. So you might also want to make sure that the temp in the hose is a low as is comfortable for you and also make sure that the humidifier is set to the lowest allowable setting with heated hose.

cathyf wrote:I can buy a water bowl for my cats that holds 1-1/4 GALLONS of water. [The engineers are engineering a machine which is going to sell for hundreds/thousands of dollars. They need to at least have an option for getting enough water in the tank for people who sleep in unusual conditions.

your cat's water bowl also

1) does not need to be heated enough to evaporate water into the airflow
2) does not need to contend with varying pressures which would cause it to NOT dispense water, or dispense too much.
3) do YOU want to pay, in your righteous indignation, for the engineering to meet these challenges, for a *FEW* people that need the extraordinary measures? because, if resmed or respironics or whoever, puts the effort into engineering a huge water tank that still works well, you WILL pay for it.

how many people have you seen, in the last few *years* that were just totally unserved by the default water containers?

three? four?

it's not a common thread.

has nobody else noticed this:

babypenguini wrote:usually set the humidifier low; to 1 or 2. .... So much so that my nose is peeling from the moisture.

WHY is the machine pumping out so much water when the humidity setting is practically *OFF*???

the right answer, babypenguini, is to take it back to the DME and get them to check it out, and probably give you another humidifier, if not a whole new unit.

there's no way it should run dry in a night with the humidifier set to 1 or 2.

maybe if it was set to 5... maybe.

babypenguini wrote:I switched to the Dreamstation machine a few months ago. I totally love it, and the bluetooth upload feature to an app on my phone lets me track my nights.
My pressure setting is 13cm. I have a traditional 6 foot hose, and usually set the humidifier low; to 1 or 2. I love to sleep in a cold room, so the warm air in the tube is cold by the time it reaches my mask. This leads to a lot of condensation, which causes leaks and a lot of condensation. So much so that my nose is peeling from the moisture. So I got a heated tube, which does in fact make the air warm and reduces the rainout. The big problem now is that the water tank runs out during the night. Smelling an empty heating element is not cool.
Anyone else run out of water during the night? I fill it just above the max line, and in less than 8 hours the smell wakes me up. Now that I actually sleep, I can sleep 12 hours on my day off, and don't want to have to refill the water tank in the middle of the night.
Any advice you have would be most appreciated!

========
I run out of water quite often with my Resmed S8 and Climate Hose.
One thing you can do is keep a water bottle on the nightstand and if you wake up smelling that dry water reservoir just add some water and close it up and go back to sleep.

Other than that you would have to resort to the siphon solution which I would be hesitant to do.

robysue wrote:

cathyf wrote:

JDS74 wrote:The amount of water used in one night depends on several variables, most of which are out of the control of the manufacturer.

The amount of water used may not be in the control of the manufacturer, but the amount of water available in the tank is totally their decision. Having a tank which only lasts a night under "normal" conditions is simply bad design. If a car manufacturer makes a car where the brakes only provide enough power to stop the car on level ground, you don't blame the driver for the crash when he needs to stop while driving downhill.

I can buy a water bowl for my cats that holds 1-1/4 GALLONS of water. http://smile.amazon.com/PetSafe-Drinkwe ... at+waterer The engineers are engineering a machine which is going to sell for hundreds/thousands of dollars. They need to at least have an option for getting enough water in the tank for people who sleep in unusual conditions.

The manufacturers' instructions for use require changing the water daily. Yes, I know most of us don't do that, but still, that is the official manufacturers' instructions for use. They require changing the water daily out of not wanting to be liable for potentially serious health issues caused by mold or mildew growing inside the humidity chamber. And yes, under some circumstances, mold and mildew can and does start to grow inside the tanks. (Just feed in "slime in tank" to the search window and you'll get multiple hits.)

And since the manufacturers require the water be changed daily, they're not going to build a bigger, bulkier water tank that encourages people to not change the water on a daily basis.

If the manufacturer did make the water tank bigger, these same people would complain, that it's too bulky, not travel friendly, wastes that costly water 80 cent a gallon water. Not only can you not please everybody, nowdays you can't please anybody. Turn the setting down, keep your room cooler, add a room humidifier if needed. Jim

Also control your total leak rate.

Thanks everyone. I will have to look at the manufacturers manual again...once I plug the heated hose in, as far as I can tell, the ability to change the settings disappears. Yes, Nevada is dry, my dreammapper software shows 100% mask fit, and I have resorted to a piece of ace bandage under my chin strap to keep my lips closed. I also feel like I wake up if I get a tiny leak...I'm still a light sleeper despite my mummified look at night.

I ordered a "hose cozy" that might be just enough to keep the air warm enough from condensing by the time it reaches my mask and I exhale. I did notice that I go through a ton more water with the DreamStation than the ResMed I used to have, even without the heated hose. I totally don't care about the .99/gallon water cost, I just don't like the dryness. And I am new enough to this that I still clean my mask daily and dump the water tank every morning if there's anything in there.

UPDATE: So I just looked it up online, and found the way to adjust heated hose settings...Duh. Hopefully that will do the trick! (Instead of turning the dial, you have to press and turn at the same time.) I'm usually good about finding solutions first...sorry!

I only know of three CPAP users who need significant extra water.
But there are millions of others who don't.

Help me understand where my logic goes astray.

Without CPAP I usually inhale about X cu.ft. of the ambient air each cycle. I breath about Y times per minute. The ambient air's humidity is what it is.

When I put on the CPAP the additional pressure in my airways is established almost instantly ("almost", I said). Thereafter, the amount of air entering my body each breathing cycle is about that X cu.ft. and has the same humidity as without CPAP because it is the same ambient air. My rate is about the same, so, for a given period of time, about the same amount of moisture enters my body via the air I'm breathing, with CPAP or without.

Some may argue the CPAP is forcing more air into my body. I say it is merely increasing the *pressure* within my airways, not the *quantity*. I'm not taking deeper breaths, I'm not inhaling more frequently. It is the same *quantity* of ambient air, with the same "quantity" of moisture, CPAP or not. The excess air supplied by CPAP is vented out of the mask, before it enters my body.

I've never heard anyone complain about the ambient air he's breathing has too low humidity. Why would he complain the CPAP-supplied air has lower humidity when it is the same air and same quantity of air?

I know some CPAP users sincerely state it dries out their air passages and creates considerable discomfort unless they really crank up the humidity. From a physiological standpoint, why?

I have a second reservoir that I keep a small amount of extra water in. I have to set my humidifier very high, so I usually run it dry before the night is over, especially during the winter. Dry mouth wakes me up and I just quickly place the extra reservoir in the machine. Fortunately, I'm able to go back to sleep quickly.