Humidifier running out of water

Just curious, I did a search on this and didn't really come up with anything. What would happen if your humidifier ran out of water in the middle of the night. Or what would happen if you failed to add water to your humidifier and ran it all night? I don't want to ruin my equipment or my nasal passages, but I also don't want water to slosh out of the reservoir and into the machine or on the floor while traveling.

Experienced users correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you would just get dry air and perhaps wake with dry mouth.

Thanks, that is what I assumed would happen. I just didn't want to risk burning up a humidifier or something.

Depending on how long it might run while dry it might stink a bit.
I have done that...the smell wakes me up and I know immediately what happened.
Smell goes away when you turn it off an let things cool down and put some water in it.

I had that happen and it had kind of a burning smell. Wasn't sure what it was until I looked the next morning and saw that the reservoir was empty.

Yeah, sort of smells like burning plastic.
I have done it with both the Respironics tanks and the S9. Course I don't know how long each was being used with it being dry but the Respironics smelled a whole lot worse.
The S9 wasn't so bad but the Respironic stunk to high heaven but it didn't last. The next night it was like it never happened.

willdan wrote:Just curious, I did a search on this and didn't really come up with anything. What would happen if your humidifier ran out of water in the middle of the night. Or what would happen if you failed to add water to your humidifier and ran it all night? I don't want to ruin my equipment or my nasal passages, but I also don't want water to slosh out of the reservoir and into the machine or on the floor while traveling.

Never travel with any water in your humidifier........

I have found that the 5i humidifier water measure is hard to read. I almost let mine go dry. I use a setting of 2 and can go 3 days without filling
but I try to remember to fill after 2 days.

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I decided to crank mine up to 4 the other night. After about 5 hours, I woke up to the burnt plastic smell. It had went completely dry. Kind weird since that wasn't even the highest setting and I hadn't had a full nights sleep (it was full when I started it).

LSAT wrote:

willdan wrote:Just curious, I did a search on this and didn't really come up with anything. What would happen if your humidifier ran out of water in the middle of the night. Or what would happen if you failed to add water to your humidifier and ran it all night? I don't want to ruin my equipment or my nasal passages, but I also don't want water to slosh out of the reservoir and into the machine or on the floor while traveling.

Never travel with any water in your humidifier........

I have found that the 5i humidifier water measure is hard to read. I almost let mine go dry. I use a setting of 2 and can go 3 days without filling
but I try to remember to fill after 2 days.

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I guess I wasn't as clear as I should have been in my original post. I am an over-the-road team truck driver and while I am in the back asleep my partner is driving. I thought I had a good set up to keep the machine fairly stable and I only used a small amount of water, but I found that it still sloshed about. I was just curious if running the machine sans water would hurt anything because I'm kinda cheap and didn't want to buy standard hose to just hook directly to the S9. I used it this past week without the water and I didn't have any major issues, other than my normal mask leaks, so I think I am good to go on the road with no water.

A huge factor in running out of water is directly related to airflow. I have severe apnea & my respironics is near max airflow. I can set it on 1 & run out of water in about 6 hrs. Another major factor is whether you are breathing through your mouth, or nose. It uses much more water if you are "mouth breathing", but this will happen if your nose plugs up as mine often does. I am still looking for an answer. I was in the hospital last week & the respiratory therapist hooked up my cpap. I mentioned the issue & she said they have a heated hose to help with this problem. I will look into this & update this post if it pans out.
Now I have the added issue of adding oxygen to my system.(At least it's humidified!)
Hang in there!!!!

Somewhat or totally unrelated, but our newspaper has been curling at the edges. There was a statement on the front page explaining that it was NOT cheaper newsprint, but rather related to the lack of humidity and the cold. When it warms up, the paper will not curl. That is of course IF it ever warms up!

I notice that I am using more water than usual, and I have hot water heat in the house, so it could be even drier than it is.

Oneputt wrote:A huge factor in running out of water is directly related to airflow. I have severe apnea & my respironics is near max airflow. I can set it on 1 & run out of water in about 6 hrs. Another major factor is whether you are breathing through your mouth, or nose. It uses much more water if you are "mouth breathing", but this will happen if your nose plugs up as mine often does. I am still looking for an answer. I was in the hospital last week & the respiratory therapist hooked up my cpap. I mentioned the issue & she said they have a heated hose to help with this problem. I will look into this & update this post if it pans out.
Now I have the added issue of adding oxygen to my system.(At least it's humidified!)
Hang in there!!!!

Turns out my mask wasn't sealing properly (I have a beard). I had to tighten up the headgear a bit, & that reduced the airflow enough that water is no longer an issue. So just check for leaks. Good luck!!!
By the way, I also found an oral spray called stoppers 4 dry mouth. This is also a great help, but kind of pricey.

I don't know about the S9, but on my machine the humidifier can be turned off in the set up menu, or at least set to 0. If you don't want to fooi with the humidifier, turn it off, or set it to the lowest possible setting.

My S9 ran dry a couple times, and there is a hot, scorchy funk.
The AS10 has not gone dry yet, but too close a few times.
I'm not sure if the smell woke me up or something else did.

willdan wrote:I was just curious if running the machine sans water would hurt anything because I'm kinda cheap and didn't want to buy standard hose to just hook directly to the S9.

Buy an unheated hose online. They're really cheap from our sponsor, cpap.com, or from e-bay.

You don't need to stick with ResMed hoses. Respironics unheated hoses work just fine.

The main effect I've seen from running out of water is the smell. It will wake me up before the water tank is completely empty.

I think it's more a question of the crud in the water than the tank overheating. Even distilled water has some crud in it.

If you don't want to take the humidifier off, you can leave the tank empty and just set the humidifier to zero.