Tis the season when our homes and shops dry out and hopefully as we listen to Holiday music we won't also hear a loud crack coming from where we have our guitars stored....
I've struggled with humidifiers for over a decade now buying and trying many of them only to be disappointed in how well they work or not, how dirty they get, how costly they can be to maintain, and of course the need to be like that old Saturday Night Live skit where the guy is skipping though the rooms with silver bucket in hand emptying the smaller drool buckets.... Schlepping water sucks...
Last year I ran four humidifiers in my home and shop. They did the trick but I also developed not one, not two, not three but four nice hernias.... As a result and while waiting for the death panel of my Obamacare to let me have surgery....
I am weight restricted to 5 pounds.... So how do I fill my humidifiers???? 
Sure there are humidifiers that attach to our furnaces and then in short order get all calcified and cruddy and stop working. They also have limited output even when new.
A couple of months ago I was looking for yet another new humidifier that might work better, cover more area, be easier to clean.... and not require me to lift anything and I found one that now after over two months of use I am ready to recommend it to others - even people I don't like....
The EssickAir EP9R0800 has been doing a great job at my place and has replaced three other humidifiers. It's rated at 2,000 square feet but they always lie... but in my 1,500 square feet it seems to do well. It has nine speeds but only the lowest speed is quiet enough for me and wick humidifiers actually work better on low speeds because on higher speeds they tend to dry out their own wick in my experience.
Replacement wicks are about $13 if you shop around and I can get about two months out of one wick. These wicks are not worth cleaning and would likely fall apart anyway.
The built in humidistat controls the on and off of the thing and the humidistat on my humidifier reads 5% high as per the sling psychrometer so I put tape on mine and wrote that on it.
This humidifier although rather ugly to my eye is on rollers and is filled with a door on the front. As such a retractable wand on your sink faucet and you are good to go. No lifting, easy and quick to fill, and it works currently keeping my home at 45% with the only other humidifier in the basement in my shop.
It's a little pricey and I think I paid about $180 for mine but it met my criteria and I am happy with it. I also only have to fill it once a day which is better than other units that I have and have used.
It may be overkill for a shop but most of us have guitars in other places in our homes as well. It's also rated at 9 gallons of out put a day which is also a lie but it likely does over 4 in my house.
Essick Air EP9R-800 - two thumbs up even if it is ugly....
![[:Y:]](./images/smilies/smiley20.gif "Thumbs Up")
It comes in black, all of my appliances, half of my guitars, and my car is black.... , white and "Espresso" what ever that means...