Product review (3 stars): Humidifies well, simple design, great warranty but poor construction & inconsistent replacement parts
After reading the reviews and seeing several advertisements, I decided to purchase the Venta LW14 for my bedroom. Venta products are German made and considering the 200.00 price tag, you might say they are the Mercedes of Humidifier/Air cleaners. Besides, Venta's advertising claims that Siegfried & Roy as well as Jose` Carreras are customers, so it's got to be good right?

The LW14 uses a very simple and efficient design of a small 2-speed fan that blows across a housing which holds 1.2 gallons of water. In the water housing lies a molded stack of 40 discs. (Picture a stack of your old '45' records all spaced about one tenth of an inch apart.) This 'disc stack' is slowly turned by a plastic gear set which is attached to the bottom of the fan shaft. As the turning wet discs are exposed to the blown fan air, the theory is that, the water will evaporate off the discs into the air and dust particles in the air are attracted to the wet discs and then deposited in the water basin. As dry, dirty air is drawn in through the top, clean and humidified air is blown out the sides of the unit. It is a great yet simple design idea.

The unit does not require any filter pads but instead requires the Venta Treatment Additive every 10-14 days. Each packet contains 1.5 fl oz. and you get two packets in the box to start. Replacements come in a box of 10 packets for about 17.00 and can be purchased at Bed & Bath or on-line through Venta or other sources. I can state from experience, that the unit will hardly evaporate any water without using this additive. According to Venta's user guide, the additive contains `wetting' and `softening' agents that make the water 'sheet' off the discs instead of 'bead' off. They also state that the additive prevents calcium and lime build up making the unit easier to clean and that it helps eliminate odors and bacteria in the water basin as well. You should refill the basin daily and then rinse it out completely and refill every 10-14 days with fresh water and an additive packet. Venta states that every six months the unit should get a through cleaning with another chemical the sell, Venta Cleaner(15.00 per bottle, one bottle needed per cleaning). Venta adds that a solution of vinegar and water can be used in place of the special cleaner.

I purchased the LW14 several weeks ago from a local Bed Bath & Beyond Store. During unpacking, I noticed a small black piece of broken plastic. I could not find anything broken at first so I took this as a piece of assembly 'flash' as found when building plastic models. I ran the unit from 7PM to 7AM in my bedroom for three nights. On the third night, I heard a clicking noise that I found emanated from the plastic gear set that turns the disc stack. I called Venta directly and the representative advised me to swap the unit out at Bed & Bath so I did so.

Oddly, the second new unit had the same mysterious plastic piece in the bottom of the box. I ran the second unit, and after a few days, I again noticed the clicking noise. Further inspection also revealed a broken plastic top latch. This was the mysterious plastic `piece' but did not explain the recurrence of the click noise. This latch is a part of Venta's '1 Click' design that makes the top motor housing easy to open for cleaning. I called Venta and they were great. They stated that this latch was part of the fan motor so they sent me out a new fan motor as well as a new gear set to cure the click noise.

Now I installed the replacement fan motor, but strangely, I found that it was much louder and spun much faster, on both speeds, as the initial two units. With this new faster replacement fan, I found it was too loud to have in my bedroom, even on the low speed setting. I called Venta again to inquire. The Venta representative was surprised and did not realize that the replacement fans were faster and louder than the fans that the units are shipped with right out of the box.

In any event, I decided to reinstall the initial fan with the broken latch, that came with the second unit, and I paired it up with the replacement gear set which eliminated the click noise.

I have an expensive humidity monitor in my bedroom and I have seen an increase in humidity from 40% to 52% with the LW14 running on low speed all night. Oddly, the unit is only losing about an inch of water in this time period. (Venta claims that the LW14 can use all 1.2 gallons of water in a 24-hour period in dry rooms.)

To Summarize: The LW14 does humidify well and I believe it is also cleaning the air as advertised. Gear noise, inferior plastic pieces are an issue as well as inconsistent replacement parts. I don't believe these problems should exist on a 200.00 German made humidifier. The customer service is very professional and the unit has a 10-year warranty. I have decided to keep the unit even with these service issues.