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Please help! Humidity/Rainout questions
#1
Please help! Humidity/Rainout questions
Hi,

I am new to the forum and writhing this on behalf of my mother. Today she received her resmed airsense 10 and is going to be using it tonight for the first time. Her concerns are with the heating of the tube/humidity vs the ambient room temperature. I looked at the machine and it is set to auto which is humidity level 4 and tube temp 81f she does not want to feel like she is suffocating from the warm air and also worried about "rainout". She has her room air condition set to 60f as she likes it very cool while sleeping. What will happen if the room is that cold when the machine is set to auto mode? Also what is the best setting for a cooler tube air? and will setting the tube temperature cooler have any negative effect if her room temp is very cool? I would greatly appreciate any helpful information due to the fact, this is all very new.
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#2
RE: Please help!
Rainout is caused by air in the tube being warmer than the room, the heated hose insulates the tube air from the cold room- the tube is not used to heat the air, but it will keep it from cooling down.

you can use passive humidity by putting water in the tank, turning humidity off, and turning off the heated tube.
The amount of humidity is ONLY controlled by temperature-if you set the humidity to a low setting it will not heat the water very much. Humidity = water temperature.
If you set these settings manually, you may have to play with it a little. You want the humidity set to what is comfortable and the hose temperature just high enough to prevent rainout.
I have also just turned it all off and put ice cubes in the water tank-nice and cool.

I would suggest running it cooler and showing her how to increase the temperature and humidity if she thinks it is too cool during the night.

If she gets rainout, raise the tube to put the water back into the tank and increase the tube temp until there is no more rainout.

It is easier to heat the water more than to cool it back down if it was set too high
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#3
RE: Please help!
Is it safe to turn the humidity and hose temperature off in a cold room? Would it be too cold on the body?

Would it just be better to try lowering the tube temp to a cooler setting on the first night or just turning off the humidity and hose temp all together? Also is it better to have the machine lower than the hose? Sorry for all the questions.
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#4
RE: Please help!
It would be no colder than someone sleeping in the room without a CPAP machine. So no colder than what she is already used to.

And to amplify what PoolQ said, the heated humidification is not meant to raise the temperature of the air in any material sense. The heater raises the temperature of the water as warmer water has a higher vapor pressure and more of it will evaporate.. The air in the tank and the tube is not there long enough to really get "heated" to a material extent (and the water does not get hot enough).

I would just run the thing on auto and let it do its thing.

OMMOHY
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#5
RE: Please help!
She just set it to auto humidity and auto hose temp for tonight. How bad will the rainout be if the room temp is around 60f ? Also could the water build so much that she chokes?
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#6
RE: Please help!
I think she's over thinking this.

The heated tube keeps the walls of the tube a little above the dew point so condensation is not likely to be a problem. And the heater is only going to raise the temp a couple of degrees in order to raise humidity a little bit.

But if there is condensation, then no, it will not be bad enough to drown her. If you DO get some condensation, if the machine is lower than her head, then it would run back down the hose and into the tank, if it has a straight shot. If you WERE having condensation problems, and there was a dip, it might blurble if the heat was way too high.

It is really just not that big a thing as to be dangerous. At the worst, an inconvenience.

In probably close to ten years of using a CPAP machine, I have NEVER had condensation be a problem. And in the winter, I do run lightly heated humidification and I let my house temp drift down to mid 60s at night.

OMMOHY
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#7
RE: Please help!
Thanks for all the helpful information. Hopefully she will not have a problem tonight.
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#8
RE: Please help!
Hi pitt412,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
I wish your Mom good luck with her CPAP therapy.
Let us know how she does with CPAP.
trish6hundred
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#9
RE: Please help!
I also dislike breathing the warm air from a heated hose. I just set the humidifier to the highest setting I can without getting rain out. I suppose that with the room that cold, she'd have to turn the humidifier pretty low to prevent rain out.

It may be that once she adapts to the machine and is no longer suffering the ill effects of sleep apnea, she'll prefer a slightly warmer bedroom.
Sleepster

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#10
RE: Please help!
for me it was a problem with just the basic humidity and it "felt" warm.
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