Those of us whose home position is to be frugal need to examine our behaviour sometimes to see if it makes sense, such as when I decided that mouse traps are disposable. This time I look at humidifier pads.
I have the type of humidifier that attaches to the furnace and forces air to flow through a water-soaked pad. This pad seems to be made mostly of metal and a residue from the evaporated water builds up over time.
For many years I didn’t realize that it was normal to buy replacement pads. I thought the pad was an integral part of the humidifier and I struggled to find ways to clean it. What seemed to work best was soaking it in CLR.
Worried that maybe it wasn’t really getting cleaned properly, I decided to see if the pad could be replaced. On my first attempt at a big-box store, I learned not to call it a humidifier grill. They didn’t have those and I shouldn’t waste this very important employee’s time.
Fortunately, I persisted and found that humidifier pads are a standard replacement item and are quite cheap ($9.99 for my model). This isn’t much more than the cost of a bottle of CLR ($8.69).
This little story is as much about ignorance as thrift, but I’ll call my $1.30 plus tax savings in previous cleanings the result of pointless frugality. For such modest savings, I had to do the work to soak the pad, and then get a result that may not have been as clean as a new pad.
From now on I’ll happily buy new humidifier pads for the extra buck and a half it will cost.
You've changed, man! It used to be about the cheapness, but now you have become a Spendthrift or worse! How can you squander that amount of money, that's almost the cost of a Soy, Low Foam, High Fibre, Jamoca, Dingle dingle, Hooha, Latte (with sweetner in a biodegradable cup)!
ReplyDeleteCome on man!
Big Cajun Man: Maybe if I was a coffee drinker I'd see this whole thing differently :-)
ReplyDeleteCC: Ordinarily I don't break into your house looking for post topics, but I made an exception this time :-)
The second reply above was to Canadian Capitalist's comment:
DeleteWow, what a timely post. Cleaning the humidifier pad is on my list of things to do and I've been procrastinating. So, I'll do what you've suggested: buy a new pad and chuck out the old one.
Couldn't have been my house, you'd have to scale the Mount Olympus of clutter to get at the furnace, and I would have heard you breaking your leg down there.
ReplyDeleteI recently emptied my central-vacuum bag by hand (my shop vac didn't have enough power) so I could reuse it. Home Depot has replacement bags, but they were out of stock, and I deemed the vacuum store too expensive.
ReplyDeleteI then repaired the bag with duct tape, which wouldn't stick, so I had to add some white glue. A dirty, disgusting job to save $10. Likely a worse job than you had with your humidifier, but the savings were somewhat higher. Still, at the end of my life I don't think I'll be grateful that I saved the $10, narrowly avoiding total destitution.
Gene: Maybe there's a book in a collection of stories of crazy things done to save money.
ReplyDelete