Kenmore 12 Gallon Humidifier

MN winters are long, cold and dry. I live in a 1950 brick building with updated forced air but no humidity feature. My condo is single level, 1100 sq ft - easy to humidify. Purchased last March I used the unit for 6 weeks, cleaned it and put it away. I took it out in Oct this year. Initially, I could run it on low and maintain 35% level. In December, it wasn't reaching 25% so I replaced the filter.Side note: it has never given me the "check filter" warning, even when my filter was dried out/discolored. I have hard, unfiltered city water and use the Sears Bacteriostat a few times per week, filling the unit twice/day.After two weeks the replacement filter was only 1/3 wet, and discolored so i replaced it again. It seems to be working better now. I love the machine - when it works. It is quiet, efficient, easy to fill from my kitchen faucet, and easy to clean in my bath tub (I wipe it out with a sponge maybe once/month). If the unit/new filter don't return to normal, I'll take it back to Sears for repair. The instruction manual notes a Sears one-year warranty and they will repair for free. This may seem tedious, but as I mentioned...MN winters are long, cold and dry!

I have had 3 humidifiers prior to this one from Kenmore and have been super happy with them. Almost cried when the last one died out out wear. This new 12gallons is deceiving, it's the output not volume capacity to hold water. The construction is very poor, the plastic wellds for the water tank are very rough, not even and the tank is kind of cocked. The water tank fill up is on the side and makes it almost impossible to fill up unless you fill it in your tub or have a big bathroom sink. As the water level goes down and the resevoir tank releases water, it sounds like a toilet being flushed and will wake you up in the middle of the night 5-6 times depending on fan velocity. I could careless about the inaccurate humidity digital reader, but I do care that the fan speed 2 died after 2 weeks. I am not returning it, because I threw out the box and I'm not carrying this mini R2D2 back to the store. I am upset and disappointed with the construction quality and very poor design. I am a big fan of Kenmore appliances, but this one takes the cake for the worst appliance I have ever bought from Sears.