Airsense 10 Humdifier Chamber

I don't have an issue with the size of my humidifier chamber, but my house is very well sealed, and my pressure is only 9 cmH20 making the amount of vent flow fairly minimal. I have heard on this board several complaints of the chamber running dry at night. How many people have reported this to Resmed? It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to produce an extended capacity chamber, but Resmed definitely won't be considering a design change unless they hear from people who are having problems.

In the meantime, it there are some handy people here, I am sure somebody who has having the issue could come up with a diy solution.

Add on to almost any humidifier...
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/fisher ... ifier.html

Actually, if you wanted to solve the problem with ad-on humidification, a small room humidifier placed relatively close (but not so close as to cause rain out inside the machine) would probably do the trick just as well, and still allow the climate control to function properly with a heated hose.

WindCpap wrote:I don't have an issue with the size of my humidifier chamber, but my house is very well sealed, and my pressure is only 9 cmH20 making the amount of vent flow fairly minimal. I have heard on this board several complaints of the chamber running dry at night. How many people have reported this to Resmed? It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to produce an extended capacity chamber, but Resmed definitely won't be considering a design change unless they hear from people who are having problems.

In the meantime, it there are some handy people here, I am sure somebody who has having the issue could come up with a diy solution.

I may be all wet in this because I personally have had no experience with insufficient water capacity in my humidifier. But isn't the common wisdom on this board that control of mask leaks and stopping mouth-breathing are solutions for the vast majority of so-called humidifier capacity problems?

How many users that have well controlled leak rates and do not mouth-breath are having problems with lack of humidifier capacity?

Hose_Head wrote:How many users that have well controlled leak rates and do not mouth-breath are having problems with lack of humidifier capacity?

I know of only one having a problem with capacity and not making it through the night on one tank.
And I have seen her reports and leaks are NOT anywhere close to being an issue. In fact her leak lines would probably put mine to shame.

Pugsy wrote:

Hose_Head wrote:How many users that have well controlled leak rates and do not mouth-breath are having problems with lack of humidifier capacity?

I know of only one having a problem with capacity and not making it through the night on one tank.
And I have seen her reports and leaks are NOT anywhere close to being an issue. In fact her leak lines would probably put mine to shame.

So your answer to my question is "not many"?

Hose_Head wrote:So your answer to my question is "not many"?

Yeah, I guess it would be but you know I don't even know of anyone who can't make it through the night on one tank even with some big leaks or mouth breathing.

I know of one other person who needs more humidity but the issue isn't so much that the water is being used up as the amount of moisture simply isn't enough because they are using the Oracle which is notorious for drying out the mouth and they aren't using the AirSense anyway.

As to the original "several complaints on this board"....unless I have missed them...I haven't seen "several" and only remember seeing just the one. I was waiting to see if any others chimed in that they also use the AirSense and have the water only last 4 to 6 hours.
With all the AirSense users here...I would think if it were a common issue we would have seen a lot more complaints in the past 16 months that the AirSense has been out there.
Not saying it isn't happening but it sure isn't common and it does make a person wonder what is going on.
Two things come to my mind...ambient humidity and potential sensor/heater malfunction in the machine.

My original point, was that people who experience issues like this should be reporting them to the manufacturer, and perhaps troubleshooting a little with the manufacturers help. Resmed won't know to change what they don't know is broken.

WindCpap wrote: Resmed won't know to change what they don't know is broken.

ResMed won't likely be thinking anything is broken unless a whole bunch of DMEs keep sending back faulty machines.
They will want the offending machines in their hands to test them out.
Anything like that has to go through the equipment supplier..the DME or whomever sold the machine.
At this point we don't even know for sure if anything is indeed broken anyway.

ResMed doesn't view us..the end user..as the customer...they view the DME as the customer and that's who they ultimately listen to. If you call them up and complain they will tell you to take it up with the DME you got the machine from.

One lone person (so far) having this issue doesn't mean anything other than maybe it's a lemon and has nothing to do with design flaw...now if they start getting a large number of returns with the same complaint then they might look and think about changing something.

I am still waiting to see if anyone else using the AirSense has had this same issue.
Who else besides Marylandcpaper do you know of making this specific complaint and that complaint being water chamber runs dry after only 4 to 6 hours of use?

Generally, I only run out of dihydrogen monoxide when I sleep nine hours or more.
Since that is usually a poor choice anyway, I do not believe there is a defect.

Hose_Head wrote:

WindCpap wrote:I don't have an issue with the size of my humidifier chamber, but my house is very well sealed, and my pressure is only 9 cmH20 making the amount of vent flow fairly minimal. I have heard on this board several complaints of the chamber running dry at night. How many people have reported this to Resmed? It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to produce an extended capacity chamber, but Resmed definitely won't be considering a design change unless they hear from people who are having problems.

In the meantime, it there are some handy people here, I am sure somebody who has having the issue could come up with a diy solution.

I may be all wet in this because I personally have had no experience with insufficient water capacity in my humidifier. But isn't the common wisdom on this board that control of mask leaks and stopping mouth-breathing are solutions for the vast majority of so-called humidifier capacity problems?

How many users that have well controlled leak rates and do not mouth-breath are having problems with lack of humidifier capacity?

My leaks are well controlled and I am not a mouth breathers. My humidifier tank is running out of water about every 5 hours during these early winter nights. i consider this totally unacceptable and wish I had not gotten an A10 machine. I have not reported this to the DME or Resmed yet because I have been too sick with bronchitis for the last 2 weeks, which I attribute to the dry humidifier chamber of the A10. I used a PR System One for 5 years, never had to worry about running out of water in less than one night's sleep, and experienced no bouts of flu or bronchitis such as this.

I have also taken a glance through the Apnea Board postings but have not posted there myself. I saw a number of postings there regarding humidifier water on the A10 not lasting through the night once winter weather started. I am not the only one having a problem with the A10 humidifier chamber. How does one complain to Resmed? I would be happy to let them know what I think of their humidifier chambers and the severe illness mine has caused me.

Also, people are quoting the "specs" of the Resmed A10 as saying they have a 380 ml capacity, which evidently is what the Resmed 9 had. Unless the A10 FOR HER model has a smaller humidifier tank than the standard A10, the humidifier tank is 325 ml capacity at the MAXIMUM line. If I add even a ml more, I get rainout. The PR System One humidifier tank also has a 325 ml capacity but I'm sure I often overfilled it a tad, with no resulting problems. I just re-checked this tonight with the ACTUAL humidifier tubs.

Pugsy wrote:

Hose_Head wrote:How many users that have well controlled leak rates and do not mouth-breath are having problems with lack of humidifier capacity?

I know of only one having a problem with capacity and not making it through the night on one tank.
And I have seen her reports and leaks are NOT anywhere close to being an issue. In fact her leak lines would probably put mine to shame.

Now you know 2. Sometimes I barely make out over 8 hours and run out. You have seen my leak rates also and are extremely low.

I would l like a larger tank

Greg Riddle wrote:Now you know 2. Sometimes I barely make out over 8 hours and run out. You have seen my leak rates also and are extremely low.

I would l like a larger tank

Now I know of 2.

Curious though...is it okay during the summer or do you run out of water during the summer also?
What humidity setting are you using? Have you checked the ambient humidity in your home?
I know what setting MarylandCpaper uses. If I ever get my hands on one of the AirSense/AirCurve machines I plan to make special note of water consumption since I snort water.

Also remember that pressures used will also impact water consumption and if I remember right your pressures are up there pretty high and I would expect you to use more water just because of that variable alone.
MarylandCpaper uses relatively low pressures which makes her water consumption all the more puzzling.

There are several factors that affect water consumption.
1. Humidity setting of course.
2. Ambient humidity in the bedroom. Winter is a known "drier" time because of cold air and the furnaces we use. Already I have noticed a substantial increase in water consumption on my S9 just from the furnace being on with no other changes to anything on the machine.
3. Pressures used (more pressure will use more water).
4. Leaks...and yes I know leaks aren't an issue for you either...again your leak lines also would probably would put mine to shame.

Please note that I am in no way saying nothing is wrong here. I have now way to know but this isn't something that we see tons of people chiming in on like we did with the S9 bird call thing.

MarylandCPAPer wrote: How does one complain to Resmed?

You have to go through whomever you got your machine from...the DME. That's who starts the process.
We as end users have no way to really do anything about these sort of issues. You can call ResMed and complain and they will listen but they will tell you to return the unit to the DME where you got it. ResMed won't accept returns from us users.

If it were me I would take the machine down to their office and plop it on their desk and explain that I wanted a different machine because this one uses all the water in 4 to 5 hours at a relatively low humidity setting and that it was unacceptable to have to get up in the middle of the night to add more water.
What you are experiencing is not anywhere near normal. I would also get whatever those room humidity measurement tools are called (I forget the name) and I would document the ambient room humidity in the bedroom and have that information written down and stuck on the machine when I plopped it on their desk.

I think there is a real good chance that something is broken or not functioning properly.

As a point of reference...

I set my humidifier at halfway for the summer and one notch higher for the winter. I generally use 125 ml of water per night. If I fill the humidifier to the max line I generally am good for 3 nights.