Climateline Rainout

Hi all,

I'm a new CPAP user and I just learning how to adjust the settings on my CPAP machine. I am using a ResMed AirSense 10 Autoset with the climateline tube and a full face mask.

To help with dry nose/mouth, I have taken my machine off of Auto Climate control and set the humidity to 5 (out of . I was getting a fair amount of rainout overnight, and adjusted the tube temp to 29C (30 is the highest) and still got rainout.

I don't fully understand how this can happen. The humidity is just a little higher than mid-level and with the tube temp turned all the way up, I'm still getting the condensation. How is this possible?

Any ideas or tips?

Thanks so much for the support!
Sean

Welcome to the forum.

It happens because your ambient bedroom temperature is cooling off the air in the mask. The heated hose can't keep up.

First thing I would try though is a new heated hose...just on the off chance this one isn't working like it is supposed to especially if your ambient bedroom temp is above 66 degrees F....sorry but I can't do the conversion to Celsius in my head.

See this thread for explanation of why this is happening and some other additional options to try to prevent it.
viewtopic/t94035/Pugsys-Pointers-3Deali ... -road.html
Posts number 2 and 3 is where I talk about various ways to reduce condensation in the mask or hose.

Machine placement...the lower than your mattress thing...won't help you much because of the way the long hose fits on the humidifier outlet. Been there and done that myself and learned that gravity doesn't help much with the AirSense machines. It just won't drain well...even if you take the mask off and hold the hose totally vertical...I found that out the hard way.
If your condensation is mainly in the mask itself...the water tends to pool in the low spots anyway and won't necessarily drain back into the hose to let gravity maybe help out.

If a new hose doesn't fix the problem then the next thing I would do is add a hose cozy if it were me unless you want to increase the ambient bedroom air temp. I like a cold bedroom myself...and I like LOTS of humidity so I have a lot of experience dealing with condensation especially in the winter when the bedroom temps can drop to mid 50s.

Thanks for your help!

I had done a bit of reading prior to posting and your post mentioned many of the same things I saw online and in the booklet provided with the machine.

For clarity's sake:
- Room temp is roughly 22C / 72F
- Tube Temp was set to 29C / 84F
- Water is collecting in the tube, not the mask.

I was wondering about the gravity thing, but was skeptical anyway as the hose is 6ft long and my bed is definitely not 6ft high, so I didn't think that would do much anyway

Thanks again.
Sean

At 72 F.....and the setting of 5....water shouldn't be forming in the hose so my first suspect is a faulty hose.

I am using the setting of 6 and hose air temp of 60 degrees and of course it can't go lower than the ambient room temp of 72 and I get no rain out/condensation in the hose at all. I don't use a hose cozy either.

Now sometimes I get a tiny bit of moisture in the nasal pillow from the extra moisture added in by my exhaled breath...be not in the hose at all and my mask uses a short 18 inch hose after the heated hose ends...so the room air starts cooling the air rather quickly.

It wouldn't be impossible for you to have a faulty hose and it's just not heating up like it should.

Fair point, I will check with my provider and see if we can run a test/swap it out.

I appreciate your time.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:32 am

At 72 F.....and the setting of 5....water shouldn't be forming in the hose so my first suspect is a faulty hose.

I am using the setting of 6 and hose air temp of 60 degrees and of course it can't go lower than the ambient room temp of 72 and I get no rain out/condensation in the hose at all. I don't use a hose cozy either.

Now sometimes I get a tiny bit of moisture in the nasal pillow from the extra moisture added in by my exhaled breath...be not in the hose at all and my mask uses a short 18 inch hose after the heated hose ends...so the room air starts cooling the air rather quickly.

It wouldn't be impossible for you to have a faulty hose and it's just not heating up like it should.

Do you think there's a way to test the hose myself?

sdgsean wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:55 am

Do you think there's a way to test the hose myself?

I don't know of anything easy but you could maybe try turning the hose on...remove the mask and if you have some sort of thermometer that you can stick in the mask end of those hose that will show temperature...it could maybe be done that way.
Just using your hand as a guide won't help much because it will always feel cooler to the skin since our body temp is roughly 98.6.
If you have a digital oral thermometer I suppose you could try inserting it into the mask end of the hose but I don't know if they go as low as 86 degrees which is the highest the hose is supposed to go to.
Worth trying if you have one handy.

In terms of testing the actual electrical parts...those that do that sort of thing know how to do it and use various gauges but I don't have a clue what they are or how to do it and to me the main thing would be does the darn thing heat up like it is supposed to and the air temp is the final result so I would probably try the digital thermometer thing.
If I can find mine....I put it somewhere safe and can't find it now ...I will try just using the oral thermometer and see if it goes low enough.

Twice a year, Spring and Fall, I go through 2-3 weeks where I have to go off auto and use manual because I get rainout despite the heated hose. I can only assume it's the colder temperatures coupled with higher than average humidity. I also have a basement bedroom, although it's dry. My current theory is that this always occurs between the times when I have air conditioning and heating running - it is damper in the house because both of these appliances dry out the inside air. Even if you have one of them running, they don't run that much (of course, this all depends on where you live - I live in MN).

SewTired wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:56 am

Twice a year, Spring and Fall, I go through 2-3 weeks where I have to go off auto and use manual because I get rainout despite the heated hose. I can only assume it's the colder temperatures coupled with higher than average humidity. I also have a basement bedroom, although it's dry. My current theory is that this always occurs between the times when I have air conditioning and heating running - it is damper in the house because both of these appliances dry out the inside air. Even if you have one of them running, they don't run that much (of course, this all depends on where you live - I live in MN).

Thanks for the note.
I've only had my machine for a week so this is all new to me. I am running my AC right now, but it wasn't very cold in the room.

How do you deal with the water in the hose? The gurgling woke me up at 4am and it freaked me out so I had to get out of bed to empty the hose because I was afraid I'd drown otherwise...lol. What do you do?

sdgsean wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:25 am

I was wondering about the gravity thing, but was skeptical anyway as the hose is 6ft long and my bed is definitely not 6ft high, so I didn't think that would do much anyway

The bed does not have to be six feet high. A few inches will do it. A gentle slope down to the humidifier tank will work.

ChicagoGranny wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 06, 2018 12:14 pm

A gentle slope down to the humidifier tank will work.

Not necessarily with the AirSense 10 because of how the hose is attached to the humidifier outlet.
I had it happen to me when I accidentally turned the hose air temp down and not up last winter when I increased the humidity.
Major water in the hose and I even got up out of bed and held the hose totally vertical to try to get the water to drain back and quit being so loud and annoying and it simply wouldn't drain enough and well enough to stop the noise.
Even woke up hubby whose remarks were "what the hell is that racket over there".
If totally vertical won't drain well enough I just don't see how a gentle slope would work...which BTW my machine is already below my mattress and I still woke up with copious amounts of water in the hose.

sdgsean wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:58 am

How do you deal with the water in the hose? The gurgling woke me up at 4am and it freaked me out so I had to get out of bed to empty the hose because I was afraid I'd drown otherwise...lol. What do you do?

I do a lot of cussing when that happens but of course doesn't help the situation when it happens.
You won't drown but it is highly annoying....I had to get out of bed and take the hose off the humidifier (after trying to get it to drain well enough to stop the racket that water caused and totally vertical hose attached to the humidifier wouldn't drain well enough) and take the hose into the bathroom and use a towel for it to drain onto and then shake the devil out of the hose over the bathtub.
It's amazing how much noise a few drops of water in the hose will make.

sdgsean wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:25 am

I was wondering about the gravity thing, but was skeptical anyway as the hose is 6ft long and my bed is definitely not 6ft high, so I didn't think that would do much anyway

If your bed were 6 feet tall, you'd have to hang your head off the side to use a 6 foot hose.

Water doesn't like to run uphill, so you don't have to have the straight up and down, the rainout collects at the lowest point, and if that's your face... then that's where it goes, if it's a dip between the side table, and the bed, ... guess what.