Ran out of water in my humidifier last night, bad for lungs?

G'day!

For some weird reason or another I woke up this morning and found my humidifier tank empty. I filled it full with spring water prior to sleep and only slept 7 hours. For the life of me I cannot figure out how this happened because I have slept ten hours before with a full tank and had a little bit of water left on the bottom in the morning (but I usually used boiled tap water). Is this bad for the machine or my lungs? There was no burning odor or smell at all, just warm air and the machine does not appear damaged in any way. The metal container was slightly discoloured with a rainbow pattern on the bottom indicating to me that it heated up a little bit more than it should have without water in it.

I recall seeing a post about being 'poisoned by water chamber plastic fumes' but I haven't read it. There was no fumes from my machine and no damage to the plastic components at all.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Even with distilled water, it tends to stink when the water tank runs dry. I don't think it should be harmful.

It shouldn't get hot enough to melt anything or cause plastic fumes, unless something fails.

Check your leak rate to see if you had a big leak using up all your water. Water usage will also vary with local humidity.

I have mine set at 2.5 and still use less than 1/4" of water a night. Using the whole chamber you must be near drowning.

rjezuit wrote:I have mine set at 2.5 and still use less than 1/4" of water a night. Using the whole chamber you must be near drowning.

Not really. I have always preferred a lot of added moisture and if I don't get it...my nasal passages get really ugly about it.
What we want or need to be comfortable is tied to our own particular body needs, the ambient room humidity, pressure used and temps.
Amount of water consumed is also related to pressures used...sheer volume of air passing over the water to pick up moisture.
OP uses 20 cm pressure...so a lot of air going through the humidifier...it is going to suck up more water at that pressure than if he used a pressure of 8 cm.

I have run out of water in the past...forgot to top off the tank...stinks something fierce but was brief and no side effects other than the odor itself and no coughing or no lung discomfort at all. Now my nasal mucosa...got really mad at me and let me know that they didn't like it....but that was because of drying and not because of fumes.

I have run out of water before and have absolutely had NO adverse effects from it.

I went camping for two months last summer and had to use a 12v battery to run my cpap machine
I turned off the humidifier because that saves power...never used it once the entire time
I had no ill effects whatsoever

My water usage varies greatly with room humidity, due to the automatic control.
I, too have awakened with a dry, smelly tank.
It was unpleasant, but perfectly harmless.

This happened to me last night, I normally add distilled water every night and for some reason I didn't check the tub before going to bed. I started smelling a sweet smell (like the smell of cake frosting) that didn't bothered whatsoever. When I checked the tub it was completely dry and wondered if this could have an effect on the humidifier itself running it w/o water.

I've run out twice and noticed a mild plastic sort of sweet smell but no noxious fumes. Can't really say that it bothered me much. I just let the unit cool down for a few minutes then put in more distilled water. Some smells may be coming from the fact that many people don't use distilled water, so there is always a residue in their tanks, which when heated will give off a peculiar or unpleasant odor. Just a supposition.