There’s stuff growing in it, because I stored it without getting all the water out first. I cleaned it out as much as I could, but I’d like to know whether it will blow noxious fungal spores around my house when I turn it on.
It works by converting small amounts of the water to steam, and blowing the steam out of a small nozzle at the top. Would this process kill any bugs that might have survived the scrubbing? It wasn’t possible to actually reach every part of the water reservoir while I was cleaning it, because its a large flat tub with a tiny hole at the top to insert the steam maker motor. I couldn’t fit my hand inside.
Are there any instructions with it that say you should NOT run bleach water through it?
If not, I would suggest putting a little bleach in the water in the reservoir and then letting it run outside or in the garage for a bit until it is empty. Then do it again with clean (non-bleached) water to get the bleach out.
Many of those old humidifiers worked by running 120 volts between a couple of big carbon electrodes immersed in the reservoir. If you add ions to the water, such as bleach (sodium hypochlorite), the electrodes will pass a larger current. That can damage the electrodes.
Soak the reservoir with some bleach, and even put the electrodes in there, but don’t plug the unit in.
Rinse it out after an hour or two, and fill with clean water.
Then plug it in.