Fun Noodle Float for Console Humidifier

Backstory: It all started with the cat sneezing. She got a clean bill of health at the vet, so it was concluded it was due to the dry air this winter. Plus WE had dry, cracked skin. So we decided a humidifier was in order. We HAD a large console humidifier (see photo), but it had been in the garage for years. Why? Because we hadn't used it much before problems developed. The wicks became difficult, then impossible to obtain locally. Also, it wasn't too long after we purchased it that the air-filled float developed a hole and began to fill with water. I was determined we were NOT going to go out and spend money on something we had already paid a lot of money for and got very little use out of. Hence my other instructable, "Make a console humidifier wick or stand-alone humidifier."

The other part of the humidifier repair problem was getting the wick box to float. Attempts were made to replace the float with styrofoam, but balancing the buoyancy of the styrofoam against the weight of the wick so the wick bottom was submerged but the wick didn't sink proved difficult, plus styrofoam flakes little balls all over. So I'm looking around the house for something else that might work, when... FUN NOODLE! THAT FLOATS! Don't ask what ever possessed me to buy one of those, we don't have a pool, but I KNEW I'd find a use for it one day.

Step 1: Obtain Fun Noodle

Ya know what a fun noodle is, right? They come in many colors and extruded shapes. I happened to have an aqua colored one extruded in a 5-petal flower shape, but I imagine about any shape would work. By the way, the foam fun noodles are made of is very similar to tubular foam pipe insulation available at your big box hardware store, so that would probably work, too.

Step 2: Measure Wick Box

Measure the bottom of your humidifier wick holder. Ours happens to be 5 inches.

Step 3: Cut Fun Noodle Into Sections

Cut fun noodle into sections several inches longer than the width of your wick box. 11 inches happened to be about right for ours. Much longer and the noodle would have rubbed against the inside of the humidifier.

Step 4: Notch Fun Noodle

Cut a notch in each fun noodle section the width of your wick box.

Step 5: Place Noodle Sections Beneath Wick Box

Self-explanatory. See photo. For our humidifier, two whole sections weren't enough, but three was too many. So the mass of the 3rd, center noodle section was reduced by shortening the ends.