The first unit I purchased had a malfunctioning humidistat and it was replaced immediately. The "permawick" is anything but permanent. It crumbled when I attempted to clean it and I ended up replacing just like a normal paper wick. I went to fire up my 2nd unit for the start of the 3rd season and the humidistat once again malfunctioned...reading "Hi" and shutting off after 10 seconds. I took the unit apart and disabled the humidistat. I'll run it manually until it dies. When it's working, it's a nice unit...I just unfortunately had too many problems.