Humidifers

Did anyone buy a humidifer by the builder?

I noticed that with gas heat our house is very dry. This makes for a problem at night for our children and my husband who have very stuffy noses and itchy dry skin alot since we turned on the heat. We want to humidify the upstairs only at night.

A couple of ways we can go.

1. Get individual humidifers per room, which would requite $50 each, water refill and sanitation of the unit every night (according to the manual) and filter replacement. Plus always having distilled water on hand

2. A floor unit (very large) not sure how they work but I think you can buy them at Home Depot or something. Do not currently know the cost and think you fill it with sink water. I think it uses some kind of belt inside - I am not sure if one would be enough for the upstairs of the house, but it looks like it would. No idea of the cost.

3. Bite the bullet, kick myself for not getting it when we built, and have one installed. No idea of the cost, or the maintenance of such a unit.

Any comments on what everyone else is using or have tried would be helpful!

 

I heared that though you have whole home humidifier, might not work as efficiently as portable one. So, you better need some reasearch before you spend lots of money.

I have seen other Humidifier recently (@ Best Buy) which has small remote unit can be kept near bed and it works with infra red rays and humidify the area around that small unit though actual humidifier stays little far from bed. This may work efficiently than whole home humidifier but cleaning is always pain with portable ones.

 

Yeah I would like to buy one for the top floor of the house not one for each bedroom. This way I can gate it off from little hands,

 

I've got a 'whole home' unit on my first floor air handler, it is a builder installed, 'top of the line' (at that time) Aprilaire self-powered unit. It uses water directly from the feed line, and no recirculation. It is very effective on the first floor, but not so much on the second. The heating contractor told me that they did not install humidifiers on attic air handlers due to the problems that can be caused with lines freezing, and causing floods when they thaw.

However, a friend who does HVAC says that if you want a whole house humidifier, get a 'steam generator' humidifier. These are for commercial installation only, and are more expensive than the evaporator/drip pad type. The reason for the cost is that they do use a boiler to create the steam, and can be either gas or electric.

I'm not sure who makes these, but you may want to check with a HVAC contractor for more info.

 

Here is some information about whole house humidifiers

1) bypass - installed on the outflow side of the furnace with a duct run to the return side. The pressure difference causes the aitflow over the evaporation pad

2) powered - installed on the outflow side. A fan moves the air over the pad. Some may have a duct run to the return side

I don't know about the "steam" ones mentioned, but I would be very leary of them installed directly on the ductwork. If steam is generated into the duct it will condense very quickly on anything that is cool. Relative to the acutal steam that would pretty much be all the ducts. This would cause moisture buildup in the ducts which leads to mold and mildew.

In a bypass system, the input air (from the return) will be cooler than the outflow air (from the furnace). Therefore there will be very little (if any) condensation on the ducts (since at the coldest, the ducts would be at the same temperature as the inflow air).

The powered systems (when not taking air from the return) will be able to work a liitl better since the outflow air will be warmer, and therefore able to hold a higher humidity. Since the outflow air will be heating the ducts, again there is little to no chance of condensation within the ducts.

Steam on the otherhand, is only visible when the air is so saturated with moisture that ware forms into droplets. The difference in temperature between that steam and the ductwork will almost certainly cause condensation.

Also, any humidifier should ALWAYS be connected to the cold water line. Using the hit water (while increasing the humidity quicker) will cause the same condensation problems because of the teperature difference.

One other thing to remember. Turn down (or off) your humidifier during the summer. Otherwise you are wasting a lot of energy moving moisture from the humidifier, to your condensation drain in the AC unit. Remember, a byproduct of cooling air (the AC unit) is to remove moisture from the air. You don't need to pay for your humidifier to put moisture into the air when the AC unit is trying to remove it.

 

Also remember, if you have a humidifier installed, be sure it's by whoever installed your heating system...because if there are problems, there goes your warranty.

 

Okay I went the cheap way and bought a floor unit. It covers 1900 sq. ft. for about $120. Though I have to fill it and the bi-weekly maintenance is a pain, I am going to try it. So far it's pretty cool, it has auto shut on/off when it reads the humidity. Of course, it sits in my upstairs hallway and looks funny but I think it will do until I hate cleaning it.

Thanks for the info, because if this one does not work out well for us I have options I can look into.

 

We had an Aprilaire self-powered unit installed also. We had it installed last year in our townhouse. It works great. Not having to refil it is a huge plus. For a small townhouse it's fantastic.

John

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