Like many wood burners on here, I don't have enough humidity. I've tried a lot of different humidifiers and none seem to really fit the bill. My latest return is the pricy Venta airwasher and humidifier, which I found to be quite useless, despite feeding it water with a TDS of 12 ppm, pH 7.1 and varying the water and room temperature.
So help me to design a proper humidifier and I will incorporate all the best suggestions, build it and test it before the end of the burning season. I will document it and post all results up here. I monitor humidity with an old-school analog lab-grade dial hygrometer that is extremely accurate.
So here's what the humidifier will have to do:
- Raise the humidity from an average 12% to an average 40%
- Be silent or nearly silent. I feel the thermoelectric fan (EcoFan) on the stove is noisy.
- Not pose a mold issue. There can never be anything growing in the water reservoir, if there is one*
- Low power consumption (this should be easy)
*This could mean a reservoir with ozone injection or other natural solution to biological contaminants
Right now, the leading idea in my head involves using a heavy-duty 1.7 MHz ultrasonic element that can theoretically atomize 50 gal/day if need be. Thinking of using a snap switch thermostat located on the back of the stove and when it hits 200F, it will close the circuit of the unit and funnel large quantities of highly humidified air over the top of the EcoFan, which should serve to make it perform more efficiently thanks to the temp drop and the nature of thermoelectric/Peltier modules. There will be a humidistat calibrated to my hygrometer wired in series as well. But this is just an idea and I know there are lots of Hearth'ers out there with decades of combined experience for keeping their homes properly humidified.
Thank you for your input!
In conclusion, here is a short video of my outdoor, 12' solar-powered, remote control Christmas Tree. It came to life when I felled a massive 80' maple on my property. When it came down, it clipped the top of a 40' pine and ripped it off. Dragged it up to the yard, dug a hole and "planted" it. The rest spiraled out of control from spare parts I had lying around. Draws 1.8 amps at 12 VDC.
So help me to design a proper humidifier and I will incorporate all the best suggestions, build it and test it before the end of the burning season. I will document it and post all results up here. I monitor humidity with an old-school analog lab-grade dial hygrometer that is extremely accurate.
So here's what the humidifier will have to do:
- Raise the humidity from an average 12% to an average 40%
- Be silent or nearly silent. I feel the thermoelectric fan (EcoFan) on the stove is noisy.
- Not pose a mold issue. There can never be anything growing in the water reservoir, if there is one*
- Low power consumption (this should be easy)
*This could mean a reservoir with ozone injection or other natural solution to biological contaminants
Right now, the leading idea in my head involves using a heavy-duty 1.7 MHz ultrasonic element that can theoretically atomize 50 gal/day if need be. Thinking of using a snap switch thermostat located on the back of the stove and when it hits 200F, it will close the circuit of the unit and funnel large quantities of highly humidified air over the top of the EcoFan, which should serve to make it perform more efficiently thanks to the temp drop and the nature of thermoelectric/Peltier modules. There will be a humidistat calibrated to my hygrometer wired in series as well. But this is just an idea and I know there are lots of Hearth'ers out there with decades of combined experience for keeping their homes properly humidified.
Thank you for your input!
In conclusion, here is a short video of my outdoor, 12' solar-powered, remote control Christmas Tree. It came to life when I felled a massive 80' maple on my property. When it came down, it clipped the top of a 40' pine and ripped it off. Dragged it up to the yard, dug a hole and "planted" it. The rest spiraled out of control from spare parts I had lying around. Draws 1.8 amps at 12 VDC.
