I have a 1700 square foot ranch house with a Woodstock fireview woodstove. We currently have a cast iron tea kettle humidifier. Will we need anything more?
humidifier
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prezes13
Minister of Fire
That tea kettle is more decorative than anything else. Yes you will need a humidifier.
Put some potpourri or scented oil in the water in the tea kettle and get a little ambiance from it. If you're serious about wanting to increase the humidity in your home, get a humidifier, 'cause the tea kettle ain't gonna git 'er done fer ya. Rick
For the past few years we tried pots of water on the stove for humidity. It helped but wasn't nearly enough.
It takes a lot of attention to keep the water filled too.
I broke down this year and bought a humidifier.
It takes a lot of attention to keep the water filled too.
I broke down this year and bought a humidifier.
Simonkenton
Minister of Fire
I have a big black, speckled with white roasting pan, like you can cook a turkey in. It is about 20 inches long, and 15 inches wide. It just about covers the top of the wood stove. Holds a gallon and a half of water.
On a good winter day I will put 2 gallons of water into the air in this fashion. The house is still pretty dry but my humidifier helps a lot.
On a good winter day I will put 2 gallons of water into the air in this fashion. The house is still pretty dry but my humidifier helps a lot.
10-4 on the humidifier. Tried the kettle for years. Humidifier uses squat for electricity, easy to fill and actually puts moisture in the air. And has never rusted my stove since it is across the room.
Wanna buy a big rusty cast iron kettle?
Wanna buy a big rusty cast iron kettle?
We put our wet clothes on a drying rack in the stove room. Has the additional benefit that we also waste less energy for the dryer. In addition, dry indoor air during wintertime is a sign that the house is not airtight and pulls a lot of outdoor air in. A well airsealed house has problems with too much humidity, not too little. An energy audit with door blower test may be helpful in identifying leaks.
Yes the the kettle is worthless other than poporie. I got a big one, 12 gallons a day. Fan evaporative type. The only issue is feeding this thing. You need to fill a side tank with a few gallons. Better if it's hooked up to a water source.
Do you run it 24/7. Should I put it in the room with the stove? I'm pretty sure my furnace has a humidifier built in would that be okay to use?
Yep, the problem with the furnace connected humidifier is that the goal of wood burning is to keep the furnace from running.
Sprinter
Minister of Fire
We do too and it's a great energy saver. With a small fan blowing across the stove to the rack, it's very fast. But it doesn't do squat for humidity since clothes from a washer doesn't have hardly any water left in it anyway.
It seems like the best overall solution is a portable humidifier preferably with a humidistat, sized for your requirements.
Depends on the washer. Ours is an old-style top-loader that still leaves quite a bit of water in the clothes. The basket is quite a bit heavier with the wet clothes than with the dry ones. Granted, compared with a dedicated humidifier it may not be that much but having the dryer blow warm humid air to the outside in the winter while running a stove and a humidifier just does not make sense to me.
The one we use is in our open wall loft bedroom. The stove is below in a large open room. Our room gets hot and dry. I feel the differences sleeping with the humidifier running in the bedroom. You just can't add enough humidity when the stove is running. Just wish I had gotten one that had a water supply hookup. Mine has great automatic fan speed control, based on a digital humidity level. All that works well, but when the stove is running for days it best left on high.
So where to locate it, my preference is the bed room. Stove room, maybe the brothers here have an opinion.
Sprinter
Minister of Fire
Yes, if you mean a gas or electric clothes drier that vents to the outside, I couldn't agree more. I hate that. Fortunately, my wife is totally on board with the rack and uses it routinely in the winter. Summer, we have an outdoor system.
If one wishes to use a drier, I'm a proponent in theory of venting an electric drier into the house through some kind of lint/dust filter. There are some commercial devices for that, but it would seem simple enough to fabricate something. We just use the rack though.
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wildwildwest
Member
Please tell me more, like a 1 gal cool mist humidifier? Or a console that hold several gallons?
Sprinter
Minister of Fire
Right. Back to the original post, that question depends on quite a few variables. So a few questions:
1) Do you need to humidify the whole house or just the stove room or maybe a bedroom or two? Like air temps, it's difficult to equalize humidity levels among rooms.
2) Are your concerns medical (e.g. allergies) or comfort?
3) What relative humidity are you aiming at?
4) What is your typical outdoor winter climate like especially temps?
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Huntindog1
Minister of Fire
Hunt, what brand and model is that humidifier?I have tried several over the years this one is best one I have owned.
Take it easy on humidification. Ask yourself where that water ends up. Here is a good read:
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/qa-spotlight/why-sheathing-moldy
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/qa-spotlight/why-sheathing-moldy
Tom, a tight house doesn't "create" an issue. The design of such a house simply must pay attention to existing moisture issues that weren't a problem 70-100 years ago. Tight houses don't need humidification the way an older, leaky house does. A newer, very tight house typically needs mechanical ventilation to limit the accumulation of interior humidity produced by human activity. It's like proper installation and flashing of windows in new houses, perhaps most of which still aren't installed correctly. Really old houses never had a problem with excess humidity inside and with windows that leaked a little rain into the wall cavity, because the air leakage was so high that the walls dried out in short order. In those houses, the issue of moisture wasn't a problem for the house, but it was for the occupants because the inside air was far too dry for human comfort. Addressing the lack of moisture with humidification wasn't a problem then, but it is, potentially, with houses built within the last 50 years.
You still hear some people say that a house should be tight (to keep the heating bill down), but not too tight - "The house has to breathe." That is incorrect. The occupants have to breathe (need fresh air), and the house has to avoid moisture accumulation problems. Trying to "make the house tight, but not too tight" as a design strategy simply does not work. There is no way to design in the right amount of "leakage" that works under any particular set of conditions. Air leakage is driven by wind pressure and air density difference (air at zero F is about 15% heavier than air at 70 F). The house leaks most when it's bitter cold and windy outside (yeah, like that's news to anyone in a heating climate), and not at all when it's mild and windless outside. Worse, there is no way to control "leakage." The only right thing to do is to make a new house as tight as possible and provide mechanical ventilation. With an older house, dry air can be addressed by really tightening up the house. Making an older house so tight that mechanical ventilation would be required to keep interior humidity down would be prohibitively expensive, because of all the leaking framing joints that can't be accessed easily.
On this forum, there occasionally are posts by members in the process of designing or building a new house in a heating climate. Many seem to resist suggestions to make the darn thing exceedingly well insulated and tight, opting instead to build "conventional" and throw a lot of cheap heat into it in the form of a huge woodstove. I've sometimes posted advice to go superinsulated, but I suspect most of it falls on deaf ears. Perhaps I should get off the soapbox.
You still hear some people say that a house should be tight (to keep the heating bill down), but not too tight - "The house has to breathe." That is incorrect. The occupants have to breathe (need fresh air), and the house has to avoid moisture accumulation problems. Trying to "make the house tight, but not too tight" as a design strategy simply does not work. There is no way to design in the right amount of "leakage" that works under any particular set of conditions. Air leakage is driven by wind pressure and air density difference (air at zero F is about 15% heavier than air at 70 F). The house leaks most when it's bitter cold and windy outside (yeah, like that's news to anyone in a heating climate), and not at all when it's mild and windless outside. Worse, there is no way to control "leakage." The only right thing to do is to make a new house as tight as possible and provide mechanical ventilation. With an older house, dry air can be addressed by really tightening up the house. Making an older house so tight that mechanical ventilation would be required to keep interior humidity down would be prohibitively expensive, because of all the leaking framing joints that can't be accessed easily.
On this forum, there occasionally are posts by members in the process of designing or building a new house in a heating climate. Many seem to resist suggestions to make the darn thing exceedingly well insulated and tight, opting instead to build "conventional" and throw a lot of cheap heat into it in the form of a huge woodstove. I've sometimes posted advice to go superinsulated, but I suspect most of it falls on deaf ears. Perhaps I should get off the soapbox.
Huntindog1
Minister of Fire
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