HUMIDITY

[FORCE FAB]

Whats the best way to add moisture back into the air?I have the basic humidifers,but they suck to fill everyday and dont really keep up anyway!

 

[LLigetfa]

I have a furnace mounted humidifier and run my furnace every day.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

They do suck to fill every day......but that says they are doing their jobs. You can also keep a pan of water on top of the stove. Those also will need filling every day. Or you can try my wife's trick. She dries the clothes in the house and on those days the humidity really soars!

 

[Dakotas Dad]

We used to have a large reef aquarium that kept the humidity up, the ice storm last year, or actually the no electricity for 10 days, wiped it out and I haven't had the heart to set it back up.. maybe this winter. It would put 2 gallons a day or better into the air.

We now use a large (1 gallon I think) kettle on the wood stove, and we do the clothes drying on a rack, old school also. Almost keeps up.

We do have a humidifier built into our heat pump ducting, but of course I have become pathological about that thing not running..

 

[Battenkiller]

You really need to take heroic measures to keep the humidity is the correct range in the winter. You can lose 5-10 gallons/day in the average home during the coldest part of winter. Drying clothes and having aquariums may make you feel better about the problem, but they can only add a very small percentage of the necessary moisture. I have over a cord of wood drying in my basement right now, and it ain't doing the job like I'd like it to, even though I know I'll be losing close to a ton of water in the next month down there. That's over 8 gallons of water a day. I rotate it throughout the season, so there is always some wetter wood inside.

After all my wood is dry, I will face an uphill battle keeping the RH up. Since my stove is in the basement and the basement is my workshop, I like to mop about 5 gallons of water directly on the floor. Takes a while, but it helps to keep the humidity up so customers' musical instruments don't end up with more cracks in them than they came in with. Keeps the dust down as well.

Adding an Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV) system to your home can solve many burning related problems. You should be able to reclaim a lot of the heat normally lost through air infiltration and the house stack effect, prevent a negative pressure situation, and keep the home in the ideal winter humidity range of about 35-40% RH. They are expensive, but will pay for themselves in the long run. I haven't seriously investigated it because I rent my home, but the current tax credit may be applicable to at least part of the system. Worth looking into.

 

[LLigetfa]

Ja, the difference between a HRV and an ERV is that the ERV returns some of the humidity whereas the HRV condenses it out. I often wondered though with the ERV, if odours aren't being returned along with the humidity.

My HRV runs constantly on low speed and I have crank timers that kick it up to high speed when we need to rid cooking odours. I don't bother cranking it for bathroom humidity however in the Winter since I need it but there are other bathroom activities that may call for it to be cranked up.

 

[NH_Wood]

I run one humidifier in the center of the house. I don't mind filling the tank once per day - takes about 2 minutes while the coffee is brewing. Only complaint is that it doesn't put out that much moisture, but, better than nothing. Cheers!

 

[Later]

We have a furnace mounted bypass humidifier that runs 100% of the time, along with the furnace fan. Keeps it about 30% all winter. I used to vent the dryer into the basement but couldn't stand the lint.