humidifiers

[save$]

In an earlier post, I asked if anyone had good things to say about whole house humidifers. Didn't get any bites. Got looking around and came up with this site: http://www.iallergy.com/
seems like really good prices and shipping rates.
I put an order in today for some replacement filters. They seem to have about anything you might need.
Sure beats shopping around from store to store, or buying some generic thing that you have to trim to fit.

 

[Alain S. Prevost]

I have a PF100 currently heating the house. I installed a skuttle bypass type whole home humidifier. It flows from the supply through a piece of flex duct though a container with a rotating moist drum (made out of sponge like material) I hard piped the water line to the unit that uses a float type shutoff and supply valve for the water bin. Humidity in my home was around 35, very dry. Used the humidifer overnight and installed the humidistat the skuttle comes with and set it to medium, all my windows had moisture on them the next morning.
I turned it down to low humidity and I used a plate to restrict the airflow going through the drum....Very comfortable now, in fact I secured the water supply and unplugged the humidifier, its about 45% in the house now.
http://www.skuttle.com/drum.html apppx $160. Very easy install.
I buy from iallergy for my filters- 3M Filtrete 2200 Elite Filter 20x20x1

 

[woodgeek]

Did you get the 'flush timer' option that purges the water periodically to avoid mineral buildup?...I've heard that's a big plus on long term maintenance.

 

[Retired Guy]

Just put in an Aprilaire 600M. Bypass style seems to work although it's tough to get RH up to 35%

 

[Alain S. Prevost]

I have a pretty extensive well filtration setup - I also wash the pan and drum during the season and once im done using the pellet furnace for the season. Maintenance is very simple, barely any parts to the system...
I looked itno the Aprilaire system as well, very good sys. ... my local HVAC place had Skuttle so I went with that. $130 total. I cut into the plenum and into the return with my shears and used some self-tapping sheet metal screws, hooked up a dc xformer and plugged it in. Used a saddle valve and tapped into my cold water source - no sense in using hot water for my setup - the water will warm up on its own once in the pan off the plenum.

 

[Hogwildz]

Running a Kenmore console unit here, does a fine job.

 

[maverick06]

i have heard nothing good about whole house units. I ripped one out of my parents house and one out of my current house. After pulling them out, I am thrilled i did, they looked like a ticking time bomb of disease waiting to go off.

I have been using a wick style evaporative type keeing the house in good condition. However hte wicks are getting annoying and expensive to replace, so I just bought an ultrasonic one. My house is an open floor plan house, so even though these are medium/large room humidifiers, I know that running at 90-100% duty cycle I can keep my house at 45% humidity on the worst of days. So thats the plan here.

humidifier i just bought, hasnt shown up yet, best ultrasonic one i could find at the price i wanted to pay.
http://www.amazon.com/Optimus-U-310...0073444&sr=8-7&keywords=ultrasonic+humidifier

 

[save$]

So far, I am able to keep the humidity up with one of the multiroom units located on each floor. Because these are three part units, they are easy to keep clean which is a very essential part of the process. What I don't like is that each unit only holds 2 gallons which means I have to fill them twice daily. I clean them out with a bleach solution. I can't access the fan, so I just spray some Lysol where I can't reach.
Where the unit is, the humidity is about 35-40, but go into a room away from them and the humidity is 16. And that is with ceiling fans going. Other things I have are plants and two aquariums. Also running a lot of water to them. In the summer, it is just the opposite and I have to run a dehumidifier. Go figure!

 

[woodgeek]

i have heard nothing good about whole house units. I ripped one out of my parents house and one out of my current house. After pulling them out, I am thrilled i did, they looked like a ticking time bomb of disease waiting to go off.

I have been using a wick style evaporative type keeing the house in good condition. However hte wicks are getting annoying and expensive to replace, so I just bought an ultrasonic one. My house is an open floor plan house, so even though these are medium/large room humidifiers, I know that running at 90-100% duty cycle I can keep my house at 45% humidity on the worst of days. So thats the plan here.

humidifier i just bought, hasnt shown up yet, best ultrasonic one i could find at the price i wanted to pay.
http://www.amazon.com/Optimus-U-31005-Gallon-Ultrasonic-Humidifier/dp/B003H4QJAQ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1360073444&sr=8-7&keywords=ultrasonic humidifier

I am a pretty healthy guy, but I eventually became 'sensitive' to the mineral particles the ultrasonics emit (the famous white dust). My nose would actually swell up (its big enough already) and hurt. Traced it to the humidifier after a couple seasons. Damndest thing. On a hunch I started feeding it distilled water....no problem. Went back to wicks and tap water...also no problem.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

I gave up on em ,got tired of the constant filling. I just deal with the dry and vent the dryer inside. Got some big aquariums in the house that helps.

 

[seige101]

I am a pretty healthy guy, but I eventually became 'sensitive' to the mineral particles the ultrasonics emit (the famous white dust). My nose would actually swell up (its big enough already) and hurt. Traced it to the humidifier after a couple seasons. Damndest thing. On a hunch I started feeding it distilled water....no problem. Went back to wicks and tap water...also no problem.

Had the same problem with the ultrasonic ones (we have very hard water with lots of iron content) Since putting in an iron filter and water softener it helped out a lot. Then i got the brilliant idea to feed it filtered water from the reverse osmosis system on the kitchen sink. Problem solved. The only cleaning i do is once a month i will swish around a tiny amount of bleach water inside the tank to sanitize it, then rinse it out and will with filtered water again.

 

[woodgeek]

I gave up on em ,got tired of the constant filling. I just deal with the dry and vent the dryer inside. Got some big aquariums in the house that helps.

One thing to remember is that airsealing makes a HUGE difference in the amount of water needed. Before I airsealed I could put 5-6 gallons a day in the air and see NO detectable effect effect on a RH meter. If the unit had an autoshutoff, it never shut off. We were all miserable, house would go down to 15% RH, chair legs would get loose, you name it. After airsealing, house maintains 30% RH (my arbitrary threshold) without a humidifier until about new years, and after that the house needs only 1-3 gallons/day to maintain that. With a 3 gallon unit I fill it every day or two. And by the end of feb, it will go back in storage.

So, in the old days, I might have wanted a whole house or console unit (and still been uncomfortable). Now a (modest sized) wick unit carries the whole house easily, and I really only need it for 6-8 weeks. No big dealy.