Whole house humidifier

[Wes Billups]

I'm tired of refilling those little humidifiers in each of our kid's rooms every day and have decided it's time to install a whole house humidifier. I'm hoping to get some help from those here who have experience with them. Are there certain types I should avoid? Is this a diy project or should I leave it up to the professionals? What can I expect to spend for either route, diy or pro?

Thanks,
Wes

[Al Willits]

We sell a lot of the Aprilaire 600 series units, its what I have in my house and it works well, but they are rated for sq footage so check which model works for you.

As far as DIY, check with you neighbors maybe and see if anyone has a by pass humidifier in their house, you can get a look at what needs to be done.
With out knowing your skill level it'd be hard to say whether you can install one or not, there's a bit of wiring, tin work and water connections to deal with.

Al

[David G Baker]

Wes,
The previous owner of my home had a whole house humidifier installed on the forced air furnace. My house's water supply comes from a well that has a tremendous amount of iron in it. The water runs through a water softener, that helps some but not enough to run the whole house humidifier economically.
I have a couple of the small ultrasonic humidifiers that I now use because the well water destroyed the whole house unit. I have to use distilled water in the ultrasonic units because if I don't everything in the room gets covered with white mineral deposits from the mist generated by the humidifier.
I also have one of the largest Holmes two tank humidifiers that is available in most retail stores. This unit will go through a $14 filter/wick in 10 days if I try to get the humidity up into the 40-50% in my living spaces. I follow the humidifier instructions to the letter and add all of the recommended chemicals and clean it as instructed in the operator manual. If I had good water this unit would work fine for me.
If your water supply is municipal or city a whole house should be fine or if you are on well water and have good water you should be okay.

[Jim Becker]

We have one...takes a lot of maintenance, specially if you have a lot of minerals in your water, but it definitely works. I'm having one installed in the addition, too.

[Walt Caza]

Hi Wes,
When I did the research, the best whole house humidifier to add to my
forced-air gas furnace was the flow-through type. Much better than
the old rotating sponge drum type. The evap. pads do load up with
minerals, but I get a whole winter out of one pad, for maybe can$10/each.

Seems to bypass mould issues, and has adjustment for airflow and
level of humidity. A little saddle tap brings water from the plumbing,
which beats filling those little machines.
I find in the bitter cold weather, it helps to run the furnace fan on constant,
not auto, to bring warmer upstairs air down, and wetter basement air up.
Good luck,
Walt

ps you do need a floor drain though
:)

[Rick Gifford]

I use a flow through type, HoneyWell brand from Home Depot. I replaced my old one from Sears when they discontinued it and getting the filters was such a pain.

The HoneyWell works great, no problems at all.

[Fred Voorhees]

We have had an Aprilaire whole house humidifier in our home ever since we bought it. We updated with a new unit a number of years ago and have been quite happy with it. It shouldn't be very hard at all to deal with installation as long as you have an easy way to run the small humidistat wiring from the wall humidistat to the humidifier itself and also have a clear path to run the necessary plumbing to the area of the humidifier. Generally, there is a small amount of tin work involved also, but that shouldn't be much of a problem either.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

We sell a lot of the Aprilaire 600 series units, its what I have in my house and it works well, but they are rated for sq footage so check which model works for you.

That's what I have and I like it fine.