ED HAYES

Dry air is very unpleasant to be in for extended periods of time. Last winter I tried to rectify the problem by using a single ultrasonic humidifier. It seemed totally inadequate, so I purchased a second higher capacity unit. I quickly became annoyed at how tedious it was to fill the reservoirs. And neither really solved my problem well. This year, I decided to install a whole home humidifier system.

Installing a Humidifier is not an easy task, and required quite a bit of knowledge of different building systems. See below for all of the work that I did, what I learned, and a list of parts.

System Selection

The most common type of whole home humidifier is a bypass humidifier, where water trickles down a special mesh pad that heated air passes over. The humidifier unit itself is quite large and must be attached to a fairly large surface area of unobstructed flat ductwork, as well as have a return/supply bypass. Unfortunately I did not have the space on either side of my furnace (cold air return, or heated air supply) to place the bypass unit.

I did quite a bit of research to find some alternatives. I selected a steam humidifier; an AprilAire 800. The AprilAire 800 is a steam generating machine which placed on a wall/support close to the hot air supply of the furnace. A steam pipe is connected from the steam generator to the ductwork. The AprilAire 800 has a replaceable canister with electrodes in it.  The unit fills the canister with water and generates steam. Periodically, the system will flush the mineral rich water out to reduce mineral buildup in the canister.

A significant benefit to a steam system is that it doesn’t need the furnace to run heat at the same time it is humidifying, it only requires air circulation.

The unit has a capacity of 34.6 gallons a day, but my configuration will be at 23.3 gallons a day. Seems the maximum capacity of a bypass unit would be about 12 gallons a day. Ultrasonic units have a capacity closer to 3 gallons a day.

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