Humidifier

[DickRussell]

While deliberately humidifying the air with some device will work, wanting to do only that ignores the fundamental problem. A house with very dry interior air in the winter almost always a house that leaks far too much air. Human activity (showers, breathing, cooking, plants, aquariums, etc) produces moisture, while cold dry outside air leaking in down low and out up higher flushes out that humidity. Too dry inside means too much air leakage. Leakage also creates draftiness and cold spots, making the house uncomfortable and harder to heat.

Long term, you ought to do what you can to tighten up the house. It's no secret that new houses built to be very tight also need mechanical ventilation, both to provide the correct amount of fresh air and to keep interior humidity down to a comfortable 30-40% RH, even in winter. However, air sealing an older house is unlikely to be able to tighten it up enough to the point where mechanical ventilation is needed. The house still will leak air in winter, just nowhere as badly.

A good article to read, along with the referenced "Related Articles" at the end, is found here: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/will-a-humidifier-hurt-your-indoor-air-quality.

 

[madison]

Search EssickAir if you are looking for a whole house solution. Large cannisters are easy to fill, they have units for very large homes.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Search EssickAir if you are looking for a whole house solution. Large cannisters are easy to fill, they have units for very large homes.

You have to ask yourself where is all that water going. Most likely its condensing as soon as it hits cold sections of the top floor of your home ,attic or roof area as it exits your home. Could be doing some major damage or growing mold. I have this problem but will address it with air sealing. Ill start with a box to seal up my whole house fan .I know that leaks like a sieve. Next the gap under the attic doors. After that i may have to use a thermal imaging device to find any remaining leaks. Oh yea, got to take the ACs out of the windows.

 

[Dieselhead]

I really don't like wick style humidifiers because of the maintenance and ongoing expense of the wicks.

I have one airwash paddle humidifier- these are really cool, and pull a lot of gack out of the air, but they put a lot less water in the air than a boiler or an ultrasonic humidifier. It's basically just a big box of water with a paddle with a thousand tiny fins. A fan on top pulls air through the unit. Airflow turns the paddle. Dust and crud gets stuck on the surface of the water and sinks, and splashing water vaporizes and humidifies the air. It stops when there's about an inch of dirty water left in the bottom- then you rinse out the bucket, fill it up, and go. Downside is that cleaning the paddle can be difficult. (I quit scrubbing at it, and just take the gsrden hose to it once a year now.) This thing has been going 5+ years, 6-8 months a year, no sign of stopping. (broken link removed to http://venta-usa.com/product-category/airwashers/) It's a great unit if you're willing to take it apart and clean it every year or two (and pay the large purchase price).

I also run a boiler in the winter (commonly called 'warm mist' or 'steam'- they work simply by boiling water. I go through one of these every 2 years or so. Haven't found a reliable design with a large tank yet. My favorite so far was a Vicks with 2 1 gallon tanks, but the internal plumbing was not well designed and was rough to repair. Got 2 years out of it, but that required several repairs. It finally died of yet another water leak which corroded the outside of the heating element assembly to the point that it couldn't be removed without breaking stuff (and it had to be removed to fix the leak).

Some heavy fear mongering on that opening page

While deliberately humidifying the air with some device will work, wanting to do only that ignores the fundamental problem. A house with very dry interior air in the winter almost always a house that leaks far too much air. Human activity (showers, breathing, cooking, plants, aquariums, etc) produces moisture, while cold dry outside air leaking in down low and out up higher flushes out that humidity. Too dry inside means too much air leakage. Leakage also creates draftiness and cold spots, making the house uncomfortable and harder to heat.

Long term, you ought to do what you can to tighten up the house. It's no secret that new houses built to be very tight also need mechanical ventilation, both to provide the correct amount of fresh air and to keep interior humidity down to a comfortable 30-40% RH, even in winter. However, air sealing an older house is unlikely to be able to tighten it up enough to the point where mechanical ventilation is needed. The house still will leak air in winter, just nowhere as badly.

A good article to read, along with the referenced "Related Articles" at the end, is found here: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/will-a-humidifier-hurt-your-indoor-air-quality.

Wood heat along with hot forced air heat just dries the air out period. My house is 2010 built, pretty tight confirmed by a blower door test and it would get into the 20’s humidity range without a humidifier. I also run a OAK on my stove so it’s not outside air entering it has to be the dry heating sources.

 

[yooper08]

Agreed, if you’re pumping out large volumes of water, it’s going to end up as a problem somewhere down the road, particularly so if you have interior surfaces below the dew point.

 

[yooper08]

I get the concept of “well if your house is tight, you shouldn’t need to humidify the air.” If that were 100% truly true, we’d also not need to condition the air. Some climates just need to. Fact is, the insides of our houses are different than the outsides, and conditions need to be balanced given what’s going on on both sides of the wall.

 

[Hogwildz]

I use one of these, handles 2666sf pretty well.
(broken link removed to https://www.kenmore.com/products/kenmore-evaporative-humidifier-4-6-gallon-capacity/)

 

[jetsam]

Some heavy fear mongering on that opening page

I used a wick style evaporative humidifier for years. The worst health problem it caused me was mild annoyance.

No clue what "humidifier fever" is. Must be an industry term.

My venta is a very good low output humidifier even if their website is silly.

 

[RandyBoBandy]

I used a wick style evaporative humidifier for years. The worst health problem it caused me was mild annoyance.

No clue what "humidifier fever" is. Must be an industry term.

My venta is a very good low output humidifier even if their website is silly.

Holy price tag Are they really as good as Edward Norton says thy are?

 

[jetsam]

Holy price tag Are they really as good as Edward Norton says thy are?

I've already had it 5 years, so at $220 the price per year is already on par with a $80 unit that needs to be replaced every 2 years, and I don't see why it wouldn't last another 5.

It is not high output... you'll get more water into the air with any other style. On the other hand, it captures a lot of dirt out of the air, which the other styles don't do.

No idea who edward norton is.

Any claims of miraculous health benefits can safely be ignored.... it puts water into the air and takes some dirt out.

 

[RandyBoBandy]

I'm definitely interested in the approach of cleaning the air while adding moisture. Edward Norton is an actor. He is on venta's website.

 

[Tar12]

While deliberately humidifying the air with some device will work, wanting to do only that ignores the fundamental problem. A house with very dry interior air in the winter almost always a house that leaks far too much air. Human activity (showers, breathing, cooking, plants, aquariums, etc) produces moisture, while cold dry outside air leaking in down low and out up higher flushes out that humidity. Too dry inside means too much air leakage. Leakage also creates draftiness and cold spots, making the house uncomfortable and harder to heat.

Long term, you ought to do what you can to tighten up the house. It's no secret that new houses built to be very tight also need mechanical ventilation, both to provide the correct amount of fresh air and to keep interior humidity down to a comfortable 30-40% RH, even in winter. However, air sealing an older house is unlikely to be able to tighten it up enough to the point where mechanical ventilation is needed. The house still will leak air in winter, just nowhere as badly.

A good article to read, along with the referenced "Related Articles" at the end, is found here: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/will-a-humidifier-hurt-your-indoor-air-quality.

I agree 100%....This house is leaky for sure...that will be addressed this spring by way of all new windows,doors,siding and sealing where I can...till then to try and combat the dryness the humidifier will be running.

 

[coutufr]

Try to have your basement exterior walls shooted with spray foam. My house is 1994, new doors and windows, R 50 in the attic. I have to use the heat exchanger to get rid of extra humidity. For those interested into understanding humidity and air temperature, read about dew point.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Im going to do some major air sealing this week,my humidity is down to 25% . Ill report back when its done if the sealing made a measurable difference. Im finding some horrendous leaks. House should be easier to heat as well being air leaks are one of the prime reasons making a house is hard to heat in moderately cold weather. Main boiler seems to be running more than usual to keep up and its not all that cold yet. Much worse cold air moving in this week!

 

[jetsam]

Im going to do some major air sealing this week,my humidity is down to 25% . Ill report back when its done if the sealing made a measurable difference. Im finding some horrendous leaks. House should be easier to heat as well being air leaks are one of the prime reasons making a house is hard to heat in moderately cold weather. Main boiler seems to be running more than usual to keep up and its not all that cold yet. Much worse cold air moving in this week!

How are you inspecting for leaks?

 

[Doc C]

I have a few RH gauges. Anything less the 36% and my nose starts hurting and burning, my dogs start shocking me, and things get uncomfortable.

My house is VERY tight! Without a humidifier can easily get below 30%. So anyone who says that a tight house can’t have low RH I believe is maybe living in a different situation.

Our house is proof that a tight house can have low RH.

I think there is a lot more to the equation.

 

[Dieselhead]

Yep

 

[yooper08]

I have a few RH gauges. Anything less the 36% and my nose starts hurting and burning, my dogs start shocking me, and things get uncomfortable.

My house is VERY tight! Without a humidifier can easily get below 30%. So anyone who says that a tight house can’t have low RH I believe is maybe living in a different situation.

Our house is proof that a tight house can have low RH.

I think there is a lot more to the equation.

An example for my earlier post. If you live in a dry climate, the inside of your house isn't inside a bubble, no matter how well sealed it is. You can't wet with dry.

The article/research cited was 1 guy. Just like picking a stove/insert for a particular house, humidity levels can be just as tricky.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

How are you inspecting for leaks?

I know where some of the culprits are. Space under the attic door,whole house fan louvers in hallway, ACs still in windows. Bath vents. First thing i did was closed off the dryer vent and ill let it vent inside for heat and moisture for now. Made a difference already. My son has an infrared camera too so i may use that after i fix the obvious problems.

 

[yooper08]

^ I'll be pulling out my whole house fan next year, but I insulated it for this year. If I had the money to do it, I'd also redo all of the AC ducting by pulling it out of the attic and routing it through space between the floors. Ducting in an attic is a stupid idea come winter time. Each year, I have a ritual of putting the plastic window film over all of the AC vents, otherwise we get cold air rushing down the vents. Then come summer I go around and take it all down, yay!

 

[madison]

Our air conditioner air handler is in the attic, each fall I remove the duct covers and fill the duct openings with insulation. Pain in the butt, but there was tremendous heat loss thru those ducts into the attic. The insulation helps, but I would never buy another house with the air handler in the attic, all sorts of issues besides heat loss, water leaks thru the ceiling to name one.

 

[Manly]

I have a few RH gauges. Anything less the 36% and my nose starts hurting and burning, my dogs start shocking me, and things get uncomfortable.

My house is VERY tight! Without a humidifier can easily get below 30%. So anyone who says that a tight house can’t have low RH I believe is maybe living in a different situation.

Our house is proof that a tight house can have low RH.

I think there is a lot more to the equation.

Sounds like you need more insulation, plastic and duct tape to drive that humidity up. Don't forget to seal up the wall outlets and switches. They are notorious for sucking out humidity. Manly

 

[Doc C]

Sounds like you need more insulation, plastic and duct tape to drive that humidity up. Don't forget to seal up the wall outlets and switches. They are notorious for sucking out humidity. Manly

Lol!! I can’t really close the house up anymore. I had to add a passive air intake just to get my stove to work

 

[yooper08]

The insulation helps, but I would never buy another house with the air handler in the attic, all sorts of issues besides heat loss, water leaks thru the ceiling to name one.

You and me both, never again. Next house search for us, it'll fail the house and we'll move onto the next one.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Outside Humidity today is 16% ,inside is 23% in the first floor. The Sahara desert averages 25% ,so 16% is dry for Central PA. Time to break out the misting humidifier.