Whole house humidifiers

Anyone have one? Installed one? Pros, cons, prices? She wants one. Our house has two stories and two furnaces, so really she wants two.

I like to DIY, but I don't want to turn my furnace off for a week and stuff, either.

Sorry this is quick, but there isn't much more to add. Any ideas?

Contact the manufacturer of your furnaces, they probably have something that slips in line and can also tell you how long it will be down. I don't see a week.

Dan

You can buy stand alone humidifiers. I have one, works fine. You just have to keep the water jugs full.

I have one, it was installed as part of a package when I had central air installed. It looks pretty darned simple to do - cut a hole in the cold air return duct to mount the main unit, add an additional small duct, saddle tap off the hot water heater to supply water, power for the water solenoid hooks off the main board for the gas fired furnace. Done. Mine doesn't seem to be working very well though, I need to drop a new water panel into it to see if that helps.

No tee-ing into a gas line, no crazy 230 Vac drops? Hurm, they aren't that pricey.

As far as the stand alones, we have two, but they get grimey quickly and then we're just spraying finely atomized mold at our kids.

tuna55 wrote: No tee-ing into a gas line, no crazy 230 Vac drops? Hurm, they aren't that pricey. As far as the stand alones, we have two, but they get grimey quickly and then we're just spraying finely atomized mold at our kids.

ASSuming you have forced air, then nope, it's just as I described - just a humidistat-controlled water leak onto a piece of fibrous material placed into the cold air return. The only power is needed to run the control valve and I'm sure it's just tapped off the main furnace, at least on my setup.

April Aire is the company/product that is typical around the upper midwest, and its pretty much the simple set as described above. Mines not working, but thats because the PO of my house didnt maintain it. It got all junked up with lime deposits.

tuna55 wrote: No tee-ing into a gas line, no crazy 230 Vac drops? Hurm, they aren't that pricey. As far as the stand alones, we have two, but they get grimey quickly and then we're just spraying finely atomized mold at our kids.

To be honest, this is something you may want to talk to a pro about - if not correctly sized, controlled and/or installed, you can end up with mold all over the place. Bear in mind, it will add another level of maintenance to your HVAC system.

Ian F wrote:

tuna55 wrote: No tee-ing into a gas line, no crazy 230 Vac drops? Hurm, they aren't that pricey. As far as the stand alones, we have two, but they get grimey quickly and then we're just spraying finely atomized mold at our kids.

To be honest, this is something you may want to talk to a pro about - if not correctly sized, controlled and/or installed, you can end up with mold all over the place. Bear in mind, it will add another level of maintenance to your HVAC system.

tuna55 wrote:

Ian F wrote:

tuna55 wrote: No tee-ing into a gas line, no crazy 230 Vac drops? Hurm, they aren't that pricey. As far as the stand alones, we have two, but they get grimey quickly and then we're just spraying finely atomized mold at our kids.

To be honest, this is something you may want to talk to a pro about - if not correctly sized, controlled and/or installed, you can end up with mold all over the place. Bear in mind, it will add another level of maintenance to your HVAC system.

that's sorta what I was thinking too. They're so darn cheap though, I just know it's going to cost $700 to install a $150 humidifier.

Yeah - it's forced air. One up in the attic (which complicates things as it could potentially get below freezing) and one in the crawlspace which we would likely leave alone.

Crawl space heated? If not, another consideration making at least consulting with a pro worth the $..

Of course not, but like I said we'd leave the one in the crawlspace alone.

tuna55 wrote: that's sorta what I was thinking too. They're so darn cheap though, I just know it's going to cost $700 to install a $150 humidifier.

Oh, I know... and considering this sort of design work is what my g/f and I do for a living in the pharma industry (where humidity control is done to a very high tolerance and at great expense), it's tough to hire outside help. That said, this a system that if you get it wrong, the results can be bad - very bad - and can make you and your family sick. If you hire somebody and they screw it up, you at least have some recourse by which to get it fixed. It's not the equipment installation that is the issue - it's the controls and knowing where and how to install then and set them up.