I made my humidifier slightly better

The sound effect is my favorite part 🤣🤣🤣

Interesting that ERV/HRV don't have options for humidity control (both dehumidifier & humidifier). As we drive toward better sealed houses, that would seem to be the way to go.

Alternate take: attics should be nicer.

Our HVAC people keep harping on us to get a whole house humidifier installed. Your video shows why I don’t want one. We have a room humidifier in our bedroom. I have to fill it up in the mornings and night before going to bed. Once per week, i take it apart and wash it out with vinegar which removes bacteria and calcium deposits. Minimal maintenance and cost. A few questions. We keep at 55% humidity. Your whole house one only goes up to 45%. Why? You mentioned when it’s cold, you need to turn down the humidity. It’s been 19° F here and we haven’t had problems with condensation on windows or walls at 55%. Is this something about whole house humidifiers

The system got stuck on at my dad’s house. When they figured that out the went into the crawl space and drilled a small hole in the lowest ductwork. 5 gallons of water drained out.

are there no hot vapor humidifiers available in the US? Because these really are the closest you can get to "set and forget" especially when fed with lime-free rainwater.

I really liked the Honeywell DG115EZIAQ controller at my previous home. It had an LCD screen that displayed the extra info you were hoping to see. The temperature sensor is in a plastic housing, so it can’t be hidden in the intake pipe, but looks nice on the side of the house.

This video feels like deja vu. I just went through this whole process installing the Aprilaire 800. Same humidistat, same issues with the short thermostat wire, and I also ended up running it through the intake pipe. I also had the fun of wiring up an additional 240v circuit. Can't get enough of those. I had it set up for the recent cold snap here in Chicago about a week or so ago when it dipped below 0 and I did have to dial it back one step to avoid condensation (5 to 4). Overall though, I'm super happy with the system.

Shorten your stripped wires... you have way too much copper showing under that terminal block. No, it's not going to nuke the planet (darn...) if something moves and shorts out, but best to not blow something up on either the furnace or humidistat board if you can avoid it.... Also, is this a different house? The HVAC gear looks different from what you showed in the "how a furnace works" video, which I thought was shot in your house/studio...

OK, so this is the first I'm hearing about turning down your humidity setting in really cold weather. And here I was thinking I was the king of humidification because I manage to keep the house at around 50% humidity in the coldest of weather. Looks like I might want to re-evaluate.

I'm just here, waiting for your Home Assistant arc. Yes, it requires a lot of setup and learning, but boy does it solve a lot of automation problems. E.g. the "getting a wire from an outdoor temperature sensor hooked up to the humidistat in the middle of the house is a pain" becomes effortless. And you still get to have control over everything by having it run locally, not depending on any cloud service company that could go out of business tomorrow. Edit: Ah well, I guess I should have watched for 30 more seconds lol. My example may be for naught, but the point still stands :)

Merry Christmas! As an HVAC tech, I felt I need to add some tidbits of information. Most of the humidifier kits come with polypropylene tubing. This tubing can't be connected to the hot water side of your water heater. To use hot water, you will need to plumb with copper tubing or risk a burst near the tank end. An alternative control that uses an outdoor temperature sensor is the Honeywell Humidipro. As far as wiring this one compared to the AprilAire, it's the same nonsense. One of the details about humidifiers usually buried in the fine print is that the "gallons per day" delivery capacity is rated at a plenum temperature of 140 degrees F. So, other than steam humdifiers, none of the evaporative humidifiers actually acheive their rated delivery. An additional accessory you might consider is the General Air Water Savor timer. (not a spelling error ). This timer is wired in series with the solenoid valve and times the valve opeing for 4 seconds on and 20 seconds off. It substantially reduces the amount of unevaporated water that ends up going down the drain. I live in Ottawa Ontario Canada, and our water bill has a 150% surcharge for waste water treatment, so minimizing the waste can result in substantial savings. For those of you that embrace smart thermostats, I have found the Ecobee 6 does the best job of managing the indoor humidity while monitoring the local outdoor temperature using internet weather information.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Moist Christmas and Happy Humid New Year!

Perfect christmas gift, as I just bought two humidifiers

Epcot Forever ❤️

A Christmas Eve TC video!? This is like getting to open one of your gifts from the stocking the night before Christmas morning! ☺️🎄

Per the note about attics and closets, the HVAC professionals I’ve asked in my last two houses have said they won’t add central humidifiers to attic air handlers because of the risk of flooding.

I replaced this type of humidifier with a steam humidifier. Essentially, it's an electric water boiler and you get steam out of it. Dry steam. That you can inject into the incoming air so that it can't drop onto the furnace. It's much closer to being completely automatic, you just need to change the humidifier canister once a season. For humidity control, I just use a Home-Assistant-based automation that controls the humidifier with a Zigbee dry-contacts switch. So I can use the humidity reading from my living room and calibrate it to not cause the condensation on my windows.

I wonder if the outdoor temperature sensor would get an accurate (enough) reading if it was just at the intake pipe inside the furnace. It isn't the exact same as the outside air, but at least while the furnace is running, it should be close, right? (Happy holidays to all!)

"farts" LOL

You’re not going to tell us what the fire alarm bell does? How could you?

I have a similar model from Aprilaire. Mine doesn't have a fan, it has a 6 inch duct outlet on the side which you connect to the return side of the HVAC. Also, mine has two float switches on a reservoir at the bottom which turns off the water solenoid when it fills up. The drain is only there as a safety in case the floats get stuck. The controller also has a hygrometer which is open to the return duct and a outdoor temperature sensor. I also have it supplied with water from my RO system. I strongly recommend installing a RO system, and in a remote location where you can replace the puny 1 gallon reservoir with 15 gallons or more! Feed RO to your sink for cooking/drinking, your refrigerator (ice) and dryer if it has a steam function. The RO will eliminate calcification problems in all of these appliances. My Keurig coffee maker lasted for over 10 years without any scale. RO is also great for aquarium maintenance. If you feed the RO with water from a softener then RO maintenance is also nearly eliminated.

Neat, I kind of figured out how to do this with an automation in Home Assistant and aggregating multiple humidity sensors...Not sure how I'd handle the "reduce humidity with lower outside temps" logic, but it would definitely be possible to do most of the job with some wireless sensors, a smart plug, and some computer automating stuff locally

www.charlottepipe.com FTW! I love how they say "evaporative humidifier" on the box, like there is any other kind. First, I'm glad to be in Florida, and second, I'd turn that furnace humidifier off permanently, and just use a portable one. It sounds like an absolute bodge job.

Merry Christmas to you and yours Alec! (And to the whole TC community) 💓 I hope it’s a lovely one.

I just finished hooking up five humidifiers up to Home Assistant, I've been battling that forced-air furnace dryness all season. This couldn't have arrived at a better time -- Merry Christmas!