Okay, im sure alot of us have humidifiers but I am in desperate need of a large humidifier. What brand and size should I get for a 1175 Sqft house. The one I got just dont put out enough moisture, and I hear bad stories about pretty much every brand of humidifier. What else could I do?

 

i have a humidifier put on you furnace. they have a humidistat that you set the humidity level you want. it was $200 when i put my furnace in. it hooks to the water line you dont have to fill it up. the temp outside now i 8 i have the house at 69 with an inside humidity at 44%. i can go higher but the windows steam up.

 

200 bucks thats interesting. I have a heat pump though I wonder if that would make a difference?

 

i have a heatpump and a gas furnace. the heatpump runs till it gets below 28 outside then the heatpump turns off then the gas furnace turns on. my humidifier works with the heatpump and the gas furnace. i have a this one it works with heatpumps

http://shopping.msn.com/specs/skuttl...ier&fulldesc=1

if you think you can put it in your self you can find them on the net for about $120. make sure you put a water filter on the water line. its the same one for an ice maker. you will get something like this to control it. they put mine next to my thermostat
http://cgi.ebay.com/Skuttle-SEH-7100...3286.m20.l1116

or you may want to call a few havc company's and get a price.

 

not sure if this matters (humidity wise), but i live in northern new jersey.

when we had a new furnace installed, we also had a humidifier added to the air duct work (for the forced hot air) on the main line out of the furnace.

with that being said, i still have to run humidifer units in the house.

those inline ones sound nice, but only operate while the furnace is running, actively passing the heated air through the ducts. on its own, that was never anywhere near raising the humidity levels in the house to where they should have been. my furnace sits idle for more time than its actively running.
i would not install one of these units again if given the choice.

that being said, i still have to use humidifiers in the house in addition to the one running with the furnace. i have used different models in the past, but to me, they all are a p.i.t.a. i have been using a couple of models from a company named 'holmes'. they have held up nicely over the past several years, but are a p.i.t.a. to fill, and keep clean (but i think that goes for all humidifiers). i would buy another holmes humidifier without thinking twice about it.

 

We've got one on our HVAC system. On the control panel, it monitors the humidity, when it reaches the low humidity set point, it will activate the blower and the humidifier, and then when the heat gets to the low temperature set point, it will then kick over the furnace or a/c unit depending on what we've got it set to.

 

they must have put the wrong size nozzle. mine can make it feel sticky in here.

 

My setup is identical to chrism's. Heatpump and gas furnace with an added on humidifier. Only took me about 30 minutes to install because the previous owners had one before and the holes were already cut in the duct. I just had to take the blanks off they used to block off the holes and run a water line then hook everything up. I hooked the humidifier motor up to the furnace blower so it comes on whenever the blower does no matter if it's set to furnace or heatpump. The same blower is used by both.

 

chris,

i have played with the setting dial on the built in thermostat. when doing so, i stayed in the basement and watched the furnace kick on many times. each and every time excess water came out of the overflow of the humidifier, so i am certain that more than enough water was being run over the filter.

that was something else i wasnt crazy about with the built in unit. on the portables upstairs i put 8 gallons in to the tank, and 8 gallons gets dispersed into the air. in the basement, i would suspect alot more water being wasted as it is not all being used. my thermostats also kick down when we are away from the house during the day, and sleeping at night, this would cause them to put less moisterized air into the house also. i like the idea of the free standing units running whenever the humidity level setting is met, and not just when the heat needs to come on.


if memory serves me right, the built in unit is by a company called 'skuttle',

 

April Aire, Honeywell, and General all make quality flow-through humidifiers. You'll have to figure out which model is proper for your size house.

I have a Honeywell which was installed about 6 years ago. It maintains the humidity in the house through it's own humidistat on the furnace in the basement. I set it to where I want and watch the humidity level on a gauge by the thermostat upstairs, and rarely make any adjustments. I like to keep it between 33-40%. It just depends on how cold it is outside, but the colder it gets, the more humidity the humidifier pumps out.

 

i still bet you have the wrong size nozzle. they make different sizes for different size houses. maybe the brand you have is not that good