| Hey-Jude |
Wondering if anyone has any experience with this. We recently moved in to a new construction house in Minnesota. The furnace has a honeywell humidifier built on it as well as a Venmar air exchanger. Really from the time we moved in ( in November ) it seemed too dry in the house. I played around with the various controls to increase the humidity but about the most I could get it to on the 1st floor was 35 %. This is with the air exchanger turned to Spring setting (goes off less frequently) and the humidity control on the furnace turned to 10 (the max setting).
Does this sound right ??? Doesn't to me.
I asked the builder about it and he said that's probably right but I don't want it to be that high anyways because then I'm going to get condensation on the windows. (This is when it was about 20 degrees F outside). I did have some condensation on the windows but they're vinyl so I wasn't too worried about that. He said 20% or less was what I should probably have with that outside temperature.
I readjusted the settings to 5 on the humidity control and set the air exchanger for the air temp outside and the humidity dropped to about 17-19 %. This is very very dry. There's no condensation on any windows ... but I'm worried about my new hickory floors cracking from shrinkage.
Anyways... wondering if anyone has ever struggled with this and has any input.
Thanks all! |
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| ByeByeChrysler |
I'm not familiar with your system but,
here's a long shot, check the water supply
to the humidifier to make sure it is working
properly. |
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| crmsnidol |
I have an Aprilaire 700 whole-house humidifier that I believe is set to 55%. Only this past week have I seen any condensation on the windows because it has been 5 or 6 degrees in the morning.
I'll check the setting tonight and re-post.
Do you hear your floors snapping or settling during the night? |
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| CTPYHA |
I fight with low humidity every winter. I have very expensive wooden musical instruments and they require at least 40% humidity. Here is the scoop. I learned that it depends on the house itself a lot. I have two year old furnace and brand new humidifier (built in AprilAire 700) and new windows. This is one of the largest house humidifier units available BTW. And still I get at most around 30% humidity when it's really cold outside (20F or less). So, in the room where I keep instruments I use local humidifier as well. I am sorry to say this, but I don't think that you can win your fight with humidity. At least without investing into it heavily.
However, here is good news for you. If you can keep it around 30%, humidity your floors will be just fine! It may squeak or even show some minor gaps, but it's not going to crack. Floors are thick enough not to crack unless you take it to extreme. And 30% is far from extreme for floors... |
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| shootist |
Try browsing Carrier.com. They have some excellent info on interior humidity and comfort.
You're right- 35% is at the low end of comfort. 55% is the high end of comfort. Above and below this range you get "things" and "stuff" growing.
I've always thought that a whole house humidifier should be able to pump just about as much water into the air that you want, as long as you're mixing it with hot air. Don't pump water into a cold air stream, or you're likely to get "stuff" growing. |
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| zman |
Looking at the control panel for my Carrier air exchanger it looks like they recommend an indoor humidity of about 30% if the outside temp is about 0F and about 55% if the outodoor temp is 50F. I don't have any trouble maintaining these humidity levels with my air exchanger running all of the time with no humidifer running.
We can't tell without looking at it obviously but it seems that if your humidifier were working properly you could get the humidity higher than you're getting.
If you want to get the humidity higher I would recommend running the air exchanger less. You're pumping in moisture with the humidifer but sucking moisture out by running the air exchanger. I would think that they tend to fight each other. Just make sure that you don't pump so much humidity in that you start getting frost/condensation on the windows. I think that is a sign that you have too much humidity. |
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| renov8r |
I suspect that your "humidistat" is confusing you.
As you probably know, the hotter it is the more moisture the air will hold before it condenses to a liquid. At low temps air can hold only a tiny bit of mositure. http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~physi...standingRH.html This means you need a pretty sophisticated temperature compensate sensor: http://www.sensorsmag.com/articles/0701/54/main.shtml
The "relative indooor humidity" is what the humidistat is trying to report, but it can be off by a great deal.
Your floors will expand and contract not just with changes in humidity, but also at constant humidity & changing temp.
Does your the air in you house seem especially dry? Do you wake up with crusty eyes, nose & mouth? Does water left out for the dog evaporate quickly? If not I would attribute the numbers to innaccurate measurement... |
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| Warzau |
| When I installed my whole house humidifier I installed the Aprilaire 700 since it has a outdoor bulb which communicates with the control unit that checks the humidity of the supply plenum. I just had to set it once and then since this is the first heating season I had to adjusted according to our house due to contruction of the house and other variables. But it hade a world of difference, when as before I had to raise the thermostat to 73-74. Now with the humidty I can lower the thermostat to 71-72. My question to you does it have the exterior bulb or do you need to manually set it. |
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| nwaring |
When we got our walk through on the new house the builder told me to keep changing (increase) it until I got condensation on the windows then backed it down a little. It has been on that setting ever since. I don't have any way to measure it but we don't have any dry throats etc.
With this last cold spell\storm last week I noticed condensation on the windows and the house wasn't heating up very well. It turned out my filter was in bad shape. Put in a new filter...condensation went away and the heat came back.
Not very scientific but works for us:D
Good luck
Niles |
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| crmsnidol |
quote:
Originally posted by nwaring
With this last cold spell\storm last week I noticed condensation on the windows and the house wasn't heating up very well. It turned out my filter was in bad shape. Put in a new filter...condensation went away and the heat came back.
What filter? The furnace or the humidifier? |
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| A2MDXer |
| I am also fighting this right now. Home was built in 2001 and we have Anderson windows (but no storms) and I am getting condensation, probably b/c we like to keep it at least 35-40% even in winter. I can keep the humidity high enough, but is there any way to keep the condensation lower? We have noticed is much worse on the windows with cellular shades (due to insulation value obviously). Will storm windows help or are we forced to keep humidity lower? |
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| nwaring |
crmsnidol...furnace filter. The flow of air was all jacked up I'm guessing. I have one of those life time filters and it has been a while since I cleaned it. :twak:
Niles |
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| crmsnidol |
quote:
Originally posted by nwaring
crmsnidol...furnace filter. The flow of air was all jacked up I'm guessing. I have one of those life time filters and it has been a while since I cleaned it. :twak:
Niles
Thanks for the reminder! I changed mine in Dec but I'm finishing my basement off (2 years+ DON'T ASK) and should be finished with the sawing/drywall dust mess this week and will replace the filter again. |
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| renov8r |
...you should hire a really professional air duct cleaner. You want a guy who has a HUGE vacuum, the kindof thing that you can only truck around. He will need to cut access panels into several ducts.
After drywalling our basement there were literally POUNDS of construction debris in the ducts -- amaxing difference!
quote:
Originally posted by crmsnidol
Thanks for the reminder! I changed mine in Dec but I'm finishing my basement off (2 years+ DON'T ASK) and should be finished with the sawing/drywall dust mess this week and will replace the filter again.
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| crmsnidol |
quote:
Originally posted by renov8r
...you should hire a really professional air duct cleaner. You want a guy who has a HUGE vacuum, the kindof thing that you can only truck around. He will need to cut access panels into several ducts.
After drywalling our basement there were literally POUNDS of construction debris in the ducts -- amaxing difference!
Even if the basement was closed to the upstairs with no upward ventilation and the furnace had fresh filtrete allergen-plus filters on it? Do you think a lot of dust made it through the system? |
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