First time poster, but many time advice gainer...thanks, great group.
We recently bought a 2500 sq. foot ranch outside of Albany NY. No central air/heat, but we have a LP boiler and baseboard heat. We heat zone 1 (front of house- LR/DR/Kitchen/FR) primarily with a woodstove. My question is what type of humidifier would you recommend? The house is pretty dry. HD has a few choices, but I am not sold on anything quite yet.
Thanks for any thoughts here.
Matt
You are pretty much stuck with a water wheel type. There are some permanant installed humidifiers that are available, but they are not available to the homeower. Greg
I would opt for the one that puts the most humidity possible into the air....also, I'd do what granny did, and keep a cast iron tea kettle on the wood stove, and refill it as often as needed... FWIW....you do have central heat, if you have a boiler, or hot water heater, in a "central" location, and it distributes heat throughout the house, by what ever means, in your case, by pumping hot water through the baseboards....
I've got a floor model with a humidistat. Mine is a Sears, as much as I hate sears in general. But th is one has given me years of good service. I have to put a bucket of water in it every other day or so.
Putting too much humidity into a house can do more harm than good. With excess moisture you start to get condensation, especially in older homes that don't have good insulation. In will start in areas like windows that aren't well insulated or around recessed lighting fixtures. Pretty soon, the paint in those areas becomes stained and ruined. Put enough humidity in a poorly insulated home and eventually you could promote mold and rot.
I'd get one that's sized appropriately, make sure it has an adjustable humidistat that works, take it easy especially to start, and keep an eye out for condensation.
Aprilaire has a self contained Humidifier for Hot Water heated homes ; it is made by Research Products Corp in wisconsin. Aprilaire is a very popular and high quality humidifier .
Thanks everyone! I'll look into a humidistat on a unit to control the humidity...the condensation point is a good one; one I hadn't thought about.
Best regards and happy holidays,
I would not recommend the portable Holmes model available at Walmart. You set the humidity to, say, 40%. Now when the humidity gets close to 40, the measured humidity digital display of course will bounce between 39 and 40 (or 40 and 41). Instead of having electronics that recognizes some tolerance is needed, the damn fan goes on then off then on then off every couple seconds forever as the display flickers until it finally settles at
40 for a short time then it starts all over again. This is ridiculous, it's going back, hope to find better. This was the 2nd one I tried, the first one had the same problem and also a noisy fan.
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