I'm looking for a whole house humidifier, instead of individual units that need constant watering and cleaning.
I'm unable to get solid assessment of any of these units, pro or cons, from sources other than hearsay or guesses.
Anyone out there have experience or can point to comparisons and risks of these units.
Some of the stuff I've heard is that the atomizing units will put a white dust into my ducts. The "disc" units will harbor and promote mold growth within my ducting, and that most of the moisture will never make it out of the register. Same has been said for the atomizing units as well.
A humidifier for home or apartment is not something that should be left unmaintenanced for several months. For that reason, I don't purchase the conventional humidifiers. In some of the homes and apartments I have been in I use two Rubbermaid trays and four sponges. I have built a simple rack to hold the trays and put them in front of one of the cold air return registers in the apartments. Then, lean the sponges onto the register. Turn the furnace on and then fill the trays with hot water. The moisture will absorb into the sponge and the air moving over the sponge and into the cold air return will circulate through the furnace and out the hot air registers. If it has been dry before, there will be a noticeable change in the quality of the air in the rooms. It is finally breatheable. I, like many others, need the humidity in the air or my breathing apparatus will crack from the dryness, and is, therefore, subject to all of the viruses that can attack.
In a couple of apartments that I had inhabited, I built an aluminum angle rack to hold the two trays, and the cold air return was up high -- the furnace was downdraft. I had a short aluminum ladder to get up to the humidifier to fill it with hot water. I have a small electric pump and control system for my hand and a water tube that stretches from the kitchen sink to the humidifier, which is only about 10' away. I fill a small bucket with hot water and then, with the pump in the water, turn it on and the hot water comes out of the small tubing into the humidifier trays, where I cover the sponges with hot water while I am filling the trays. The furnace should be running while this operation is performed so that the rooms will be immediately filled with warm, moist air.
On a home, a register could be cut into the cold air return on the furnace, and an aluminum angle rack made to hold two of the Rubbermaid trays with the four sponges. In this way the humidifier can be maintained properly and filled when low on water. It should be filled with hot water while the furnace is running to gain full advantage of the warm, moist air moving. The trays usually need filling about once a month, or every two weeks when it gets really cold out and the furnace runs a lot.
With such a system, the quality of the moist air in the rooms is held at a high standard. The four sponges will begin to crust a little at the top where the moisture is mostly removed from but with the maintaining schedule the sponges can be easily removed from the trays and cleaned and rinsed in a sink.
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