upgrade humidifier contols?

My house has an old Aprilaire 760 humidifier which seems to work well. It still has the original manual control however. Is there any advantage to adding one of the new automatic controls or is that pretty extraneous? It seldom gets below 20 degrees here anyway. I was shocked to find that just the new controls cost almost half as much as a whole new humidifier package! I was thinking this would be a cheap upgrade, but not so...

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel
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Do you mean the one that has an outdoor thermometer, that you set the unit just above the point of condensation and let it run, it automaticly tracks temp to give optimal humidity. You seldom get below

20f, it helps alot where you go to -15f below, but maybe not if you dont have to adjust it often or if humidity doesnt swing much, or if your house is tight with Tyvek and new windows that seal well. Its an issue of how much adjustment do you need to get humidity but not so much that it condenses on windows. I was in a house once to paint it when it was -20f, the humidistat was obviously set for near 40, the walls were so wet they were dripping and we could not paint untill the unit was off for a few days. For my areas cold temps its a great thing
Reply to
ransley

yup, that is what I was looking at. Was thinking that it would be nice to just make everything work automatically so one wouldn't have to mess with it, but for almost $100 just for the parts unless it works perfectly and seamlessly I'll pass.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

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Sometimes new and improved means it is new and improves the poockets of whomever makes and sells it. If you really don't often get below

20F, leave well enough alone.

Bob Hofmann

Reply to
hrhofmann

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It will work seamlessly once its set to just under condensing point, thinking more about your question, if you feel dry and want the most humidity without causing condensation damage and you self adjust your unit now alot, then its worth it. I was thinking that many new tight houses dont even need a humidifier, but I see you use it now.

Reply to
ransley

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Hi, I had to revert to manual control. I live in Chinook band. When Chinook comes automatic control went crazy for the sudden change of weather. Like outside temp. shooting up from -20C to +20C in the span of half a day.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

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yes, I def. need the humidifier, this is an older house with forced air heat, it gets quite dry in the winter without it. I tried going without the first year we were here and ended up turning it on right quickly.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

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What exactly do you mean by "went crazy". I have the Aprilaire 760 and all the temp adjustment system consists of is a thermistor that's in the analog measuring circuit that makes it lower the humidity setpoint modestly as the temp outside decreases. So, if it went from

-20c outside to 20c, all it would do is modestly raise the humidity setpoint, and that would only actually go into the air when the system was running, which would not be much at all with outside approaching

20c.

None of the systems I know of are predictive in any sense. Meaning you could have a problem if temps go the other way, suddenly decreasing by a very large amount. In that case, I wouldn't call it going crazy, but because the house will still have the higher humidity already present before the temp drop, you could have some condensation. But then how many people would manually change the setting on one without automatic adjustment a dayy or more head of time to be ready for the temp drop?

Reply to
trader4

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