DIY humidifier

[David]

Unusually (most problems seem to be from too much moisture) the house seems to be verging on too dry.

The humidistat part of the inside/outside thermometer is showing 33% in the main living area. Not perhaps very accurate but certainly an indication.

One can buy humidifiers but is this any more effective than soaking and wringing out a hand towel and putting it on a radiator? Given that the alleged main cause off too high humidity is drying the washing indoors on the radiators.

One alternative is the traditional bowl of water on the radiator, but that is also a spill risk.

Any ingenious solutions?

Cheers

Dave R

[Tim+]

Just curious but what do you mean by ?too dry?? Too dry for what?

If you didn?t own a humidistat would you have been aware that there was an ?issue??

Tim

[Fredxx]

Boiling kettle with lid off/up?

Less air circulation?

At the temperature of interest it may well be 33% because of cold spots that condense the water down to this level.

[David]

Yes.

Too dry for me, my eyes and nose.

Yes, I was aware that there was an issue before looking at the humidistat. That was the first step towards tackling dryness of eyes, itchiness of nose.

That is, confirming that the house is very dry internally as is common with centrally heated houses during the winter when the outside air is carrying very little moisture because of the cold temperature.

Not helped by the shower room having a humidistat controlled fan to keep the moisture levels down. Turning that off might help.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Very energy inefficient, or so I have read.

I'm also not sure for how long you would have to boil a kettle to get the humidity levels up significantly.

As noted in another response, running the shower without the extractor fan might be one way to increase the overall humidity.

Cheers

Dave R

[Terry Casey]

My wife bought some special containers off the internet.

They are long and narrow with a semi-circular cross section so keep flat to the radiator and hang from the radiator on a longish wire double hook.

Not that I've tried (!) but I would say it is impossible to spill them!

[Andy Burns]

Dunk an ultrasonic fog/mist maker in a vase of water?

[Bill Wright]

Get a big dog.

Bill

[Terry Casey]

They don't seem to be avialable at the moment from this seller but these look like the ones she bought:

or:

[tabbypurr]

that's what I'd do :)

Wet cloth on radiator will rust it after a while.

NT

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

We have an issue with there being any attempt to. 1 change the duvet cover

2 vacuum the carpets 3, perform some 'excursuses on the floor' tends to create huge static discharges when the person doing these things touches something large and metal like the bed frame a filing cabinet, the screw of a light switch. Increasing the humidity does help.

Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

Then the house smells of wet dog, lanolin in the main, but its not that pleasant if you are a visitor.

Many years ago there used to be a kind of device based on capillary matting like a curtain which one put up behind a radiator with a tank of water below it. Not sure how good they were, or whether they started to grow stuff, but one seems not to see them these days. Brian

[Spike]

Very appropriately, the temperature of the air in degC is the same as the number of grams of water vapour per cubic metre for saturated (100%RH) air at that temperature[1]

If your house is 33%RH at 18degC, than you have 18 x 33/100 grams of water vapour per cubic metre in it, which comes out at 6 grams.

To get the air up to 50%RH you need to add 18 x 50/100 - 6 = 3 grams of water per cubic metre of house, so for a 100 cubic meter house that's

300 grams, which you'd need to ensure is evenly distributed. Cold spots may be an issue. Drying laundry indoors will help to get the humidity up. [1] Over a limited range, say 10 to 25 degC. Air at 0degC still has ~4.5 grams per cubic metre of water vapour in it.

[Fredxx]

So a 3kW kettle with 300g of water might run dry in ~40s

90 x 300 x 4.2 / (3000)

(assuming water out the tap at 10C and latent heat of vapourisation is too small to worry about)

[David]

Thanks!

I was not looking forward to researching how much water I would need to release.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Thanks.

Looks a useful option.

Cheers

Dave R

[Andrew]

employ Mike Halmaracks wife as a live-in cook.

She likes steaming everything :-)

[Jon Fairbairn]

Houseplants?

[Spike]

Spathiphyllum (Peace Lily) might be useful.

[David]

Ah, well.

Original humidistat is currently reading 26% at 19.4C.

The new one I bought for not much money as a cross check is showing around

44%. It also has a maximum/minimum function which suggests that the humidity isn't varying by much.

I now have a Boeing problem; that is, two sensors which disagree.

So do I trust the new one or look for a 3rd one from a different manufacturer?

Given that most may be using the same component from a nameless Chinese factory.

Still feels dry to me, though.

Cheers

Dave R