Humidifiers and Dehumidifiers - Preventing supply line from coming off

At 2:55 this morning I woke up to the sounds of my daughter crying as she usually does when hungry. A few seconds later, my mind registered the swishing sound of water flowing in the basement :(

Yup, the plastic hose acting as supply line to my furnace humidifier I installed last night had popped off and was spraying water everywhere.

Should I have further tightened the nut that connects the hose to the float? I hand tightened it only because the plastic nut and thread are easy to damage. How do I prevent this from happening and not worry when I put my head on the pillow tonight?

You used the plastic lines right?

You insert a brass fitting inside the line, the nut and along with a compresson fitting?

If you got all 3 fittings, then you can tighten it so it won't leak.. But if you don't have the brass insert inside the plstic line, it will not hold.

I have a rigid black plastic line. I have a plastic nut and a rubber compression fitting. When the hose popped out, it left the compression fitting inside the nut.

Black plastic line, guess that is a new one for me.. It's either Copper or Pex

This line come with the humidifer/kit?

What model of humidifer do you have?

I would just run a copper line the whole way. You can get a kit for a refrigerator ice maker from Home depot for $15. Thats what I did. This is especially a good idea if you are running the supply from the hot water pipe. Its cheap and it will give you peace of mind. You might also need a tubing cutter if you dont have one. The tiny ones are cheap.

Rigid is probably the wrong description. It's still bendable, just not as soft as some of the transparent hoses I've seen. The brand of the humidifier is Air King. It came with the house and looks like an old model.

I tightened the nut as much as I can last night and opened the ball valve just a touch so that it's trickling in. I figure if the hose pops out again it won't be as damaging if I had it fully opened.

A friend tells me keeping the valve opened slightly also translates to higher water pressure between the valve and the humidifier, which means there's more likelihood of the hose popping out again :(

If this fails again I will get a copper pipe as suggested.

Plastic is nice but flexible copper tubing will last much longer and is pretty much trouble free. It may cost a bit more but in my opinion, it is well worth it. Having water leaks in basement (or anywhere) is something to avoid.