Humidifiers and Dehumidifiers - Humidifier Install

I had a steam humidifier installed and am not happy about the power it uses (2kW). The HVAC company that installed the steam will replace it with an evaporative pad type humidifier for each furnace. I have heat pumps but also have gas furnaces. When the humidifier and the heat pumps were originally installed, they put in an IAQ stat upstairs and one downstairs (main living area). With the steam humidifier when the humidity went below the set level on the stat the humidifier would kick the furnace blower on and the steam process would begin.

Can the same thing be done with the pad type humidifiers? If i set the humidity to 35% and the stat reads that the humidity in the house is 30% can the stat tell the furnace to turn its blower on so that the solenoid of the pad type humidifier opens allwoing the house to humidify?

Thanks for all the help on this board....

I had a steam humidifier installed and am not happy about the power it uses (2kW).
What brand/model of steam you using?


The HVAC company that installed the steam will replace it with an evaporative pad type humidifier for each furnace.
I would stay with steam... The evaporative/flow through is going to use a lot more water.... Steam uses 1 gallon of water for 1 gallon of humidity, where flow though, anywhere from 24 to 34 gallon of water for 1 gallon of humidity.

With the steam humidifier when the humidity went below the set level on the stat the humidifier would kick the furnace blower on and the steam process would begin.

Can the same thing be done with the pad type humidifiers? If i set the humidity to 35% and the stat reads that the humidity in the house is 30% can the stat tell the furnace to turn its blower on so that the solenoid of the pad type humidifier opens allwoing the house to humidify?
Yes, in the set up menu of the t-stat "Force fan on call of humidity", it sounds like the stat is already set up this way... How ever, if you do this, as I said earlier, going to waste a lot more water.

The brand of the steam humidifier was Autoflo S2020. The steam type made my electric bill go from $100 to $200 in one month, that is why i do not feel it is worth the cost...I beleive the Honeywell units they would replace it with are the HE265 units...
Thanks

Steam shouldn't pull the bill that hight.... I don't know where you are out of, but temps same as last year, or colder?

More lights used in the home? Same number of people in the household?

Change any applinaces from gas to electric?

I am in the denver area. for the same billing period last year we used appx 900kWh, for the same period this year we used 1900kWh. Now i know looking at the electric bill you have to take into account the heat pumps, but they are only running when the temp is above 35deg. These are the same heat pumps that were used during the summer where our bill did not go abouve $150 with the AC running.

no other appliances switched to electric, in fact our stove was switched from electric to gas.

Thanks for the input.

Ok, being that you switch to gas stove yeah, it shouldn't go that high..

Does you bill shows numbers of days between reading? I know mine shows it, and last year was 29 days, this year was 35 day...

ALso, does it show temp avg or heating degree days?

Last question, do you know if the humidifer ran alot vs last year, and the steamer is not filled with scale?

Billing for last year was 32 days
billing for this year was 33 days

kWh for last year for said 32 days was 961kWh
kWh for this year for said 33 days was 1976kWh

bill amount for last year was 101
bill amount for this yeear was 210

unfortunately it does not show the number of heating days or avg daily temp. I think that is on the gas bill.

This is the first winter we used a humidifier because we had it installed in july when we had the heat pumps put in, that being said it is also the first year with the heat pumps, but we have readings from august and september of the heat pump use, used for cooling.


Thanks

We sold and put in steam humidifier some years back. HA had to go back and take them all out .Cost and mess they made. Go for a Aprilaire 700 on the units you have there. Cost of fuel go http://warmair.net compare fuel cost for where you are.
Its best to just have the humidifier run when the heat and blower is on. Not just the blower.

Ed, Will you get sufficient humidification if it runs just when the heat and blower are going...I thought to have the blower on circ mode and then have the humidifier run even without a call for heat so the humidity level in the house doesnt get too low. Or on the IAQ just do what Jay said and use the setting to Force fan on call of humidity.

Thanks

I set mine up last year to "Force Fan On" to help stay ahead, and really, it didn't do any good since there is no heat source to add the humidity into the air. So I switch it back to "Turn on with Call of Heat", and that works out well.

Being that you have a heat pump, it's going to work longer/more water to stay ahead.

does connecting the humidifier up to hot water offer better humidty in a heat pump application, it's not like I only have a heat pump too...typically it gets below 35 at night here, especially in the winter so the NG furnace fires up then...

Yes, the hot water is going to help out some, I still would not advise you to have the IAQ to force the fan on, only on call of heat and fan.

So they came out to install the 2 Honeywell HE265 humidifiers to replace the autoflo and 12 hours in the humidity was up to 35% (the set point) in the house. They set the stat to "Humidify will force fan on". Jay, i see you are suggesting 374 be set to option 0. What is the reasoning for this?

And here is a question which I think I know the answer but want to be sure. The bypass humidifiers use a relay to open the solenoid. The relay sends current to the solenoid when the furnace fan goes on. So even if i have my iaq set to 35% humidity, and the house is at 35% humidity but there is a need for heat the relay will still send current to the solenoid, thereby opening it and humidifying even more? I take it the stat cannot override the relay and tell the solenoid not to open if there isnt a need for humidity?

Thanks for all the advice

#374

0=The humidifier will only get power when you turn on the fan fan ON/CIRC, or when there is call for heat.

1=When need of humidity, it will force the fan ON to add humidity, and will come on when there is call for heat.

2= Will only turn on when there is call for heat. (I'd rather have this, since room temp really don't add alot of humidity, so more water is wasted)

If it is wired properly the humidistat is what is telling the solenoid to energize (open water valve) the fan is coming on because you have it in force fan on option but if you look in the installation instructions for your bypass humidifier you will see that they recommend to only energize on a call for heat and they probably don't recommend using it with a heat pump as the cooler air temperatures will cause mold and moisture issues in the duct. I know you probably don't want to hear this the right thing to do if you want humidity and you have heat pumps is steam now honeywell makes a new model they call trusteam that uses 75% less water than the bypass and is easy to clean and operate

i had steam and it is ridiculous in terms of energy costs...any energy savings from the heat pumps gets vaporized by using a steam humidifier. If i have to i will just not usee the heat stage of the heatpump and use my natural gas furnace and the bypas humidifiers.

Thanks

In reference to mold
http://www.achrnews.com/CDA/Archives/a2bfa0b07ac5a010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0____