whole house humidifier?

[relaxandreflect]

we are building a new house with gas heat downstairs and a heat pump for the upstairs. there will be about 1688sq ft dwn and 827 sq ft up. i will have a studio in one of the upstairs bedrooms and need that to be 40-50% humidity for instruments. would one whole house humidifier that would be installed and attached to the gas heat be enough for the whole house, or would it be better to get a second for the upstairs?

or, if i just put one upstairs, would the humidity fall for the lower levels?

Since this is a very old thread revived for God only knows what reason, I'm moving it to what is now the correct forum.
admin allisolm

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

yes, they come in various capacities, but the one we have is good up to 3000sf

 

[CalvinHobbes]

We have the same issue. We have dual zone climate control in out house. We have the humidifier in the basement feeding the lower floors but the upstairs couldn't be done. Apparently there's some issues with building codes and installing water lines in the attic. Something like that. It may not apply to your situation but that's what we were told.

 

[dartworth]

Originally posted by: relaxandreflect
we are building a new house with gas heat downstairs and a heat pump for the upstairs. there will be about 1688sq ft dwn and 827 sq ft up. i will have a studio in one of the upstairs bedrooms and need that to be 40-50% humidity for instruments. would one whole house humidifier that would be installed and attached to the gas heat be enough for the whole house, or would it be better to get a second for the upstairs?

or, if i just put one upstairs, would the humidity fall for the lower levels?

I would think you would want a seperate unit for the studio...40-50% in the whole house would be a little uncomfortable after awhile...

Put a Aprilaire unit on the furnace and a stand alone unit in the studio.

 

[dartworth]

Originally posted by: CalvinHobbes
We have the same issue. We have dual zone climate control in out house. We have the humidifier in the basement feeding the lower floors but the upstairs couldn't be done. Apparently there's some issues with building codes and installing water lines in the attic. Something like that. It may not apply to your situation but that's what we were told.

Installing water lines in the attic is allowed, however if the space is unconditioned, they can freeze. If that happens... well it's going to cost a lot of $

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: dartworth

Originally posted by: relaxandreflect
we are building a new house with gas heat downstairs and a heat pump for the upstairs. there will be about 1688sq ft dwn and 827 sq ft up. i will have a studio in one of the upstairs bedrooms and need that to be 40-50% humidity for instruments. would one whole house humidifier that would be installed and attached to the gas heat be enough for the whole house, or would it be better to get a second for the upstairs?

or, if i just put one upstairs, would the humidity fall for the lower levels?

I would think you would want a seperate unit for the studio...40-50% in the whole house would be a little uncomfortable after awhile...

Put a Aprilaire unit on the furnace and a stand alone unit in the studio.

I agree. Buy a nice stand-alone unit and be prepared to spend money on replacement filters. If you have to fill the unit yourself, you might want have the builder put a DEEP sink in the studio or in an adjacent bathroom.

Ryan

 

[relaxandreflect]

if i go ahead and have the water line run so that i can add one later, what brand/models do you recommend?

 

[nakedfrog]

Responding to another necrothread bumped by a spammer...

I would think you would want a seperate unit for the studio...40-50% in the whole house would be a little uncomfortable after awhile...

Put a Aprilaire unit on the furnace and a stand alone unit in the studio.

I keep my house around 47% year round, perfectly comfortable IMO.
The unit attached to the furnace doesn't do the whole job, I have a console humidifier to get me the last bit of the way.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The ones that attach to the furnace work decently, I installed a Desert Spring one years back and it's been running great. It's all plastic. Once in a while I have to take it apart to clean it as it does get a bit crusty from minerals. Might be a good idea to put a water softner feeding it but I have not found much as far as small scale softners go, only whole house ones, so never put one myself.

I would never run a water line in the attic. That is asking for a disaster.

 

[sdifox]

Use the whole house one. Then have a separate, more acurate system in the instrument room. Just run a water line and a drain line to it.

 

[snoopy7548]

Hope I'm not hijacking the thread... My home is currently hovering around 31-33% humidity, indoor temp ~69F, and outdoor temps between 20-40F. I'm getting conflicting opinions on whether this is a normal humidity level; some state that it should be between 40-50% year-round, but when it's 20F or even 30F outside, that could cause condensation on the windows, especially when temps can get down into the teens and even single-digits (Northeast).

My house is well-insulated and I've done almost as much air sealing as possible. Do you think I should invest in a whole-house humidifier, even if it just raises the humidity by a few percent?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sounds normal. If I go above 30% myself I start to get frost on all the windows, so I don't tend to go higher than that. I find the manual humidistat on the furnace is not all that accurate (analog ones in general arn't) so I don't go by those numbers but the ones on the digital one upstairs. Eventually I should just put a sensor at the thermostat and I could have it use that value to turn on/off.