Whole House Humidifier: How to Install

Find out how to humidify an entire house using an existing duct system. Learn how the humidifier works and what kind of unit works well but doesn’t require a lot of maintenance.

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LESLIE: Frank in New Jersey has a question about humidification. How can we help you?

FRANK: I have a house that’s 1,000 square feet.

TOM and LESLIE: OK.

FRANK: I have hot water heat.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and it’s dry, I bet.

FRANK: And it’s dry. Now, I do have central air installed in the crawl space in the attic.

TOM: OK.

FRANK: But it’s – you know, there are ducts in my ceiling.

TOM: Right.

FRANK: I’d like to put some humidity into the whole house; not just one room.

TOM: Mm-hmm, yeah. Well, you can do that. You can use your air handler. It’s going to require a bit of wiring, Frank, but you can do that. Because you have the duct system, I would install a whole-house humidifier and you can have that run off a humidistat, which is a moisture-sensing switch. And, essentially, what will happen is as the water trickles down the evaporator pad – I would recommend like an Aprilaire unit, which works very, very well and it doesn’t require near as much maintenance as the kind that have like the squirrel cage in them; they cake up really quickly with mineral deposits. But when you use it, the air blows over the coil, over the evaporator pad; the moisture evaporates into the air, then it’s distributed throughout the house.

Now I will warn you, though, because this is not being distributed by warm air – by warm heat through a furnace – it could be a little chilly.

LESLIE: Yeah, but I’ve heard – I mean when you shop at these kid stores – like, you know, the baby stores …

TOM: Yeah.

LESLIE: … all of the humidifiers that they recommend are cool-mist humidifiers.

TOM: Well … (chuckles)

LESLIE: So, I don’t think that there’d be anything wrong with that.

TOM: Yeah, but the difference between the fan in the portable and the fan for a whole system …

LESLIE: Is times a million. (laughs)

TOM: … is pretty huge. Yeah. So, you know, it will be recirculating the heated air in the house. I’m just telling you that you may feel a bit of a draft. But it certainly is an option and it’s certainly more efficient than buying a half a dozen room humidifiers.