Should I Install a Whole-House Humidifier?

LESLIE: Now we’re going over to Missouri where Jim has a question about a humidifier. How can we help you?

JIM: Yeah, hi. I am just kind of curious. It would – obviously, with getting cold, just turning the heaters on and everything – and the whole-home humidifier has kind of intrigued me and I wanted to know if it’s worth installing those onto the heater. Obviously, it would – if it works, it would help out with my dry skin. I’ve got a one-year-old boy and I’m obviously worried about his health, too. And so if I could put one of those on there, it’d be a quick, easy install? And is that worth doing?

TOM: Well, absolutely. It’s not necessarily a quick, easy install but it is worth doing.

Now, there are many different types of humidifiers. There’s the kind that atomize or spray water into the air. There’s other types that have sort of like a roller that sort of roll in a pan of water and then the air blows over them.

There’s one that deals – that works off evaporator pads. I kind of like this. It’s made by Aprilaire, a great brand in the HVAC business. And the way it works is it has jets of water that drip water down an evaporator pad and then water rolls across that pad and that’s how it gets the humidity into the air.

Then the more sophisticated ones have humidistats that calculate exactly what the humidity is in the house all the time and then adjust the humidifier to compensate for that. In fact, some of the better ones even have a thermometer that goes outside so they can calculate the difference between outside temperature and inside temperature and know exactly where the relative humidity is and then supplement that with the amount of moisture.

So take a look at the humidifiers that are made by Aprilaire. I think that’s a good place to start.