Harry K wrote:

On Nov 14, 8:09 am, wrote:
HerHusband wrote:
... the air gets very dry when we use it.

Not necessarily, with a fairly airtight woodstove in a fairly airtight house.
It might only need 10 cfm of combustion air, vs an average US house that
naturally leaks 225 cfm or ASHRAE's 15 cfm per occupant fresh air standard.

I'd like to buy a steamer to set on the stove...

Evaporating water takes heat energy, ie more firewood. Airsealing the house
will raise the humidity and decrease the need for heating energy, ie firewood.

The additional humidity provided will, or should, result in less firewood.

Wrong.

You can feel comfortable in a more humid atmosphere at lower temp.

But evaporating the water requires 10 times more energy than
keeping the house warmer, for equivalent comfort.

In any case, the energy that goes into evaporating a quart or so
of water a day isn't enough to be of concern.

A quart or so won't make much difference. Andersen estimates that
a typical family of 4 evaporates 2 gallons per day in breathing,
cooking, cleaning, showering, and so on.

How much will a quart a day raise the indoor RH if w = 0.0025 outdoors
and a house leaks 225 cfm? How much will 2 gallons raise the RH if
the house leaks 15 cfm?

This is a matter of science, vs old wive's tales :-)

Nick