On Mar 31, 8:08*am, ransley wrote:
On Mar 30, 4:21*pm, mm wrote:





If I get a new oil furnace with humidifier and with AC, is there a
method provided to turn the humidifier off, especially the water,
OTHER THAN the little valve on the water pipe that feeds the copper
tube to the humidifer?

With any reasonable unit, yes. You can turn it off using the
humidistat, which is usually mounted on the return plenum. It could
also be mounted in the living space by the thermostat.



Is it *automatic* that the humidifier doesn't run when the AC is on?

Usually not, but it could be. Most are wired so the humdidifier is
powered up when the furnace blower is on. In which case it has power
and you use the humidistat to turn it off during AC season. Or it
could be wired to only be powered up when the furnace gas valve is
powered, ie when the burner is on.




Or will I have to turn off the water supply? * * *My little tapping
valve worked fine for a few years and then it got difficult. *And it
was accessible for a few years, and then things got piled where I need
to put a chair to reach the ceiling. *So it would be nice if it turned
off some other way.

When the humidifier doesn't run in the summer, is it only that the
electric motor doesn't turn the wheel? * Or is the water turned off
too? * *

Normally the water is left on. If the humidifier is actually running,
it would activate a solenoid valve to get the water running. If you
use a bypass model humidifier, you will need to move the damper to
close off the bypass during AC season. With a self-powered unit with
a fan, you don't need the bypass duct.




I had no room for a motorized humidifier in my current furnace and the
only one that fit used T-shapped fiber plates to suck water out of the
pan, which filled up the ends of the T so that the hot air going past
was humidified. *A valve turned the water off when the water level in
the pan was high enough, but eventually that didnt' work well and the
water overflowed the pan through some little hole, and dripped on the
flue collector of the furnace, causing that to rust out. *Maybe some
water even dripped down the main heating duct back into the furnace.

Is there any trick to replacing the tapping valve in the same place
that the current valve is? * Or would there be an advantage to tapping
a hot-water pipe instead?

You can't tap the pipe again in the same place. Provided it doesn't
leak, you could just shut it off and tap nearby. Or else remove it,
and repair the pipe at the current location.

According to Aprilaire, using hot water gives a higher evaporation
rate. We had a big debate about that here about a year ago. I did
some tests on mine and measured a substantially higher evaporation
rate using hot water than cold. Whether you use hot or cold depends
on the size of the house, unit size, and the relative cost of fuel you
use for heating water versus the furnace fuel. The extra heat
doesn't get lost, it winds up in the house.




Thanks a lot.

April Air makes some of the best humidifier units, System 2000 is
maybe the best oil unit and efficency nears condensing units, you wont
have problems with an April Air- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree about Aprilaire. Over the years many people here have used
them and everyone I can recall was very happy with them, including me.