On Thursday, December 22, 2016 at 9:35:36 AM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Thursday, December 22, 2016 at 8:40:41 AM UTC-5, Peter wrote:
On 12/21/2016 4:23 PM, philo wrote:

[snip]


I've been reading up and see that I have a "flow-through" type
humidifier which is not efficient in that more water goes down the
drain than into the air.

If I decide to replace it, the "drum" type is supposed to actually
put all of the water into the air.



I used to use a drum type whole house humidifier. It created loads of
problems. The drum sits in a pan of water that is replenished by a feed
pipe controlled by a float valve. As there is no mechanism to refresh
the water in the pan, there is a concentration of minerals in the pan
which leads to rapid crusting of the media sponge on the drum, the sides
and bottom of the pan, and the part of the float valve that senses the
level of water in the pan. If I forgot to manually clean out the water
in the pan at least every 6 weeks, the media sponge would need
replacement at least once each heating season. Once I got lazy, we had
a particularly cold month, and the float valve became so heavy with
mineral crust that it didn't float up when the pan filled and the water
overflowed into the furnace. When I replaced the furnace (old and
anyway, only 80% efficient), I replaced the humidifier with an Aprilaire
flow through and despite the increased water consumption, I need to do
far less maintenance on the unit and I believe that the increased water
bill is far lower than what it used to cost me to purchase as many drum
sponges as I required to keep the drum humidifier working properly. I
recommend NOT changing to a drum type humidifier unless there's a model
that automatically, periodically, flushes the water in the pan and that
unit gets good user/testing reviews from a reputable source.

Back in the 70s, I think it was Sears that had a drum type made
like you suggest. It had a drain and when it was running, the
drain opened and allowed a constant small flow of water to take
the minerals away. I think it worked better than one would with
no drain, but it also had water constantly flowing through it,
just like the Aprilaire. And I agree that so far, the Aprilaire
is the best I've seen. I can go at least two years, usually
longer with the same media. And they are very simple to change
and there is little else to clean.

yes, a good humidifier system needs TWO ways for stuff to leave.

One way is via the air.

If that is the ONLY way, you will get dust or a build up of minerals.

The usual other way is through waste water to the drain.

m