I'm extremely new here so please let me know if I'm posting things at the wrong place. I recently (3 months ago) installed a new Trane 2 stage ECM furnace and along with it an Aprilaire 600 whole house Humidifier. It's upstate New York here, I've been setting the the thermostat to 73 degree, so furnace officially started working since late September.

The furnace and humidifier were installed by a local contractor.
I set the manual humidistat to 45% since the very beginning. And I have another small humidistat clipped right on one of the second floor registers where the hot air comes out. The humidity reading had been between 45% and 50% until about 2 weeks ago.

Two weeks ago the weather here really started to drop(ranging between 29 degree and 50 degree). And shortly after I started to feel air being dry at night. The humidity reading in the bedroom was somewhere around 33%. And when I put the humidistat right by the register(when the furnace is on and outputting hot air), it read 16%, that's what I was concerned about.

Here's the current information about the humidifier:

I hear the water flowing when the furnace is on, when I open it I see water in the distribution chamber and flowing through the four holes. I also see water flowing down the drain and feel hot air supply coming from the open damper.

I called the contractor company a few days ago, a service guy came in and said everything was fine, then he said my 4 inch air filter was plugged, therefore humidity couldn't go through. He charged me for a new air filter and a partial service call, because no faulty equipment was found, even though they told me the filter would last a year when they sold it to me. I was fine with everything if the problem was resolved, but the thing is, for the two days after the filter was replaced, the humidity reading by the register was still 16%. I actually personally went into a hardware store and bought a brand new water panel for the humidifier, still no improvement on humidity.

Me and my wife just had a baby 3 weeks ago and my wife had had this coughing problem for a long time, she feels much better when the air is not dry, so I was trying to give them the most comfort I can by getting the new furnace and humidifier. I'm not sure what kind of humidity level others feel good about, but we really hope we can get to around 45% here. Hope someone can help and sorry about the long post.

On 11/21/2014 6:53 PM, Hongyi Kang wrote:
I'm extremely new here so please let me know if I'm
posting things at the wrong place. I recently (3
months ago) installed a new Trane 2 stage ECM
furnace and along with it an Aprilaire 600 whole
house Humidifier. It's upstate New York here, I've
been setting the the thermostat to 73 degree, so
furnace officially started working since late September.

The furnace and humidifier were installed by a local
contractor.
I set the manual humidistat to 45% since the very
beginning. And I have another small humidistat
clipped right on one of the second floor registers
where the hot air comes out. The humidity reading
had been between 45% and 50% until about 2 weeks ago.

Two weeks ago the weather here really started to
drop(ranging between 29 degree and 50 degree). And
shortly after I started to feel air being dry at night.
The humidity reading in the bedroom was somewhere
around 33%. And when I put the humidistat right by
the register(when the furnace is on and outputting
hot air), it read 16%, that's what I was concerned about.

Here's the current information about the humidifier:

I hear the water flowing when the furnace is on, when I
open it I see water in the distribution chamber and flowing
through the four holes. I also see water flowing down the
drain and feel hot air supply coming from the open damper.

I called the contractor company a few days ago, a service
guy came in and said everything was fine, then he said my 4
inch air filter was plugged, therefore humidity couldn't go
through. He charged me for a new air filter and a partial
service call, because no faulty equipment was found, even
though they told me the filter would last a year when they
sold it to me. I was fine with everything if the problem
was resolved, but the thing is, for the two days after the
filter was replaced, the humidity reading by the register
was still 16%. I actually personally went into a hardware
store and bought a brand new water panel for the humidifier,
still no improvement on humidity.

Me and my wife just had a baby 3 weeks ago and my wife had
had this coughing problem for a long time, she feels much
better when the air is not dry, so I was trying to give them
the most comfort I can by getting the new furnace and
humidifier. I'm not sure what kind of humidity level others
feel good about, but we really hope we can get to around
45% here. Hope someone can help and sorry about the long post.

Some Aprilaire have what's known as a bypass damper,
or valve. On some, there is a round disk that opens
or closes the round tube that comes from the other
duct. This needs to be open (handle points horizontal)
for the unit to work.

If you have AC, this needs to be closed (handle up and
down) for summer.

Please let us know how this works for you.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

Thanks for the reply, the damper has been open the whole time. I could feel hot air coming from it when I open the humidifier.

On 11/21/2014 7:21 PM, Hongyi Kang wrote:
Thanks for the reply, the damper has been open
the whole time. I could feel hot air coming from
it when I open the humidifier.


That was the only answer I could find. Please
call your service tech back to your house.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

Thanks Stormin for the effort! Really appreciate it!

On 11/21/2014 8:13 PM, Hongyi Kang wrote:
Thanks Stormin for the effort! Really appreciate it!


Quite all right. I worked in heating for years,
and installed a lot of Aprilaire humidifiers.

I also live in western NY. My humidifier is portable,
I have to fill it with a bucket.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

Hongyi Kang wrote:
Thanks Stormin for the effort! Really appreciate it!

Hi,
I have exactly same humidifier in my house(2600 sq ft 2 story with
finished basement) This humidifier is bypass type, so is the flap
controlling the air passing thru the water panel open? Or partially open
or closed? Also check if you can open the water cock more for
more water flow.
Hot air has to pass thru the panel to moisten the room air. Also
humidity has to be set in relation to outside temperature. During winter
I leave it at 30 to 35% and no higher to prevent condensation on window
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR. Are you Chinese or
Korean? ì*€ëŠ” í•œêµ*ì�¸ìž…니다. Hope this helps.

Tony Hwang wrote:
Hongyi Kang wrote:
Thanks Stormin for the effort! Really appreciate it!

Hi,
I have exactly same humidifier in my house(2600 sq ft 2 story with
finished basement) This humidifier is bypass type, so is the flap
controlling the air passing thru the water panel open? Or partially open
or closed? Also check if you can open the water cock more for
more water flow.
Hot air has to pass thru the panel to moisten the room air. Also
humidity has to be set in relation to outside temperature. During winter
I leave it at 30 to 35% and no higher to prevent condensation on window
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR. Are you Chinese or
Korean? ì*€ëŠ” í•œêµ*ì�¸ìž…니다. Hope this helps.
Hi,
Forgot one thing. Make sure you have power att humidistat(24V AC).

On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
Hongyi Kang wrote:
Thanks Stormin for the effort! Really appreciate it!

Hi,
I have exactly same humidifier in my house(2600 sq ft 2 story with
finished basement) This humidifier is bypass type, so is the flap
controlling the air passing thru the water panel open? Or partially open
or closed? Also check if you can open the water cock more for
more water flow.
Hot air has to pass thru the panel to moisten the room air. Also
humidity has to be set in relation to outside temperature. During winter
I leave it at 30 to 35% and no higher to prevent condensation on window
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR. Are you Chinese or
Korean? ì*€ëŠ” í•œêµ*ì�¸ìž…니다. Hope this helps.

He said the bypass damper is open.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

On 11/21/2014 8:43 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
Hi,
Forgot one thing. Make sure you have
power att humidistat(24V AC).

He said that there was water flowing.

-
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

On Friday, November 21, 2014 8:52:22 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

The panels in those last a year to maybe 3 years, depending on
how hard the water is. For the OP:

He said the water is running, so the unit is energized, but is that
all the time or does it shut off part of the time? I prseume he tried
putting the control to max to make sure it stays on more, but that had
no effect? If it's running all
the time, then it's not a control problem. That unit has an outside
temp sensor so it will lower the humidity as the outside temp drops,
which is what you want. But if it's running all the time, then that
isn't an issue.

How is it installed? Usually the unit is on the return side, with a
bypass duct going over to the hot side plenum. He says there is airflowing,
but how much? A lot? Usually they have a damper that you close for
the summer. Any chance it's mismarked, not fully open?

How large is the house? I've never been a fan of the bypass type
humidifier. I have the Aprilaire 700 which has it's own fan and
doesn't short circuit the blower air. I would think one possibility
is that the humidifier just doesn't have enough capacity. The fact
that the furnace is two stage, variable blower, might be a factor too.
I would think he might be getting less airflow, air not quite as hot
passing through it, etc.

If it's a capacity issue, changing the water feed to use hot water, which
probably isn't hard to do, instead of cold water will increase the output.

Finally, those little humidity meters are typically very inaccurate.
I've had 4 of them side by side, and they can read from 30 to 60.
If he googles he can find a calibrating procedure, where you use a
closed box with some moist salt in the bottom as reference. You can't
adjust the thing, but you can mark it +15 to know that you need to add
~15 to what it shows to get closer to the correct reading.

On 11/21/2014 05:53 PM, Hongyi Kang wrote:
I'm extremely new here so please let me know if I'm posting things at the wrong place. I recently (3 months ago) installed a new Trane 2 stage ECM furnace and along with it an Aprilaire 600 whole house Humidifier. It's upstate New York here, I've been setting the the thermostat to 73 degree, so furnace officially started working since late September.

The furnace and humidifier were installed by a local contractor.
I set the manual humidistat to 45% since the very beginning. And I have another small humidistat clipped right on one of the second floor registers where the hot air comes out. The humidity reading had been between 45% and 50% until about 2 weeks ago.

Two weeks ago the weather here really started to drop(ranging between 29 degree and 50 degree). And shortly after I started to feel air being dry at night. The humidity reading in the bedroom was somewhere around 33%. And when I put the humidistat right by the register(when the furnace is on and outputting hot air), it read 16%, that's what I was concerned about.

Here's the current information about the humidifier:

I hear the water flowing when the furnace is on, when I open it I see water in the distribution chamber and flowing through the four holes. I also see water flowing down the drain and feel hot air supply coming from the open damper.

I called the contractor company a few days ago, a service guy came in and said everything was fine, then he said my 4 inch air filter was plugged, therefore humidity couldn't go through. He charged me for a new air filter and a partial service call, because no faulty equipment was found, even though they told me the filter would last a year when they sold it to me. I was fine with everything if the problem was resolved, but the thing is, for the two days after the filter was replaced, the humidity reading by the register was still 16%. I actually personally went into a hardware store and bought a brand new water panel for the humidifier, still no improvement on humidity.

Me and my wife just had a baby 3 weeks ago and my wife had had this coughing problem for a long time, she feels much better when the air is not dry, so I was trying to give them the most comfort I can by getting the new furnace and humidifier. I'm not sure what kind of humidity level others feel good about, but we really hope we can get to around 45% here. Hope someone can help and sorry about the long post.




I have a similar setup in my own house and when the unit is working
properly, there should be some drainage from the over-flow hose at the
bottom.

If there is nothing coming out, then not enough water is going in.

Check to be sure the water stop-cock is open far enough and also clean
out calcium deposits at the water orifice inside the humidifier if it
looks like only a small amount of water is flowing through the feeder holes.

trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, November 21, 2014 8:52:22 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

The panels in those last a year to maybe 3 years, depending on
how hard the water is. For the OP:

Hi,
If your water is not hard. Digital ATD type humidity sensor hardly ever
goes out of calibration.

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 11:56:53 AM UTC-5, Tony Hwang wrote:
trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, November 21, 2014 8:52:22 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

The panels in those last a year to maybe 3 years, depending on
how hard the water is. For the OP:

Hi,
If your water is not hard. Digital ATD type humidity sensor hardly ever
goes out of calibration.

Thanks Tony for all the responses and thanks Stormin for helping again! Unfortunately I'm Chinese but I always wished I could understand Korean
If the flap you were referring to was the damper that controls the air flow from supply to the humidifier(the one that I could control with the horizontal/vertical switch), then yes I did double check and make sure it was fully on. I've also tried different water flow from the hot water supply, from minimum to maximum, humidity output did not change. The humidity monitor I was using was AcuRite 00613A1 Indoor Humidity Monitor. Bought from Amazon, not sure if it's okay to post links here so I'll just skip that for now.. Anyways for the two years since I had it its performance had been satisfactory for me, it was able to sense humidity changes and never fluctuated when in a stable environment.

I just found out that the lowest reading this humidity monitor can have was 16%, therefore the hot air I was measuring probably was even lower than 16%, this is the main thing I was concerned about, and also why I think I might be experiencing something different from other people who has the same unit.

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 12:54:35 PM UTC-5, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 11:56:53 AM UTC-5, Tony Hwang wrote:
trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, November 21, 2014 8:52:22 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

The panels in those last a year to maybe 3 years, depending on
how hard the water is. For the OP:

Hi,
If your water is not hard. Digital ATD type humidity sensor hardly ever
goes out of calibration.

Thanks Tony for all the responses and thanks Stormin for helping again! Unfortunately I'm Chinese but I always wished I could understand Korean
If the flap you were referring to was the damper that controls the air flow from supply to the humidifier(the one that I could control with the horizontal/vertical switch), then yes I did double check and make sure it was fully on. I've also tried different water flow from the hot water supply, from minimum to maximum, humidity output did not change. The humidity monitor I was using was AcuRite 00613A1 Indoor Humidity Monitor. Bought from Amazon, not sure if it's okay to post links here so I'll just skip that for now. Anyways for the two years since I had it its performance had been satisfactory for me, it was able to sense humidity changes and never fluctuated when in a stable environment.

I just found out that the lowest reading this humidity monitor can have was 16%, therefore the hot air I was measuring probably was even lower than 16%, this is the main thing I was concerned about, and also why I think I might be experiencing something different from other people who has the same unit.


You said you were measuring the 16% right at the heat register. Keep in mind
that the air there is much hotter than room temperature. When that air cools
down to room temp, the humidity will be much higher than 16%. You also said
that the humidity in the room was 33% and the outside temps were as low as
29F. If you set that unit to 45%, as the outside temp drops, the unit will
automatically lower the humidity below 45%, assuming it has the outside temp
sensor connected. When it's in the 20s you probably don't want it above 40%.

Also, a furnace hunidifier can't humidify when it's not on. If it's not
very cold out, then it may not run enough to be able to boost it as high as
you want. Depending on how it's wired up, if it runs when the blower is on,
you could run the blower constantly for a while to get more humidity out of it.
You'll get humidity out, just not quite as much as you would if the furnace
was firing. You apparently have hot water going into it, so that will help..

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 8:31:33 AM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, November 21, 2014 8:52:22 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

The panels in those last a year to maybe 3 years, depending on
how hard the water is. For the OP:

He said the water is running, so the unit is energized, but is that
all the time or does it shut off part of the time? I prseume he tried
putting the control to max to make sure it stays on more, but that had
no effect? If it's running all
the time, then it's not a control problem. That unit has an outside
temp sensor so it will lower the humidity as the outside temp drops,
which is what you want. But if it's running all the time, then that
isn't an issue.

How is it installed? Usually the unit is on the return side, with a
bypass duct going over to the hot side plenum. He says there is airflowing,
but how much? A lot? Usually they have a damper that you close for
the summer. Any chance it's mismarked, not fully open?

How large is the house? I've never been a fan of the bypass type
humidifier. I have the Aprilaire 700 which has it's own fan and
doesn't short circuit the blower air. I would think one possibility
is that the humidifier just doesn't have enough capacity. The fact
that the furnace is two stage, variable blower, might be a factor too.
I would think he might be getting less airflow, air not quite as hot
passing through it, etc.

If it's a capacity issue, changing the water feed to use hot water, which
probably isn't hard to do, instead of cold water will increase the output..

Finally, those little humidity meters are typically very inaccurate.
I've had 4 of them side by side, and they can read from 30 to 60.
If he googles he can find a calibrating procedure, where you use a
closed box with some moist salt in the bottom as reference. You can't
adjust the thing, but you can mark it +15 to know that you need to add
~15 to what it shows to get closer to the correct reading.

Thanks Trader for the response! As far as I can see, the water is flowing when the heat is on and is not flowing when heat is off. The house is only 1600 sq ft so I thought the humidifier should be plenty. The unit is located on the return duct and the air supply comes from the hot air supply duct. The unit is running on hot water line and I tried various water flow on it, there was always water draining down the draining tube and the humidity output did not change. I'm getting another one of these humidistat in a couple of days, I'll test and see if they give the same readings. I guess my question right now is whether the humidifier ever fails to output what it should be outputting, or it's already working fine but I'm asking too much from it? I'm really curious if there are other people with the same kinda humidifier and similar outdoor temperature, what humidity they are getting from the hot air registers. The way this thing works is almost purely physics so I really can't imagine where could've gone wrong.

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 1:38:39 PM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 12:54:35 PM UTC-5, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 11:56:53 AM UTC-5, Tony Hwang wrote:
trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, November 21, 2014 8:52:22 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

The panels in those last a year to maybe 3 years, depending on
how hard the water is. For the OP:

Hi,
If your water is not hard. Digital ATD type humidity sensor hardly ever
goes out of calibration.

Thanks Tony for all the responses and thanks Stormin for helping again! Unfortunately I'm Chinese but I always wished I could understand Korean
If the flap you were referring to was the damper that controls the air flow from supply to the humidifier(the one that I could control with the horizontal/vertical switch), then yes I did double check and make sure it was fully on. I've also tried different water flow from the hot water supply, from minimum to maximum, humidity output did not change. The humidity monitor I was using was AcuRite 00613A1 Indoor Humidity Monitor. Bought from Amazon, not sure if it's okay to post links here so I'll just skip that for now. Anyways for the two years since I had it its performance had been satisfactory for me, it was able to sense humidity changes and never fluctuated when in a stable environment.

I just found out that the lowest reading this humidity monitor can have was 16%, therefore the hot air I was measuring probably was even lower than 16%, this is the main thing I was concerned about, and also why I think I might be experiencing something different from other people who has the same unit.


You said you were measuring the 16% right at the heat register. Keep in mind
that the air there is much hotter than room temperature. When that air cools
down to room temp, the humidity will be much higher than 16%. You also said
that the humidity in the room was 33% and the outside temps were as low as
29F. If you set that unit to 45%, as the outside temp drops, the unit will
automatically lower the humidity below 45%, assuming it has the outside temp
sensor connected. When it's in the 20s you probably don't want it above 40%.

Also, a furnace hunidifier can't humidify when it's not on. If it's not
very cold out, then it may not run enough to be able to boost it as high as
you want. Depending on how it's wired up, if it runs when the blower is on,
you could run the blower constantly for a while to get more humidity out of it.
You'll get humidity out, just not quite as much as you would if the furnace
was firing. You apparently have hot water going into it, so that will help.

Thanks Trader, your statement about hot air cooling down and then becoming much higher than 16% sounds reasonable, but I'm not sure if this hot/cold air difference will be able to account for the difference between the 45% and 16%. The humidifier should not sense the outside temperature because when I had it installed I specifically asked for them to not put in the automatic one, but the manual one instead. So the humidistat on the return duct is just a round knob pointing to different numbers, no digital display.

So I guess my question boils down to whether the 16% humidity right out of register is reasonable or not, if it is, I probably shouldn't even bother getting the service guy back in again. But if it's not, I'm thinking whether there are other hardware configuration problems involved that they could make improvements on.

Thanks again.

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 2:37:55 PM UTC-5, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 1:38:39 PM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 12:54:35 PM UTC-5, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 11:56:53 AM UTC-5, Tony Hwang wrote:
trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, November 21, 2014 8:52:22 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

The panels in those last a year to maybe 3 years, depending on
how hard the water is. For the OP:

Hi,
If your water is not hard. Digital ATD type humidity sensor hardly ever
goes out of calibration.

Thanks Tony for all the responses and thanks Stormin for helping again! Unfortunately I'm Chinese but I always wished I could understand Korean
If the flap you were referring to was the damper that controls the air flow from supply to the humidifier(the one that I could control with the horizontal/vertical switch), then yes I did double check and make sure it was fully on. I've also tried different water flow from the hot water supply, from minimum to maximum, humidity output did not change. The humidity monitor I was using was AcuRite 00613A1 Indoor Humidity Monitor. Bought from Amazon, not sure if it's okay to post links here so I'll just skip that for now. Anyways for the two years since I had it its performance had been satisfactory for me, it was able to sense humidity changes and never fluctuated when in a stable environment.

I just found out that the lowest reading this humidity monitor can have was 16%, therefore the hot air I was measuring probably was even lower than 16%, this is the main thing I was concerned about, and also why I think I might be experiencing something different from other people who has the same unit.


You said you were measuring the 16% right at the heat register. Keep in mind
that the air there is much hotter than room temperature. When that air cools
down to room temp, the humidity will be much higher than 16%. You also said
that the humidity in the room was 33% and the outside temps were as low as
29F. If you set that unit to 45%, as the outside temp drops, the unit will
automatically lower the humidity below 45%, assuming it has the outside temp
sensor connected. When it's in the 20s you probably don't want it above 40%.

Also, a furnace hunidifier can't humidify when it's not on. If it's not
very cold out, then it may not run enough to be able to boost it as high as
you want. Depending on how it's wired up, if it runs when the blower is on,
you could run the blower constantly for a while to get more humidity out of it.
You'll get humidity out, just not quite as much as you would if the furnace
was firing. You apparently have hot water going into it, so that will help.

Thanks Trader, your statement about hot air cooling down and then becoming much higher than 16% sounds reasonable, but I'm not sure if this hot/cold air difference will be able to account for the difference between the 45% and 16%. The humidifier should not sense the outside temperature because when I had it installed I specifically asked for them to not put in the automatic one, but the manual one instead.

IDK why you would not want the automatic adjustment. I wouldn't buy a unit
without it. Otherwise, you have two choices. Keep it set at a humidity
appropriate for the coldest temp, which will be less than what you'd likely
want most times, or else keep adjusting it as the temperature changes.


So the humidistat on the return duct is just a round knob pointing to different numbers, no digital display.

The older models with outside temp compensation look just like that too.



So I guess my question boils down to whether the 16% humidity right out of register is reasonable or not, if it is, I probably shouldn't even bother getting the service guy back in again. But if it's not, I'm thinking whether there are other hardware configuration problems involved that they could make improvements on.

Thanks again.

Is the humidifier always on when the furnace is running, ie it's always
trying to raise the humidity?

What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.

If it's running, you stop it and quickly check the panel, is it wet all
over? I suppose if the unit is not level or similar, water could be
flowing only over part of the panel. There should be about a pencil
size stream of water flowing out the drain hose.

On 11/22/2014 2:28 PM, Hongyi Kang wrote:
Thanks Trader for the response! As far as I can
see, the water is flowing when the heat is on and
is not flowing when heat is off. The house is only
1600 sq ft so I thought the humidifier should be
plenty. The unit is located on the return duct and
the air supply comes from the hot air supply duct.
The unit is running on hot water line and I tried
various water flow on it, there was always water
draining down the draining tube and the humidity
output did not change. I'm getting another one of
these humidistat in a couple of days, I'll test and
see if they give the same readings. I guess my
question right now is whether the humidifier ever
fails to output what it should be outputting, or
it's already working fine but I'm asking too much
from it? I'm really curious if there are other
people with the same kinda humidifier and similar
outdoor temperature, what humidity they are getting
from the hot air registers. The way this thing
works is almost purely physics so I really can't
imagine where could've gone wrong.


I had an idea, which might sounds strange. In order
for the water to evaporate, it has to soak into the
white fibers of the media pad. if there is a lot of
mineral build up, the water might be sliding down the
outside of the pad, instead of soaking into the fibers.

Someone else suggested to soak the pad in vinegar, or
use some CLR to see if there is calcium carbonate build
up. I'd also wonder if a tiny bit of soap would help
water to soak in. Spray a little bit of some thing like
Simple Green detergent on the white fiber pad.

Just thinking, here.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

On 11/21/2014 8:13 PM, Hongyi Kang wrote:
Thanks Stormin for the effort! Really appreciate it!


I learned about the damper from the thread. Didn't know I had one and
don't shut it off. Have to do that next summer.

I don't measure humidity but Aprilaire seems to work OK but things do
dry out in the winter. I put in a new pad every year as old has a lot
of salts precipitated around it although I think it could work for a
couple of years without change.

On 11/22/2014 4:12 PM, Frank wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:13 PM, Hongyi Kang wrote:
Thanks Stormin for the effort! Really appreciate it!


I learned about the damper from the thread. Didn't know I had one and
don't shut it off. Have to do that next summer.

I don't measure humidity but Aprilaire seems to work OK but things do
dry out in the winter. I put in a new pad every year as old has a lot
of salts precipitated around it although I think it could work for a
couple of years without change.

Leaving the damper open with central AC makes
it much more likely to freeze the evaporator
coil.

I'm wondering if the OP need to replace that pad,
might be the water is on the outside of the pad,
not soaking into the fibers.

-
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

On Sat, 22 Nov 2014, trader_4 wrote:

How large is the house? I've never been a fan of the bypass type
humidifier. I have the Aprilaire 700 which has it's own fan and
doesn't short circuit the blower air. I would think one possibility
is that the humidifier just doesn't have enough capacity. The fact
that the furnace is two stage, variable blower, might be a factor too.
I would think he might be getting less airflow, air not quite as hot
passing through it, etc.

Yes, how large is the house? How well sealed is it? You may need two. When
I had Aprilaires I had two of them.

You can also improve it a little bit by having the fan run continuously.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 4:15:03 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/22/2014 4:12 PM, Frank wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:13 PM, Hongyi Kang wrote:
Thanks Stormin for the effort! Really appreciate it!


I learned about the damper from the thread. Didn't know I had one and
don't shut it off. Have to do that next summer.

I don't measure humidity but Aprilaire seems to work OK but things do
dry out in the winter. I put in a new pad every year as old has a lot
of salts precipitated around it although I think it could work for a
couple of years without change.

Leaving the damper open with central AC makes
it much more likely to freeze the evaporator
coil.

I'm wondering if the OP need to replace that pad,
might be the water is on the outside of the pad,
not soaking into the fibers.

-
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

Thanks Stormin for the thinking, I actually bought a new pad on Friday and put it in already, I had the side with the black mark facing up. Although it seemed to me that the side facing into the return duct also matters, I had the pad oriented so that the little holes in it go upwards, not sure if it's correct though.

On Fri, 21 Nov 2014, Hongyi Kang wrote:

I'm extremely new here so please let me know if I'm posting things at the wrong place. I recently (3 months ago) installed a new Trane 2 stage ECM furnace and along with it an Aprilaire 600 whole house Humidifier. It's upstate New York here, I've been setting the the thermostat to 73 degree, so furnace officially started working since late September.

You are in the right place. But your posting with no carriage returns makes
it very hard to read your posts. One has to scroll back and forth.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

On Sat, 22 Nov wrote:

What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.

That is my test. Touch a metal light switch plate. If no static shocks
there, or any other place, the humidly is high enough.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 2:56:49 PM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 2:37:55 PM UTC-5, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 1:38:39 PM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 12:54:35 PM UTC-5, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 11:56:53 AM UTC-5, Tony Hwang wrote:
trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, November 21, 2014 8:52:22 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

The panels in those last a year to maybe 3 years, depending on
how hard the water is. For the OP:

Hi,
If your water is not hard. Digital ATD type humidity sensor hardly ever
goes out of calibration.

Thanks Tony for all the responses and thanks Stormin for helping again! Unfortunately I'm Chinese but I always wished I could understand Korean
If the flap you were referring to was the damper that controls the air flow from supply to the humidifier(the one that I could control with the horizontal/vertical switch), then yes I did double check and make sure it was fully on. I've also tried different water flow from the hot water supply, from minimum to maximum, humidity output did not change. The humidity monitor I was using was AcuRite 00613A1 Indoor Humidity Monitor. Bought from Amazon, not sure if it's okay to post links here so I'll just skip that for now. Anyways for the two years since I had it its performance had been satisfactory for me, it was able to sense humidity changes and never fluctuated when in a stable environment.

I just found out that the lowest reading this humidity monitor can have was 16%, therefore the hot air I was measuring probably was even lower than 16%, this is the main thing I was concerned about, and also why I think I might be experiencing something different from other people who has the same unit.


You said you were measuring the 16% right at the heat register. Keep in mind
that the air there is much hotter than room temperature. When that air cools
down to room temp, the humidity will be much higher than 16%. You also said
that the humidity in the room was 33% and the outside temps were as low as
29F. If you set that unit to 45%, as the outside temp drops, the unit will
automatically lower the humidity below 45%, assuming it has the outside temp
sensor connected. When it's in the 20s you probably don't want it above 40%.

Also, a furnace hunidifier can't humidify when it's not on. If it's not
very cold out, then it may not run enough to be able to boost it as high as
you want. Depending on how it's wired up, if it runs when the blower is on,
you could run the blower constantly for a while to get more humidity out of it.
You'll get humidity out, just not quite as much as you would if the furnace
was firing. You apparently have hot water going into it, so that will help.

Thanks Trader, your statement about hot air cooling down and then becoming much higher than 16% sounds reasonable, but I'm not sure if this hot/cold air difference will be able to account for the difference between the 45% and 16%. The humidifier should not sense the outside temperature because when I had it installed I specifically asked for them to not put in the automatic one, but the manual one instead.

IDK why you would not want the automatic adjustment. I wouldn't buy a unit
without it. Otherwise, you have two choices. Keep it set at a humidity
appropriate for the coldest temp, which will be less than what you'd likely
want most times, or else keep adjusting it as the temperature changes.


So the humidistat on the return duct is just a round knob pointing to different numbers, no digital display.

The older models with outside temp compensation look just like that too.



So I guess my question boils down to whether the 16% humidity right out of register is reasonable or not, if it is, I probably shouldn't even bother getting the service guy back in again. But if it's not, I'm thinking whether there are other hardware configuration problems involved that they could make improvements on.

Thanks again.

Is the humidifier always on when the furnace is running, ie it's always
trying to raise the humidity?

What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.

If it's running, you stop it and quickly check the panel, is it wet all
over? I suppose if the unit is not level or similar, water could be
flowing only over part of the panel. There should be about a pencil
size stream of water flowing out the drain hose.

I didn't want the automatic one because I wanted to be able to adjust it to a higher humidity level when my family really needs it. But again I really don't think that is the issue here.

The humidifier is constantly on when the furnace is running, when I set it to 45%, but if I set it to ~30%, it stops.

The humidity guage I was using could possibly be inacurate, but I did have 2 years of experience with it and it had been functioning well, again I'm getting another one in to make sure, but if you think the whole model is just not accurate I probably won't be able to invest more money to get something better and more accurate.

I tried checking the water panel when it was running, but I could really tell the difference between wet all over and partly wet, am I supposed to see stream on every single wire or just a very tiny thin layer of water that's hardly observable? Or just drops of water here and there? The draining water seemed to all stick to the side of the tubing and not forming a stream..

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 4:42:22 PM UTC-5, Don Wiss wrote:
On Fri, 21 Nov 2014, Hongyi Kang wrote:

I'm extremely new here so please let me know if I'm posting things at the wrong place. I recently (3 months ago) installed a new Trane 2 stage ECM furnace and along with it an Aprilaire 600 whole house Humidifier. It's upstate New York here, I've been setting the the thermostat to 73 degree, so furnace officially started working since late September.

You are in the right place. But your posting with no carriage returns makes
it very hard to read your posts. One has to scroll back and forth.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

I will have to learn how to post with carriage return then. Sorry about the inconvenience.

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 4:44:29 PM UTC-5, Don Wiss wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov wrote:

What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.

That is my test. Touch a metal light switch plate. If no static shocks
there, or any other place, the humidly is high enough.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

I'll give that a shot, thanks!

On 11/22/2014 4:56 PM, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 4:42:22 PM UTC-5, Don Wiss wrote:
On Fri, 21 Nov 2014, Hongyi Kang wrote:

I'm extremely new here so please
let me know if I'm posting things at
the wrong place. I recently (3 months
ago) installed a new Trane 2 stage ECM
furnace and along with it an Aprilaire
600 whole house Humidifier. It's upstate
New York here, I've been setting the
the thermostat to 73 degree, so furnace
officially started working since late
September.

You are in the right place. But your posting with no carriage returns makes
it very hard to read your posts. One has to scroll back and forth.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

I will have to learn how to post with
carriage return then. Sorry about the
inconvenience.


Don, the modern generation has no idea what is a
carriage, and less idea what is a carriage return.
That may take some explaining to computer users.

I some times have to reply, and then insert the
carriage returns as I've done with the quoted
text.

-
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

On Sat, 22 Nov 2014, Stormin Mormon wrote:

Don, the modern generation has no idea what is a
carriage, and less idea what is a carriage return.
That may take some explaining to computer users.

In the OP's header I find: User-Agent: G2/1.0
Which I find he http://www.g2reader.com/en/

I would think it has a setting someplace. But it appears to be a simple app
and not a regular application for a desktop computer. So maybe no settings.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:44:21 -0500, Don Wiss
wrote:

On Sat, 22 Nov wrote:

What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.

That is my test. Touch a metal light switch plate. If no static shocks
there, or any other place, the humidly is high enough.

But doesn't that depend on what kind of carpet he has, if any, and what
kind of soles there are on the shoes they wear? They both have to be
right to get static.

In 30 years, I've never gotten a static shock in this house**, and for
at least 10 of these years, I've had no humidifier and I'm sure the
humidity was low. In fact an ivory came loose on my piano for the first
time in over 67 years. .

**Because the carpet is synthetic (I'm sure). I'm also not sure if the
rubber-like stuff on the bottom of my slippers and sneakers are the same
kind of rubber that would create a static charge if I had wool carpets.
or whatever pair works.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

AIUI, there are no good humidity gauges that the average person can
afford. That would include the gauge the OP is checking the humidity
with, and the gauge inside the humidifier that attempts to humidify the
household air to a desired humidity.

OP, have you tried just turning that " round knob pointing to different
numbers" to a higher number? Even if those numbers are supposed to be
the percent humidity that the unit will deliver, that doesn't mean they
are. The furnace control in the 50-apartment building I used to live
in didn't attempt to give a temperature, only heat output, for which one
could set it to A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. I think only by trial and
error did the first landlord** find what was the right setting. The
analogy is not perfect, but I think that's how you'll find it too.

Maybe you can borrow another better than average hygrometer from
someone.

Or just set the humidity to maximum, and when water starts dripping off
your windows, etc. keep setting it down a little at a time until nothing
bad is happening, no dripping anywhere that matters, and that will be
the highest humidity your home can have, anyhow. Regardless of your
hardware. Then mark that spot on your knob dial. And you can also
probably find out what the %age is, and interpolate what all the other
numbers on the dial mean.

It bothers me that he charged you for part of a service call because HE
could not find anything wrong. Were you very clear that something WAS
wrong. But in a way there's no point in crying over spilt milk, and
just calibrate the humidifier yourself.

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 5:23:59 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:44:21 -0500, Don Wiss
wrote:

On Sat, 22 Nov wrote:

What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.

That is my test. Touch a metal light switch plate. If no static shocks
there, or any other place, the humidly is high enough.

But doesn't that depend on what kind of carpet he has, if any, and what
kind of soles there are on the shoes they wear? They both have to be
right to get static.

In 30 years, I've never gotten a static shock in this house**, and for
at least 10 of these years, I've had no humidifier and I'm sure the
humidity was low. In fact an ivory came loose on my piano for the first
time in over 67 years. .

**Because the carpet is synthetic (I'm sure). I'm also not sure if the
rubber-like stuff on the bottom of my slippers and sneakers are the same
kind of rubber that would create a static charge if I had wool carpets.
or whatever pair works.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

AIUI, there are no good humidity gauges that the average person can
afford. That would include the gauge the OP is checking the humidity
with, and the gauge inside the humidifier that attempts to humidify the
household air to a desired humidity.

OP, have you tried just turning that " round knob pointing to different
numbers" to a higher number? Even if those numbers are supposed to be
the percent humidity that the unit will deliver, that doesn't mean they
are. The furnace control in the 50-apartment building I used to live
in didn't attempt to give a temperature, only heat output, for which one
could set it to A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. I think only by trial and
error did the first landlord** find what was the right setting. The
analogy is not perfect, but I think that's how you'll find it too.

Maybe you can borrow another better than average hygrometer from
someone.

Or just set the humidity to maximum, and when water starts dripping off
your windows, etc. keep setting it down a little at a time until nothing
bad is happening, no dripping anywhere that matters, and that will be
the highest humidity your home can have, anyhow. Regardless of your
hardware. Then mark that spot on your knob dial. And you can also
probably find out what the %age is, and interpolate what all the other
numbers on the dial mean.

It bothers me that he charged you for part of a service call because HE
could not find anything wrong. Were you very clear that something WAS
wrong. But in a way there's no point in crying over spilt milk, and
just calibrate the humidifier yourself.

Thanks for the warm reply! I have no carpet in the house and am wearing bamboo slippers all the time, not sure how that's gonna affect static shock though. The 45% is actually the highest setting on this humidifier. I wish I could crank it up any higher lol. However I am seeing frost on the window, is that a sign of too much humidity then? So I should probably never rely on humidity measurement coming out of the register but instead just judge by the water on window. This whole measuring humidity thing actually started because my wife woke up on a morning about two weeks ago telling me her throat had been burning the whole night and she had to drink water every hour to feel a little better.

I put the humidistat on one of the return registers on the floor on first floor this afternoon and it read 36%. This number actually is consistent with the humidistat by the humidifier, because when I turned the humidistat to under 35%, it would stop the hot water feed to the humidifier. Maybe just like Stormin said, I might need two of these... Or maybe it's time to bleach clean my portable one again XD.

On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:42:15 -0500, Don Wiss
wrote:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2014, Hongyi Kang wrote:

I'm extremely new here so please let me know if I'm posting things at the wrong place. I recently (3 months ago) installed a new Trane 2 stage ECM furnace and along with it an Aprilaire 600 whole house Humidifier. It's upstate New York here, I've been setting the the thermostat to 73 degree, so furnace officially started working since late September.

You are in the right place. But your posting with no carriage returns makes
it very hard to read your posts. One has to scroll back and forth.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).


Don, you're using Agent 1.93, the same as I am. I was about to tell
you to just turn on word wrap, with O.

But I looked at his op and found that it looked the same with wordwrap
on or not. And its lines are only about 70 characters, though they
all end with = except the last line in a paragraph.

So obviously one of Agent's other many parameters is set different for
you and me. I don't want to go over ever singlee one of them, but if
you have a couple suggestions, I'll check what my settings are.

You're right, when I reply to the OP and quote it, each paragraph is one
line with one in front of it. But it still only spans the width of
my not new, not wide monitor. There is a scroll bar at the bottom,
though nothing to the right to scroll to. Of course I'm in full-screen
mode (for Agent and anything else that will go full screen.)

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 5:42:43 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:42:15 -0500, Don Wiss
wrote:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2014, Hongyi Kang wrote:

I'm extremely new here so please let me know if I'm posting things at the wrong place. I recently (3 months ago) installed a new Trane 2 stage ECM furnace and along with it an Aprilaire 600 whole house Humidifier. It's upstate New York here, I've been setting the the thermostat to 73 degree, so furnace officially started working since late September.

You are in the right place. But your posting with no carriage returns makes
it very hard to read your posts. One has to scroll back and forth.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).


Don, you're using Agent 1.93, the same as I am. I was about to tell
you to just turn on word wrap, with O.

But I looked at his op and found that it looked the same with wordwrap
on or not. And its lines are only about 70 characters, though they
all end with = except the last line in a paragraph.

So obviously one of Agent's other many parameters is set different for
you and me. I don't want to go over ever singlee one of them, but if
you have a couple suggestions, I'll check what my settings are.

You're right, when I reply to the OP and quote it, each paragraph is one
line with one in front of it. But it still only spans the width of
my not new, not wide monitor. There is a scroll bar at the bottom,
though nothing to the right to scroll to. Of course I'm in full-screen
mode (for Agent and anything else that will go full screen.)



On Saturday, November 22, 2014 5:42:43 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:42:15 -0500, Don Wiss
wrote:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2014, Hongyi Kang wrote:

I'm extremely new here so please let me know if I'm posting things at the wrong place. I recently (3 months ago) installed a new Trane 2 stage ECM furnace and along with it an Aprilaire 600 whole house Humidifier. It's upstate New York here, I've been setting the the thermostat to 73 degree, so furnace officially started working since late September.

You are in the right place. But your posting with no carriage returns makes
it very hard to read your posts. One has to scroll back and forth.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).


Don, you're using Agent 1.93, the same as I am. I was about to tell
you to just turn on word wrap, with O.

But I looked at his op and found that it looked the same with wordwrap
on or not. And its lines are only about 70 characters, though they
all end with = except the last line in a paragraph.

So obviously one of Agent's other many parameters is set different for
you and me. I don't want to go over ever singlee one of them, but if
you have a couple suggestions, I'll check what my settings are.

You're right, when I reply to the OP and quote it, each paragraph is one
line with one in front of it. But it still only spans the width of
my not new, not wide monitor. There is a scroll bar at the bottom,
though nothing to the right to scroll to. Of course I'm in full-screen
mode (for Agent and anything else that will go full screen.)

I kind of get what carriage return means here now, I guess the paragraphs I
typed all just went into one single line? I'm pressing enter at the end of
every line I'm typing now, hope that will help! I'm just using google
chrome on a desktop computer to read and post right now. Not sure if there
is any app i'm using.

On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 14:40:50 -0800 (PST), Hongyi Kang
wrote:

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 5:23:59 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:44:21 -0500, Don Wiss
wrote:

On Sat, 22 Nov wrote:

What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.

That is my test. Touch a metal light switch plate. If no static shocks
there, or any other place, the humidly is high enough.

But doesn't that depend on what kind of carpet he has, if any, and what
kind of soles there are on the shoes they wear? They both have to be
right to get static.

In 30 years, I've never gotten a static shock in this house**, and for
at least 10 of these years, I've had no humidifier and I'm sure the
humidity was low. In fact an ivory came loose on my piano for the first
time in over 67 years. .

**Because the carpet is synthetic (I'm sure). I'm also not sure if the
rubber-like stuff on the bottom of my slippers and sneakers are the same
kind of rubber that would create a static charge if I had wool carpets.
or whatever pair works.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

AIUI, there are no good humidity gauges that the average person can
afford. That would include the gauge the OP is checking the humidity
with, and the gauge inside the humidifier that attempts to humidify the
household air to a desired humidity.

OP, have you tried just turning that " round knob pointing to different
numbers" to a higher number? Even if those numbers are supposed to be
the percent humidity that the unit will deliver, that doesn't mean they
are. The furnace control in the 50-apartment building I used to live
in didn't attempt to give a temperature, only heat output, for which one
could set it to A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. I think only by trial and
error did the first landlord** find what was the right setting. The
analogy is not perfect, but I think that's how you'll find it too.

Maybe you can borrow another better than average hygrometer from
someone.

Or just set the humidity to maximum, and when water starts dripping off
your windows, etc. keep setting it down a little at a time until nothing
bad is happening, no dripping anywhere that matters, and that will be
the highest humidity your home can have, anyhow. Regardless of your
hardware. Then mark that spot on your knob dial. And you can also
probably find out what the %age is, and interpolate what all the other
numbers on the dial mean.

It bothers me that he charged you for part of a service call because HE
could not find anything wrong. Were you very clear that something WAS
wrong. But in a way there's no point in crying over spilt milk, and
just calibrate the humidifier yourself.

Thanks for the warm reply! I have no carpet in the house and am wearing bamboo slippers all the time, not sure how that's gonna affect static shock though. The 45% is actually the highest setting on this humidifier. I wish I could crank it up any higher lol.

At least for the sake of testing, you can raisse the humidity further by
putting a big pot of water on the stove and boiling it until it's almost
dry. (You can boil it dry for that matter without hurting most pots that
much.) And/or you can stopper the bathtub, turn on the shower all
hot, and just make sure you don't overflow the tub. (You could leave
the tub unstopped, but that's a waste of hot water, and not as
effective, because the water steams off of the surface as much as the
spray.)

It's certainly worth doing this once, to see if it helps your wife. If
it doesn't, then you can just stick with the humidifier as you have it.

The boiling water is better than the shower, I think. You can just keep
adding more hot water to the boiling water, but you can only let the
bathtub fill up so high, and I won't drain the tub until the water is
room temperature.

Both of these, btw, are good ways of making the house feel warm, by
raising the humidity, when the furnace is broken.

However I am seeing frost on the window, is that a sign of too much humidity then?

It's only too much if it bothers you for some reason. It would bother
some of the people here, I think, or at least water on the windows
would, but they don't have a wife with a sore throat. The only
problem with the water is that it might damage the paint on the windows
sills, but you might not have paint or even sills, and you have to
repaiint painted ones once in a while anyhow.

They also worry about mold. I've had black mold for other reasons and
it doesn't bother me, but I'm sure it does bother some people. I killed
it either by removing the source of the wetness (a lot of water just
outside) or with bleach, or with paint with mold suppressor added.
(I thought killing it with bleach would make it turn white again, but
that was silly.)


So I should probably never rely on humidity measurement coming out of the register but instead just judge by the water on window. This whole measuring humidity thing actually started because my wife woke up on a morning about two weeks ago telling me her throat had been burning the whole night and she had to drink water every hour to feel a little better.

This had not bothered her like this before?

Maybe she was also sick with something that she doesn't have anymore.
Or does have and should be treated for it.

So it made her feel worse than it normally will.


I put the humidistat on one of the return registers on the floor on first floor this afternoon and it read 36%. This number actually is consistent with the humidistat by the humidifier, because when I turned the humidistat to under 35%, it would stop the hot water feed to the humidifier. Maybe just like Stormin said, I might need two of these... Or maybe it's time to bleach clean my portable one again XD.

On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 17:20:42 -0500, Don Wiss
wrote:

On Sat, 22 Nov 2014, Stormin Mormon wrote:

Don, the modern generation has no idea what is a
carriage, and less idea what is a carriage return.
That may take some explaining to computer users.

In the OP's header I find: User-Agent: G2/1.0
Which I find he http://www.g2reader.com/en/

I can't look here right now.

I would think it has a setting someplace. But it appears to be a simple app
and not a regular application for a desktop computer. So maybe no settings.

I've seen User-Agent: G2/1.0 many times, for years, and I thought it was
a regular application program.


Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 4:51:59 PM UTC-5, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 2:56:49 PM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 2:37:55 PM UTC-5, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 1:38:39 PM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 12:54:35 PM UTC-5, Hongyi Kang wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 11:56:53 AM UTC-5, Tony Hwang wrote:
trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, November 21, 2014 8:52:22 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/21/2014 8:40 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
panes. Panel can be reused after cleaning with CLR.

Ideally, with the flow of water through, the
panel "never needs cleaning". But nothing is
perfect.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

The panels in those last a year to maybe 3 years, depending on
how hard the water is. For the OP:

Hi,
If your water is not hard. Digital ATD type humidity sensor hardly ever
goes out of calibration.

Thanks Tony for all the responses and thanks Stormin for helping again! Unfortunately I'm Chinese but I always wished I could understand Korean
If the flap you were referring to was the damper that controls the air flow from supply to the humidifier(the one that I could control with the horizontal/vertical switch), then yes I did double check and make sure it was fully on. I've also tried different water flow from the hot water supply, from minimum to maximum, humidity output did not change. The humidity monitor I was using was AcuRite 00613A1 Indoor Humidity Monitor. Bought from Amazon, not sure if it's okay to post links here so I'll just skip that for now. Anyways for the two years since I had it its performance had been satisfactory for me, it was able to sense humidity changes and never fluctuated when in a stable environment.

I just found out that the lowest reading this humidity monitor can have was 16%, therefore the hot air I was measuring probably was even lower than 16%, this is the main thing I was concerned about, and also why I think I might be experiencing something different from other people who has the same unit.


You said you were measuring the 16% right at the heat register. Keep in mind
that the air there is much hotter than room temperature. When that air cools
down to room temp, the humidity will be much higher than 16%. You also said
that the humidity in the room was 33% and the outside temps were as low as
29F. If you set that unit to 45%, as the outside temp drops, the unit will
automatically lower the humidity below 45%, assuming it has the outside temp
sensor connected. When it's in the 20s you probably don't want it above 40%.

Also, a furnace hunidifier can't humidify when it's not on. If it's not
very cold out, then it may not run enough to be able to boost it as high as
you want. Depending on how it's wired up, if it runs when the blower is on,
you could run the blower constantly for a while to get more humidity out of it.
You'll get humidity out, just not quite as much as you would if the furnace
was firing. You apparently have hot water going into it, so that will help.

Thanks Trader, your statement about hot air cooling down and then becoming much higher than 16% sounds reasonable, but I'm not sure if this hot/cold air difference will be able to account for the difference between the 45% and 16%. The humidifier should not sense the outside temperature because when I had it installed I specifically asked for them to not put in the automatic one, but the manual one instead.

IDK why you would not want the automatic adjustment. I wouldn't buy a unit
without it. Otherwise, you have two choices. Keep it set at a humidity
appropriate for the coldest temp, which will be less than what you'd likely
want most times, or else keep adjusting it as the temperature changes.


So the humidistat on the return duct is just a round knob pointing to different numbers, no digital display.

The older models with outside temp compensation look just like that too..



So I guess my question boils down to whether the 16% humidity right out of register is reasonable or not, if it is, I probably shouldn't even bother getting the service guy back in again. But if it's not, I'm thinking whether there are other hardware configuration problems involved that they could make improvements on.

Thanks again.

Is the humidifier always on when the furnace is running, ie it's always
trying to raise the humidity?

What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.

If it's running, you stop it and quickly check the panel, is it wet all
over? I suppose if the unit is not level or similar, water could be
flowing only over part of the panel. There should be about a pencil
size stream of water flowing out the drain hose.

I didn't want the automatic one because I wanted to be able to adjust it to a higher humidity level when my family really needs it. But again I really don't think that is the issue here.


You can adjust the ones that have compensation for outside temperature,
just like you can adjust the one you have. If you want it high, just turn
it up. I guess it would prevent you from setting it to 50% when it's 15F
outside, but that would seem to be a good thing. What the the ones with outdoor temp compensation will do is reduce
the humidity when it gets cold outside. So, if you have it set to 45% when
it's 40 outside, which is reasonable, if the outside temp drops to 20, it will reduce it to maybe 35%, which is more appropriate for that temperature, so you don't get condensation at windows, inside walls, etc. If you
don't have it done automatically, then you're supposed to be doing that
manually. Or else keep it set low enough all the time so that condensation
problems never occur.


The humidifier is constantly on when the furnace is running, when I set it to 45%, but if I set it to ~30%, it stops.

So it thinks the actual humidity is at ~35%. Another factor here could be
the furnace sizing for the house. You said the house is 1600 sq ft. If
the furnace is oversized, ie too large for the house, then it's not going
to run very long and the humdifier won't have enough time to put out moisture.
Say a house should have a 70K BTU furnace and instead a 120K BTU furnace is
installed. The 100K furnace is going to run a lot less number of minutes
under the same conditions than the 70K furnace.



The humidity guage I was using could possibly be inacurate, but I did have 2 years of experience with it and it had been functioning well, again I'm getting another one in to make sure, but if you think the whole model is just not accurate I probably won't be able to invest more money to get something better and more accurate.


As I said before, if you google you can find a simple procedure to calibrate
them. I've seen 3 of the same or very similar model, side by side, with
read outs that are 20%+ different.



I tried checking the water panel when it was running, but I could really tell the difference between wet all over and partly wet, am I supposed to see stream on every single wire or just a very tiny thin layer of water that's hardly observable? Or just drops of water here and there? The draining water seemed to all stick to the side of the tubing and not forming a stream.

If you take it out and feel it, I would think it should feel wet all over
and/or you should be able to see that it's wet all over. There should also
be water over the whole top of the distribution tray. Have you placed a
level on the unit?

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 6:17:26 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 14:40:50 -0800 (PST), Hongyi Kang
wrote:

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 5:23:59 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:44:21 -0500, Don Wiss
wrote:

On Sat, 22 Nov wrote:

What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.

That is my test. Touch a metal light switch plate. If no static shocks
there, or any other place, the humidly is high enough.

But doesn't that depend on what kind of carpet he has, if any, and what
kind of soles there are on the shoes they wear? They both have to be
right to get static.

In 30 years, I've never gotten a static shock in this house**, and for
at least 10 of these years, I've had no humidifier and I'm sure the
humidity was low. In fact an ivory came loose on my piano for the first
time in over 67 years. .

**Because the carpet is synthetic (I'm sure). I'm also not sure if the
rubber-like stuff on the bottom of my slippers and sneakers are the same
kind of rubber that would create a static charge if I had wool carpets..
or whatever pair works.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

AIUI, there are no good humidity gauges that the average person can
afford. That would include the gauge the OP is checking the humidity
with, and the gauge inside the humidifier that attempts to humidify the
household air to a desired humidity.

OP, have you tried just turning that " round knob pointing to different
numbers" to a higher number? Even if those numbers are supposed to be
the percent humidity that the unit will deliver, that doesn't mean they
are. The furnace control in the 50-apartment building I used to live
in didn't attempt to give a temperature, only heat output, for which one
could set it to A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. I think only by trial and
error did the first landlord** find what was the right setting. The
analogy is not perfect, but I think that's how you'll find it too.

Maybe you can borrow another better than average hygrometer from
someone.

Or just set the humidity to maximum, and when water starts dripping off
your windows, etc. keep setting it down a little at a time until nothing
bad is happening, no dripping anywhere that matters, and that will be
the highest humidity your home can have, anyhow. Regardless of your
hardware. Then mark that spot on your knob dial. And you can also
probably find out what the %age is, and interpolate what all the other
numbers on the dial mean.

It bothers me that he charged you for part of a service call because HE
could not find anything wrong. Were you very clear that something WAS
wrong. But in a way there's no point in crying over spilt milk, and
just calibrate the humidifier yourself.

Thanks for the warm reply! I have no carpet in the house and am wearing bamboo slippers all the time, not sure how that's gonna affect static shock though. The 45% is actually the highest setting on this humidifier. I wish I could crank it up any higher lol.

At least for the sake of testing, you can raisse the humidity further by
putting a big pot of water on the stove and boiling it until it's almost
dry. (You can boil it dry for that matter without hurting most pots that
much.) And/or you can stopper the bathtub, turn on the shower all
hot, and just make sure you don't overflow the tub. (You could leave
the tub unstopped, but that's a waste of hot water, and not as
effective, because the water steams off of the surface as much as the
spray.)

It's certainly worth doing this once, to see if it helps your wife. If
it doesn't, then you can just stick with the humidifier as you have it.

The boiling water is better than the shower, I think. You can just keep
adding more hot water to the boiling water, but you can only let the
bathtub fill up so high, and I won't drain the tub until the water is
room temperature.

Both of these, btw, are good ways of making the house feel warm, by
raising the humidity, when the furnace is broken.

However I am seeing frost on the window, is that a sign of too much humidity then?

It's only too much if it bothers you for some reason. It would bother
some of the people here, I think, or at least water on the windows
would, but they don't have a wife with a sore throat. The only
problem with the water is that it might damage the paint on the windows
sills, but you might not have paint or even sills, and you have to
repaiint painted ones once in a while anyhow.

They also worry about mold. I've had black mold for other reasons and
it doesn't bother me, but I'm sure it does bother some people. I killed
it either by removing the source of the wetness (a lot of water just
outside) or with bleach, or with paint with mold suppressor added.
(I thought killing it with bleach would make it turn white again, but
that was silly.)


So I should probably never rely on humidity measurement coming out of the register but instead just judge by the water on window. This whole measuring humidity thing actually started because my wife woke up on a morning about two weeks ago telling me her throat had been burning the whole night and she had to drink water every hour to feel a little better.

This had not bothered her like this before?

Maybe she was also sick with something that she doesn't have anymore.
Or does have and should be treated for it.

So it made her feel worse than it normally will.


I put the humidistat on one of the return registers on the floor on first floor this afternoon and it read 36%. This number actually is consistent with the humidistat by the humidifier, because when I turned the humidistat to under 35%, it would stop the hot water feed to the humidifier. Maybe just like Stormin said, I might need two of these... Or maybe it's time to bleach clean my portable one again XD.

I will definitely try both the boiling water and the bathtub. And thanks
for explaining the window water situation, I think we should be fine with
water on the window then. My wife have had this coughing and sore throat
problem for about 3 years, and it's mainly during winter that it's the
worst. Before I moved into this house I used a portable humidifier to keep
the humidity in bedroom high so that she feels better during the winter.
That was a little problematic because I had to shut off the dry hot air register in that room and keep the door half shut to keep the humidity to be
around 50%. But the room got kinda cold which aggravated her throat as
well. After we moved into this new house when I heard about this whole house
humidifier you can imagine how happy I was. I thought I could keep the
house warm and humid at the same time now . That's why I felt a little upset when it started to not function as expected since the temperature drop..

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 6:17:26 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:


However I am seeing frost on the window, is that a sign of too much humidity then?

It's only too much if it bothers you for some reason.


It would bother
some of the people here, I think, or at least water on the windows
would, but they don't have a wife with a sore throat. The only
problem with the water is that it might damage the paint on the windows
sills, but you might not have paint or even sills, and you have to
repaiint painted ones once in a while anyhow.

If you get significant condensation on the windows, what do you think is
happening everywhere else that there is a similar cold spot, eg inside
walls, near electric outlets, etc? Having humidity too high when it's
cold isn't just a bother. It promotes mold, mildew, rot, etc.




They also worry about mold. I've had black mold for other reasons and
it doesn't bother me, but I'm sure it does bother some people. I killed
it either by removing the source of the wetness (a lot of water just
outside) or with bleach, or with paint with mold suppressor added.
(I thought killing it with bleach would make it turn white again, but
that was silly.)



There you go.