Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: eagl on July 01, 2013, 11:00:51 PM
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Anyone have experience with home humidifiers? I have seen some weird behavior with my "large room" humidifier that I'm using until I can figure out a whole house solution.
I had the room humidifier set to 40%, because the wood floors I had installed (Vegas... yea.) specify minimum 35% humidity. At that setting, the humidifier was able to keep the downstairs area with the wood around 35% using approx. 2 gallons of water a day (refilled the 1 gal reservoir twice each day). The upstairs bedrooms settled down around 28%, so I put a smaller humidifier in the master bathroom near an A/C intake and that bumped the upstairs areas to around 30%, using just under a gallon a day.
For reference, the outside humidity has consistently measured 16% plus or minus a couple of percent, for the last 6 months regardless of temperature, and even when it rains it only seems to increase to 30-40% during the rain and then drops back down to 16%.
So the weird part - some of the wood flooring in a high traffic area split after just a few months, so I figured I'd try to increase the humidity. I increased the humidifier setting to 45% and changed out the "filter" evaporation medium to make it more efficient as it bumped up the overall humidity. It ran nearly constantly for 2 days with about 4 gal a day instead of 2, but then... The downstairs settled in and stabilized around 40%, upstairs stabilized at 33%, and water use in the humidifier DROPPED to 1 or 1.5 gal per day. It's held like that for over a week now including through the current heat wave, even though the outside air is 115+ deg and still 16% humidity and the inside air conditioners are running a lot. So its holding the humidity 5-8% higher, using half a gallon less water per day.
What's going on? It's very strange.
BTW, I haven't gone with a whole home humidifier yet because the AC units are both in the attic, and we get hard freezes a few times each winter so I can't put the humidifiers in the attic. The Honeywell truesteam unit has a 20' feed hose that MIGHT be long enough to mount the unit inside my laundry room and run the hose up to an AC duct, but it's really close to a 20' run and I won't be able to measure it exactly without chopping a hole in the ceiling and actually running a wire or string for an exact measurement. The install will run over $2,000 for the unit, a drip pan with overflow cutoff sensor, and the help of a plumber to make sure the plumbing is done *right*, so I'm taking my time making sure I don't buy a bunch of expensive stuff and hire an expert to help me install it, only to find that the run is too long for the steam feed hose.
I don't seem to have any other options. I haven't found a "room" humidifier that can be plumbed into under-sink water supply for a permanent installation, and I'm really not enjoying having to fill the stupid humidifier tanks 2-3 times a day. The truesteam one seems to be the only one that can be mounted remotely with a long enough feed hose...
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The house was thirsty and was absorbing the moisture until it plateaued. Water usage dropped relative to the load since the walls and floors are satisfied and you are now just keeping the air moist.
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The thought of humidifying anything is completely foreign to me. We have had 85 degrees, bright sunshine and 85% humidity for like 3 weeks now.
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Wood + desert = NFG.
Just because of this, I have changed the few pieces of teak on my sailboat to manufactured "wood"
Yes, a blasphemy, but it sure as hell beats chasing the wood with teak oil twice a year.
I had a friend that moved to AZ, from PA. He was stumped by the concept of using a swamp cooler or other means to introduce humidity into his home so there was enough of it for the a/c to evaporate to make cold air...
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Howdy eagl....
Just curious, was the hardwood floor allowed to acclimate in the home before installation? ( I deal with flooring alot having use to rebuild residential / commercial structures for insurance companys...now an adjuster for one)
Ive seen floors that werent allowed to sit in the home for a week or so, crack due to normal expansion and contraction after install...and yes it can be months later due to climate changes.....just a thought
As an adjuster now, i have some hardwood flooring experts id like to send your question to......mind if i copy and paste it and email it to them?
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Howdy eagl....
Just curious, was the hardwood floor allowed to acclimate in the home before installation? ( I deal with flooring alot having use to rebuild residential / commercial structures for insurance companys...now an adjuster for one)
Ive seen floors that werent allowed to sit in the home for a week or so, crack due to normal expansion and contraction after install...and yes it can be months later due to climate changes.....just a thought
As an adjuster now, i have some hardwood flooring experts id like to send your question to......mind if i copy and paste it and email it to them?
Go ahead and ask them.
The wood sat in my house for 3 days prior to unpacking. Per manufacturer's instructions, the boxes were left unopened. The manufacturer specifically states that acclimation is not required, but also says that the boxes should not be opened until installation to ensure the boards do not warp prior to installation.
Most of the boards have not cracked, but in the high traffic area I have several boards where the top hardwood layer has split down the grain starting at the end and proceeding anywhere from 1 to 6 inches along the length of the board. It appears to be only the top layer but of course I can't see the other layers so I don't really know. Some of the joints between boards also appear to have opened up very slightly, but its hard to tell and none of the boards are obviously loose or clearly separated so it might just be normal installation variance in how tightly the boards were glued together. The floor is floating over a "premium" underlayment, on a concrete slab. Moisture is very low and I've been pretty consistent maintaining at least 30% humidity in the house, with a target of 35-40% per manufacturer's specified minimum of 35% humidity.
Low traffic areas appear to have no splitting at all, but I haven't really been looking for defects in low traffic areas either. But in the hallway and one doorway between rooms I have several pieces that split. There appears to be VERY minor cupping of the boards after 6 months, but nothing that has caused noticeable buckling of the floor or gaps between boards.
The overall home humidity and humidifier effectiveness has me baffled. I had the house stabilized at about 35% humidity for 5 months before deciding to bump it to 40%, and 3-4 days after bumping it to 40% the water usage from the humidifier dropped 50% while the indoor humidity remained at the new 40% level. Maybe there was a tipping point in there where it became self-regulating due to natural saturation of the structure, but it sure seems strange that in the middle of a really bad heat wave I can maintain a consistent 5% higher indoor humidity while using far less water than before.