Hello, I was hoping to be able to discuss whole house humidifiers. Sorry if I am long winded and full of questions.
Briefly, I have a 2 level 2500 sq fr house. A single boiler with 3 zones — downstairs radiators, downstairs addition baseboard, and upstairs baseboards. Two AC systems, one servicing upstairs and the other downstairs. Downstairs intake is off a corner where a den doorway is (already had an HVAC tech when we moved in tell me is was a terrible location and doesn’t mix the downstairs intake appropriately) and the other at the top of the stairs on the ceiling of the second floor.
My family is very sensitive to humidity so last year I put in a Honeywell HE300A on the first floor air handler as it is adjacent to the hot water heater (the only heat I can get for humidifying) and I was thinking when the fan of the upstairs handler runs at the top of the stairs it would draw the humid air from the first to the second floor. It was connected to the Ecobee 4 as a steam humidifier so that it would turn on regardless of the heat status and turn on the blower fan as well. The cold season came and gone and it seemed like the humidifier never real did anything but constantly run the blower fan which seem to emphasize the air leaks around the door locks.
This season I am trying to optimize it and just keep running into problems.
For the setup, the air handler is in the basement and the intake is a large round flexible insulated duct that attached to a rigid rectangle. The other column from bottom to top is the fan/evap coil the rigid square with the different runs of the duct distribution. The humidifier is connected to a side of this rigid duct at the top which then immediate distributes into different runs.
So back to initial hum controlled by ecobee in steam mode which would run with fan — found out that the handler fan was too strong for the hum which just resulted in water being sprayed on the sides rather than pad. This is why the pad never seemed that wet last year and seemed like nothing ever happened.
This season, started with hum controlled by ecobee as evap hum. Notice the hum was barely ever running. Looked in the run history and the hum would only run for a couple hours per day while the boilers were running.The radiator system is very efficient and they hardly need prolonged run time. This resulted in not enough on time for the humidifier.
I just pulled out the Humidipro that came with the hum and installed onto the bottom rigid rectangle on the intake side of the blower. It looked like it was going to solve all the problems. Initial reading was 27% humidity, turned on the hum, the pad was nicely wet, and went up stairs to check the registers and there was a faint amount of air coming out. I thought everything was going great, but the the humidifier started short cycling. I had it set at 45%, humidipro detecting 45%, 1st floor ecobee registering 30%. I run the blower fan and the humidipro quickly goes back to 27%. So it seems like either A) the HE300A fan is not strong enough to clear the air handler/ducting or B) the airflow from the HE300A is preferentially going in reverse back towards the intake than rather out the ducts.
So right now, until I can get some type of equilibration in case the problem goes away, I am having the ecobee ran the fan 30mins/hr (3min on, 3off) which has helped some with the short cycling as the blower clears the handler and the duration is short enough the solenoid does always activate with the fan on to get good pad wetting. However in that 3 minutes fan off time, the humidipro will go from 25 to 50 and then start short cycling a couple times before the fan restarts. Ultimately I would like to not run the blower all day as I think it works against the humidity goal by pressurizing the leaks.
So ideally, I would just take the HE300A out, put new sheet metal over the hole and purchase a steam humidifier controlled by the ecobee. However, I have no room for a 240V breaker and would need a whole new sub panel. The 120v outputs are less than the advertised HE300A output (11gpd < 18gpd). So, if possible I would like to try and optimize my current setup, this is where I am hoping someone’s experience my be helpful.
One option would be to move the humidipro to the first floor wall rather than on the common intake. This would likely avoid the short cycling cause by the humidity in the handler. But my fear is it will just keep humidifying the air handler resulting in condensation/excessive water/mold/corrosion/etc. and not get out the ducts to the room. Or is this inaccurate?
Another option is somehow modify air flow? Is there any method that can be used to direct the hum fan to go out the ducts rather than throughout the handler without messing with the blower fan / evaporate coil?
Another thought would be to bring in a new intake run and place a inline duct fan, then have the humidifier call the new duct fan when humidifying. Thought is this extra boost in air movement will clear the air handler but wouldn’t be so strong that is messes with the watering of the hum pad. Are there any issues with this method that I am not considering? Any recommendations for in-line fan size (4-8”) or minimum flow rate? How above if I placed the duct fan down stream of the humidifier and have it activate with humidity call or ac fan calls?
If I decommissioned the first floor and went with a steam on the second floor, is the stairway enough space to get exchange between the first and second floors for adequate distribution of humidity to the first floor?
Any other options that I am not considering?
Thanks for the help
Briefly, I have a 2 level 2500 sq fr house. A single boiler with 3 zones — downstairs radiators, downstairs addition baseboard, and upstairs baseboards. Two AC systems, one servicing upstairs and the other downstairs. Downstairs intake is off a corner where a den doorway is (already had an HVAC tech when we moved in tell me is was a terrible location and doesn’t mix the downstairs intake appropriately) and the other at the top of the stairs on the ceiling of the second floor.
My family is very sensitive to humidity so last year I put in a Honeywell HE300A on the first floor air handler as it is adjacent to the hot water heater (the only heat I can get for humidifying) and I was thinking when the fan of the upstairs handler runs at the top of the stairs it would draw the humid air from the first to the second floor. It was connected to the Ecobee 4 as a steam humidifier so that it would turn on regardless of the heat status and turn on the blower fan as well. The cold season came and gone and it seemed like the humidifier never real did anything but constantly run the blower fan which seem to emphasize the air leaks around the door locks.
This season I am trying to optimize it and just keep running into problems.
For the setup, the air handler is in the basement and the intake is a large round flexible insulated duct that attached to a rigid rectangle. The other column from bottom to top is the fan/evap coil the rigid square with the different runs of the duct distribution. The humidifier is connected to a side of this rigid duct at the top which then immediate distributes into different runs.
So back to initial hum controlled by ecobee in steam mode which would run with fan — found out that the handler fan was too strong for the hum which just resulted in water being sprayed on the sides rather than pad. This is why the pad never seemed that wet last year and seemed like nothing ever happened.
This season, started with hum controlled by ecobee as evap hum. Notice the hum was barely ever running. Looked in the run history and the hum would only run for a couple hours per day while the boilers were running.The radiator system is very efficient and they hardly need prolonged run time. This resulted in not enough on time for the humidifier.
I just pulled out the Humidipro that came with the hum and installed onto the bottom rigid rectangle on the intake side of the blower. It looked like it was going to solve all the problems. Initial reading was 27% humidity, turned on the hum, the pad was nicely wet, and went up stairs to check the registers and there was a faint amount of air coming out. I thought everything was going great, but the the humidifier started short cycling. I had it set at 45%, humidipro detecting 45%, 1st floor ecobee registering 30%. I run the blower fan and the humidipro quickly goes back to 27%. So it seems like either A) the HE300A fan is not strong enough to clear the air handler/ducting or B) the airflow from the HE300A is preferentially going in reverse back towards the intake than rather out the ducts.
So right now, until I can get some type of equilibration in case the problem goes away, I am having the ecobee ran the fan 30mins/hr (3min on, 3off) which has helped some with the short cycling as the blower clears the handler and the duration is short enough the solenoid does always activate with the fan on to get good pad wetting. However in that 3 minutes fan off time, the humidipro will go from 25 to 50 and then start short cycling a couple times before the fan restarts. Ultimately I would like to not run the blower all day as I think it works against the humidity goal by pressurizing the leaks.
So ideally, I would just take the HE300A out, put new sheet metal over the hole and purchase a steam humidifier controlled by the ecobee. However, I have no room for a 240V breaker and would need a whole new sub panel. The 120v outputs are less than the advertised HE300A output (11gpd < 18gpd). So, if possible I would like to try and optimize my current setup, this is where I am hoping someone’s experience my be helpful.
One option would be to move the humidipro to the first floor wall rather than on the common intake. This would likely avoid the short cycling cause by the humidity in the handler. But my fear is it will just keep humidifying the air handler resulting in condensation/excessive water/mold/corrosion/etc. and not get out the ducts to the room. Or is this inaccurate?
Another option is somehow modify air flow? Is there any method that can be used to direct the hum fan to go out the ducts rather than throughout the handler without messing with the blower fan / evaporate coil?
Another thought would be to bring in a new intake run and place a inline duct fan, then have the humidifier call the new duct fan when humidifying. Thought is this extra boost in air movement will clear the air handler but wouldn’t be so strong that is messes with the watering of the hum pad. Are there any issues with this method that I am not considering? Any recommendations for in-line fan size (4-8”) or minimum flow rate? How above if I placed the duct fan down stream of the humidifier and have it activate with humidity call or ac fan calls?
If I decommissioned the first floor and went with a steam on the second floor, is the stairway enough space to get exchange between the first and second floors for adequate distribution of humidity to the first floor?
Any other options that I am not considering?
Thanks for the help
source https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/threads/2235352-Humidifier-help?goto=newpost
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