Humidifiers

What is a humidifier and why do you need one?

A humidifier is simply a device that adds moisture to air. There are many ways to accomplish this. You may have seen it in some homes where people have a pot of water on a hot surface and the water evaporates or is boiled away adding water vapor to the air. The way we are concerned with is dripping water through a filter and blowing warm air across the filter to evaporate the water and adding moisture to the supply air being blown throughout your house by your furnace.

Check out the article below to find out why humidity is important to your comfort. ezinearticles.com/Humidifiers are an essential for comfort

Here is an ezine article on humidifiers: (reprinted with permission)

Humidifiers Are An Essential For Comfort
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Carl_Formby]Carl Formby

When most people think of winter they think mainly about how cold it is, mainly because that's the thing that usually causes the most discomfort. However, there is another unpleasant side to winter, especially in some parts of the country, and that it the dryness of the air, or low humidity. It doesn't seem to be a problem, but dry air can cause a lot of problems, both to your health and your environment.....rest of the article is here

At Hot 'n' Cold we have two basic types of humidifiers:

1. Bypass humidifier - A small amount of warm supply air bypasses your house duct system and is blown through the humidifier filter pad by the furnace blower motor. This evaporates the water being dripped through the filter pad raising the moisture of the air. This moist air is then routed back to the return duct where it is reheated and blown throughout your house.
2. Powered humidifier - As the name implies these have their own fan that needs to be powered independently of the furnace. They suck air in from outside the duct system across the wet filter pad and push the air into the supply plenum where it is blown throughout the house.

Which one is right for you?

The bypass filters are generally cheaper to purchase and what we recommend as long as they will work for your system. However there are some instances where the powered ones have to be used. The powered ones usually have a higher capacity than the bypass. You would also want to use a powered one where you do want to steal any of the air flow from the furnace blower such as an undersized furnace. Rarely is a furnace undersized however unless a major addition was done to the structure. Over 90% of the time a small to large bypass is what we recommend and install.

Humidifier installation - A drain is required for a humidifier to run off the excess water that is not evaporated. (There are newer drum type humidifiers which do not require drain but they are considerably more expensive however)
Powered humidifier will require a standard household 120v grounded outlet to plug into.
The humidifier will stick out from the plenum where it is installed so there needs to be clearance on the side where we install the device and there needs to be clearance around the housing after it is installed for maintenance and filter changing. By the way you if have or get a humidifier the internal filter pads need to be changed once a year. When you call us for your annual furnace clean and inspect just give us your model number of the humidifier and we will bring a new filter pad with us. (Cost is usually less than $20.00)

We carry a few different brands but the ones we install the most are Trane and Aprilaire. We also have honeywell, generalaire, coleman.